Final Cut Pro X and Pure McCartney VR: Filling out the ‘viewscape’, by Alex Gollner, fcp.co

Every month new VR videos appear that push the boundaries of what this medium can do. This is the story of how editor Duncan Shepherd put Final Cut Pro X at the heart of ‘Pure McCartney VR,’ a series of five innovative Paul McCartney VR video films made by Jaunt.

FCP.co is very pleased to be able to publish the story behind the making of Paul McCartney’s 360 videos. But how did Paul get involved with 360 production?

Cliff Plumer, president of Jaunt Studios explains:

‘Paul has been a big believer in VR ever since Jaunt filmed a concert of his at CandleStick Park. When it came time to launch the box set of his music in June, it seemed like a good opportunity to team up again to promote his music.

I’m old enough to remember buying albums just for the art, so why not do something more creative, leveraging Paul’s storytelling techniques, reminiscing over his career. We wanted to put those stories into 360 and create something special, get the viewer to watch more than once and discover something new.’

So the challenge was set. Alex Gollner talks to editor Duncan Shepherd:

What is VR video? If you take a look at any of these five short films, you can look in any direction inside a sphere of video: straight ahead, to your right, behind, below or above you.

Apple says that Final Cut Pro X provides “Unprecedented power for the next generation of post.” It was Final Cut’s real-time ability to play back large numbers of rendered high-resolution images and videos on top of a high-resolution video background without delay that made it the right tool for this job. Also important was the wide range of third-party workflow tools and features unique to Final Cut such as ‘roles.’

Paul McCartney was filmed in long VR video takes that lasted for almost the entire length of each film. To these background spheres of video director Tony Kaye and editor Duncan Shepherd overlaid animations, graphics, pictures and normal ‘flat’ videos.

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