The Ultimate Paragliding VR Experience

We are fortunate to be travelling all over world capturing 360 VR experiences. Another amazing adventure was to take us to Turkey. The project was shooting a full Paragliding VR Experience, which in turn is used within a state of the art virtual reality pod. The shoot lasted for 3 days. giving us time to recce the location and confirm the storyboards to capture a great experience.  We always insist on a recce days as they are critical to plan and deliver the best possible VR content. 

The plane ready for departure to Turkey, ready to create this VR Experience

Working alongside Immotion Group and their country contacts, bringing this VR Experience together was as joyful as possible. Our in country contacts were very welcoming and took it upon themselves to assist us on the shoot. Acting as tour guides, runners, and translators all in one. 

Adventures captured in Virtual Reality

On the first shoot day, M7 were shown around all of the Turkish mountains at Fethiye so that we got feel for what views the Paraglider will be capturing when the camera is rigged on them. We also wanted to check the  the paraglider landing and taking off, ensuring the movement would work in the VR simulation.  Its important when shooting any VR content that the movement is not erratic or unstable.  

The mountain views on the Recce day before creating the VR Experience

Although our goal is to capture a Point of View (POV) experience, we need to present a narrative visual story to the viewer. With this in mind we worked with the paraglider expert to ensure we captured the build up to flight rather than just POV views.

Mountain Summit in Turkey

Rigging for our VR Experience

To create this VR Experience we were using various rigging techniques. We therefore elected to use  Kandao Obsidian R 360 camera, offering 8K and a small form ideal for the helmet mounts. Rigging this camera was critical because of being 400oft in the sky, safety to anyone below was paramount.  M7Virtual are experts in rigging 360 VR cameras and safety measures were put in place including several fail safes.

Preparation for Take Off

Soar along the Turkish Coastline in our VR Experience

This spot in Turkey is renowned for being one of the most beautiful paragliding spots on the planet. The weather on this day was also perfect, sunny, no winds and just a few clouds. Whilst at the top of the mountain we could also see how busy it became with para glider setups.  Each para glider is allocated a time slot for take off, almost like full air traffic control. Using our stabilisation gimbal and Kandao camera we captured the complexity of the setup for the narrative of the story.

As on every shoot we went armed with different cameras to ensure backup plans. We therefore opted for a Gopro Fusion, again its small form but with 5.2k output. Each jump was 30-40 minutes with us racing back to bottom to meet with him. This again was critical to ensure cameras were stopped correctly and footage could be immediately checked before the next run. Additional backup runs were captures and we managed to capture some stunning sunset flights.

The view from the top of the paragliding take off point

Paragliding at Sunset in Turkey

Experts in VR Productions

M7virtual particularly pride themselves in our post production work, this is made easy with correct capture.  As a result we briefed our pilot on ever jump after reviewing previous footage.  We even justifying the use of the neck brace, much to the disapproval of our pilot! Therefore minimising the movement of the camera on the pilots head was critical.  

Finally we have been able to stitch together a great 4:30 minute VR experience resulting in a 4D immersive ride with Immotion Group.

If you would like to find out more about commercial 360 video production, get in touch with us today!