- Posted by info 05 Jun
Google Spotlight Stories: Peeking at a new world.
Google.com has come a long way since its registration in 1997. The company has expanded rapidly by using extremely ambitious technological ideas. Developments into concepts such as robotic dogs (Spot) and self-driving cars may seem outlandish to society now, but may become a symbol of the near technological future. Google’s latest invention however may possibly develop into a new world of possibilities.
Sundar Pichai, the Senior Vice-president of Google unveiled his Spotlight Stories project at the I/O conference on the 27th of May 2015. The mobile application for Android uses the screen of your smartphone as a virtual viewfinder, giving the user the option to spin around in a 360-degree reality, allowing the viewer to explore every angle of the film by simply tilting the device around as if it were a camera or there themselves. This opens a new immersive experience for the viewer as they now have more power, in terms of where they want to look and other details they would rather focus on.
Four shorts have been launched on the Spotlight Stories program, including the successful Windy Day animated short film. Glen Keane has directed and animated short film “Duet”, which was launched with the app. Despite that fact that he has a wealth of experience working as the lead animator for characters like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Beast (Beauty and the Beast), and Aladdin (Aladdin) during his tenure at Disney. He believes that the feature was more challenging, as he could not “rely on his animation and drawing skills” as much as he was used to in the past. However after intrinsic detail on three-dimensional single shot accuracy, Keane states that this medium creates a more emotional film. As the viewer is to some extent involved in the scene, there is “an immediate touching of the audience” comparing it to “visual poem”.
Another famous director Justin Lin, who worked on the “Fast and Furious” franchise also created a five-minute short film called “Help” which involves an action-packed alien invasion in Los Angeles. Lin had to “jerry-rig” the cameras or re-adapt to the new form of 360-degree spherical-video. Eventually they used a custom rig of four red cameras each shooting in 6K with a stand-alone 48-terabyte RAID setup on set, all of which needed to be stitched together to give Lin and his crew a live view of everything being captured simultaneously. It is due to this intense attention to detail and the structure of the program, which leads to Lin describing the Spotlight Stories as “an intersection of art and commerce.”
Google is not the only company to recognise the potential prospect that mobile virtual reality films have to offer. Facebook bought the company Oculus for $2 billion. The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset was designed to provide an immersive experience for videogames. However Facebook plans to extend the Oculus system to other areas, including communications, media and entertainment, and education. Samsung has also adopted a similar virtual reality headset called GEAR, which again is primarily for video games.
Although there is a difference between Spotlight Stories and the latter two companies’ as the Spotlight Stories are designed for mobiles and the Oculus is a headgear device. The fact that companies as large as Google and Samsung are dedicating so much funding and resources towards virtual reality films, surely must indicate that this is potentially a unique market in the technological field. As Keane simply states, “It has to have a future”
Pichai outlines Google’s goals and plans for expanding the super computer globally4. After releasing the program onto Android devices, Google plans to release the application to IOS as well as YouTube within the next year. Towards the end of the interview when asked about what appeals to him the most about Google, he replied: “Here we drive technology as an equalising force, as an enabler to everyone around the world”.
Google’s ambition could potentially lead to changes in how we watch films, however we need to also consider how these new concept can affect businesses themselves. With this new program there is likely to be more developments into the fantasy worlds of franchises. Imagine how much the Harry Potter franchise could benefit from having a Spotlight short where you can go on adventure, almost as if you were in Hogwarts yourself! Even smaller businesses could take advantage of this program as a promotional tool, to visually show what the company does and how they operate. Charities for instance can emphasise the ethical work they do by raising awareness and encouraging support through a short.
Although this launch is very exciting, we need to consider what effect it will have on people in modern-day society? If virtual reality film really is the future of the media industry how will cinemas studios and traditional television be affected by this? Certainly it’s far too early to know if this is the future of entertainment, but for sure this is an extremely exciting and innovative new viewing experience and we can’t wait to see what doors this opens in the future of immersive film and animation.
To Download Google Spotlight stories and experience a new type of viewing adventure search for the App: Google Spotlight Stories
Sources:
[i] http://www.google.co.uk/about/company/history/
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/google-self-driving-car-how-does-it-work
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/29/8688031/google-io-spotlight-stories-youtube
http://blog.en.uptodown.com/immersive-video-google-spotlight-stories/(Image)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.motorola.avatar&hl=en_GB
http://android-alert.com/?p=208796
http://www.slashgear.com/google-built-this-epic-camera-for-fast-furious-6s-director-31386003/
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