Better Late Than Never

Last Saturday night, while everyone was getting ready to go out for their first weekend back at IC, I was sitting in my room, alone, in the dark, eating Chinese food (from Wegmans, because why not?), watching Friends.

I had been told since I was--I don't know--born to watch Friends by many people in my life. My friends reference the show all the time and I play along as if I know what they're talking about. Just last week, Taylor Swift performed in Los Angeles as part of her 1989 World Tour and brought Lisa Kudrow out to perform a song that her character, Phoebe Buffay, wrote on Friends called "Smelly Cat." My roommate Ali freaked out and showed me a video. I didn't really know how to respond.

This weekend I decided to give it a shot and Netflix made it very easy by putting all 10 seasons up (YAY). Also, each episode is only 22 minutes long, so it was very easy for me to get right into the show.

I'm not gonna lie, I didn't like the first episode. It seemed like every other cut was a jump cut, I couldn't see why everyone loooooves Rachel, and it just felt the same as every other sitcom I've ever watched. Then I realized that most of the sitcoms I watched growing up were based off the success of Friends; once I let this fact go, it started getting better.

By the fourth episode, I caught myself laughing out loud (literally) at one of Chandler's lines.  

By the fifth, I was invested in the characters. By the seventh, I remembered something important that one of my professors abroad had said about the show. 

Dr. Richard Weight taught my British Youth Culture class, and he often brought up the reasons why youth culture exists. Basically, young adults suddenly had more time to be young. They were going to school, living and learning with people of the opposite sex, and most importantly, not having children. He always put this into fancy terminology and called it "pre-marital cohabitation" and used Friends as the biggest example of this in the media. 

Friends is not just the sitcom that influenced all other sitcoms--it shows a drastic shift in youth culture. People did not go straight from being children to having children. Young people took their time in life and learned to be independent. In the pilot episode of the show, Rachel moves in with Monica when she runs away from her own wedding.

The show is also culturally important because it is one of the first shows where the characters openly discuss dating, childbirth, sex, and sexual orientation. (And I'm only 10 episodes in). Samantha Allen writes in an article for Arts.Mic that, "There would be no New Girl, no Mindy Project, no Sex in the City without Friends."

After reading her this blog, Ali says that she's "proud of me." I don't know how much more of Friends I'll watch, solely because there are many other TV shows I want to see, but I don't regret a minute of it.

BLANK SPACE

Taylor Swift not only released a music video for her new song “Blank Space” but also an interactive app based on the music video. It’s an immersive technological experience. This is the regular music video: 

In the interactive tablet and smartphone app you can explore the virtual mansion for the length of the song. When using the app you are transported into a recreation of that setting for the course of the song where you can follow a realistic animated Taylor Swift and her love as they enter and exit new rooms of the mansion or you can leave the couple and explore.  You use the phone or tablet as your eyes, wherever you move it is the angle of your vision. The 360-degree action is very similar to the actual video. Aside from following the couple there are several trinkets placed in the virtual mansion. For example, a book on the coffee table includes exclusive, never-before-seen photos from Taylor’s childhood.

The app was created right after the video was completed. Once the video was wrapped another crew was brought in to photograph the mansion and created the interactive world. Taylor Swift talks about it in a short interview. 

After using this app I was very curious about how they did it so I researched and found a bunch of interesting information...

Immersive Media was the company responsible for the 360 camera systems, on set live-stitching/viewing, and 360 post services. The linear music video production was shot with a Red Dragon in 6K and used a DJI Ronin for a lot of the camera work. The 360 crew had the challenging task of recreating the key scenes from the music video after the linear crew was finished. During a 360 take the entire room must be clear of equipment, lights, and crew. The actors have their directions but are basically free to move where they want as the camera is capturing them from all angles. The 360 camera is placed on set and a cable connects the camera to the primary recorder. The camera used on this production is a called a Lady Bug and is made by Point Grey. There are basically two other types of 360 camera systems today including the GoPro version and the Red Epic version.

GOPRO

RED

None of the GoPros allow for real time viewing of the stitched image. However, in some cases the small form factor of the GoPro rigs make them the only chose for 360 video capture. Most of the popular 360 videos online were shot with GoPro rigs.

The Red Epic version has way more resolution, allows for cinema lenses. However, their downsides are that they are very large and that they image plane of each camera is very far offset. Therefore, they are not ideal for stitching. This system doesn’t currently allow for real-time viewing of the final stitched image either.

The real strength of Immersive’s 360 camera system and workflow, is that you can view the 360 image roughly stitched together live while you are shooting. You also have control of the shutter, gain, and some other key controls.

I think this is a very cool idea and its going to become more prevalent.