The New Arrival

New York-based filmmaker Amy Talkington says that her recent short, The NewArrival, is the first narrative film to utilize Be Here's iVideotechnology, a system that enables the capture, encoding, and streaming of360-degree images for interactive viewing (see box). For Talkington,creating a film with this system meant redefining technical and artisticchoices-and even the role of the director.

In Talkington's case, Be Here delivered the iVideo suite for BetaCam SP,which consisted of a lens and special software. Talkington and DP JimDenault (cinematographer for Boys Don't Cry and Michael Almereyda's AnotherGirl, Another Planet, which utilized PixelVision technology) chose BetaCamover DV, since iVideo's BetaCam lens allows for complete freedom ofmovement, while the iVideo-equipped DV camera must be tethered to acomputer.

After shooting, filmmakers loaded the 360-degree images into a computerwith Be Here software. "Each frame is this circular donut-shaped image, and[Be Here's] program unwraps it," explains Talkington. "Once it wasunwrapped and made custom-frame size, we edited it in Final Cut Pro on adesktop system." After editing, filmmakers shipped the AVI files on themachine back to Be Here for final encoding. (iVideo product spokespersonSeth Cohen says that filmmakers can easily perform this step themselvesusing RealProducer or Windows Media Encoder in conjunction with the iVideosoftware. He also notes that the "unwrapping" process-the mapping of theround image onto a flat plane-happens automatically when filmmakers use adigital-capture device instead of BetaCam.)

Because the viewer, using RealPlayer or Windows Media Player equipped withiVideo Extensions, can adjust the camera's perspective along the 360 track,Talkington chose (and co-wrote along with Matt Diehl) a story thatshowcases the viewer's participation. The camera's POV represents thefirst-person perspective of the viewer, who slowly learns throughinteractions with the film's characters that he or she is "the new arrival"at a nursing home. Filmmakers also placed the viewer-as-character in awheelchair, as a way of introducing movement in the piece (no dolly existsfor the iVideo system).

Talkington disagrees with claims that 360-degree interactive technologywill take away from a director's creative control. "I think about it as thedifference between a painting and a sculpture," she notes. "A sculptorcannot control the angle from which someone is seeing his or her work: Thewhole point is that you walk around it. A director will think through theexperience of the film from all angles. What it becomes about ischoreography-that becomes a kind of editing in itself."

At press time, The New Arrival was available for viewing at AtomFilms.com.

Be Here's iVideo Suite includes a patented lens that fits on a variety ofstandard cameras-including BetaCam, DVCam, and high-resolution digitalcameras-and software that "unwraps" the 360 capture. The software alsoincludes plugins to RealProducer and Windows Media Encoder that enableencoding and interactive viewing in the Real Video and Windows Mediaformats (on Internet Explorer only).

"In essence, you come up with Real Video or Windows Media, but 360 degreesof it," explains iVideo product manager Seth Cohen. "We use the standardplayers and servers-there's no special codec for compression. All we haveis a plugin for Real Player and Windows Media Player that intercepts themouse events. When users move their mouse in the player, it interprets thatthey want to move left and starts to stream that portion. We piggybacked onthe standard streaming structure-we just have unique capture at the frontend."

The company is not selling the suite. Instead, filmmakers rent Be Here'sequipment, receive training directly from the company, and make their film.Be Here then shares in that film's profit or loss, based on a CPM model(cost per thousand). "Currently we're asking $10 per thousand clicks," saysCohen.

For more information on Cupertino, California-based Be Here, visitBehere.com, or send an e-mail to sales@behere.com.