Sesame Studios: “Where is Thumbkin 360”
The first VR 360 video created for Sesame Studios, Where is Thumbkin 360 has over 1.7 million views on YouTube (best viewed on a phone or with Chrome).
Where is Thumbkin 360 was the first 360 video for Sesame Studios and my first collaboration with the fine folks at Hot Spaghetti Productions. Ironically, the biggest challenge that this project presented was dealing with the small characters and set in 360. 360 rigs, like the GoPro rig we used for Thumbkin 360 have a "focal length sweet spot". This is the ideal distance from the cameras where everything stays in focus and the overlap between the cameras introduces the least amount of distortion while stitching. Based on our tests, the finger puppet characters needed to be between 7 and 10 inches from the camera, far closer than was ideal for 360 work. We ended up relying heavily on post production, shooting all of the characters and props as elements to be composited together later. An amazing experience from a directing and post point of view, and I got to voice one of the characters! (see below).
