Our First 360 Training Video Experience
This week the Pathways team were at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, partnering with St. John Ambulance, to record a 360 degree interactive video to be embedded in eLearning, to teach the correct procedure on assessing casualties after a disaster.
I have to admit, we are very excited to have the opportunity to implement new technologies in the eLearning field, leaving a bit behind our usual eLearning module development, because 360 video is a technology that, in my opinion, can still work out a few bugs but adds a lot to the user experience. However, these bugs don’t take away the Star Trek feeling, to boldly go…
Interestingly enough, we started the production at 7 AM, and finished by 12 PM (Only 5 hours), which makes this the shortest video production we have had at Pathways, but I guess it’s no surprise, since both teams (St. John Ambulance and Pathways) spent at least 2 months or a bit more, in pre-production, creating the script, adjusting it, scouting locations, testing equipment, etc. I think all this work prior to the actual production, made it easier for us to just show up at the location on the date and record the video.
Of course, there were things we needed to adjust on the same production date, which had to do with the venue not being available before the date and the make up; I think the make up artist did an excellent job with all the injuries, and specially the fake blood, we were genuinely grossed out watching all that blood, but you’ll get the chance to see it later, when we release the video.
Let us also remember, that this being a giant arena, there are usually lots of people coming in and out, walking from one side to another, making it some times difficult to get our scenes. Thankfully, each individual played a key part on this production, and we had people acting as “bouncers” and restricting the access to our area for short periods of time (we couldn’t shut down the arena, obviously) and even our Director of Learning and Development, was holding people at one side of the arena and also going into women washrooms to make sure we wouldn’t creep anyone out while we were shooting the starting scene (I wish she had done that earlier, when my colleague an I went into a washroom, asking if anyone was there, only to be answered by the flushing sound of a toilette… I can’t remember the last time I saw two guys running that fast while exiting a women’s washroom… and holding a camera…).
Anyway, after we dedicated the first almost 2 hours to apply make up on the actors, taking some preliminary footage and checking the lighting on the scenes, we managed to record everything we needed in over 3 hours (or probably less) and I can’t tell you how excited I am to edit this video and add the interactions. I believe the final eLearning product will be AMAZING!
Here are some pictures of our production:
