Episode 1: Using Insta360 cameras on high end productions // Production Playbook

Episode 1: Using Insta360 cameras on high end productions // Production Playbook

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[Music] Jake man good to see you back uh on  the podcast man it's been a minute since we've   done these things huh yeah I know we uh we we  definitely gave this a go a couple times to see   if we can get it going and you know hey maybe this  is the the time that it works for sure um you know   who knows but you know I think it's cool to have  these kind of conversations uh you know kind of   these little filmmaker conversations um because  we're dealing with with different challenges on   set and we do you know our focus is client work  right I've done a lot of client work you've done a   lot of client work we are doing a bunch of client  work now and this is one of those things where you   know probably what 90% of the time your client  work is going to be very cutting you know simple   standard you know it's going to be uh a camera B  camera C camera you know C lens all your camera   support your lights everything like that but we  are in a unique situation and these things come   up from time to time when you have a client um  that you need to you know serve you know tell   the story and serve them in a different way than  your typical just a camera B camera C setup and   we're in a unique spot right now because there's a  client um that we're taking care of right now and   it's a huge construction project right and and you  came to me and and you remember the kind of what   you said to me when it was when you were trying  to figure out how to do this what what was your   first reaction when when the client came to you  with with this request and what were they using   like like paint paint the picture and then we'll  go into like what solution we're considering sure   well I I think you and I both are always on  the same page with it starts you know if it's   commercial or if it's narrative it's telling a  story right um most of the clients that you know   we work with it's you know at the end of the day  they want to tell a story and I think with this   one it's just a big scope and and and scale but  also they want to talk a little bit about you   know who they are um what they offer and honestly  at the end of the day it's just like they want to   show the scope and scale of the project but also  it's like we dive into how uh how it goes on the   operational side as well but this this particular  project I think um uh you know we'll probably do   some updates with it as as we go uh along but uh  we're in the pre-production phase and something   I kind of wanted to talk to you about is is you  know on every project right we storyboard ideas   and Concepts and uh this one here is we want to  uh I came to you when we were talking I said you   know the client wants to do a big time lapse right  over the whole facil facility it's a big facility   but we also want to have good quality uh of a  time lapse and then there's weather elements so   I said Jacob how are we going to do this there's  a construction type of uh time lapse but we wanted   to have more of a cinematic look a cinematic fill  and then you proposed the instant 360 so tell me   in your opinion like you know I come I I've worked  with the GoPros 360 like what's the difference why   do you prefer the insta 360 what can that do to  help us get what we want to do right so yeah so   obviously a unique challenge right you have a a  client that's putting together they're essentially   erecting in a giant steel building and it's going  to span over multiple acres and um you know this   is a unique challenge for construction sites  regardless of video production they're trying to   get a record of of the construction process they  use it for internal marketing and little external   marketing on sales pitches when they're trying  to bid work they could say hey look this is the   you know we did this building you know from from  leveling the ground all the way up to a finished   product and so we're dealing with a massively  commercial construction site right here and   there are companies that offer solutions for time  lapse for these for these you know projects um   these are not Cinema focused companies these are  not high-end production focused companies this is   basically the equivalent for a trail camer for a  hunter right you know who cares about the quality   I want to see I want to see Bigfoot on this  thing or a bunch of dud so this is just literally   checking a box this is not for technically Savvy  people they're using a camera and yeah I can't   think of the manufacturer name but um we'll put  it on the screen so you can just kind of see what   they're currently using and it essentially it's  an action cam so to speak it's really a time-lapse   camera only um and it is inside of a housing  and that housing um really it it it's just a   weatherproof housing and it's got you know kind of  a glass Dome on the front as a lens but it's not   a lens it's just you know some acrylic and then  the camera actually butts up against it and if   you position it just right you can get you know  we found out today when the client was showing   us some footage it'll fishee if it's not set just  right so I mean it really is so utilitarian um and   and you know the challenge that we looked at when  we saw these and the in the specs on these these   cameras are not that there's zero production value  in mind this is like I said strictly utilitarian   and so while we can use that footage and it's an  MP4 format I mean it's not a foreign format to to   to work with um it's just it's not it doesn't have  the com you know the right compression we way too   much compression uh bit depth um bit rate um color  color space all of these things I mean there's no   log options and and obviously who wants log in 8  bit anyway I'd almost rather the camera process   it because we're going to get so much banding and  artifacting it's not even worth it so but what's   good though is you know they are they are better  than nothing and they started using these and when   you came to me this project is already underway  they kind of you know brought us in right after it   just got started so we're kind of jumping in there  you know when the Project's like what did they say   16 to 18% done so you know we still have a lot we  can capture but my initial thought was like you   were just mentioning earlier insta 3 60 as opposed  to GoPro now right I've used GoPro in the past   and it's been a reliable product in the past going  forward I haven't had good luck with GoPros um not   you know some people may use them and love them I  found that the DJI brand and the insta 360 brand   is just to me offering more features and more  customization and just yeah more more latitude   there's a bigger envelope of of of of of you know  features that are better for filmmakers like us   and and on our kind of mission so so the the 360  uh we're going to we're able to shoot 4k on it it   actually shoot 6K 6K yes yeah yeah and then it's a  360 uh which is great I guess um I guess some pros   and cons that I think you know we were talking  about the 360 the instant 360 is you know weather   right uh weather how we're going to house it how  we're going to keep it away from the elements cuz   it's going to be out overnight so and I'm sure a  lot of filmmakers understand that as well so how   how do you how do you think we could solve that  problem yeah so that was one of yeah obviously   weatherproofing this camera so the camera  inherently is is waterproof it's um I think up to   35 ft so you know it it's designed self-contained  to be used in a variety of conditions the problem   we're facing is is we're doing a time lapse over  such a long period of time um we need to be on   Shore power we need to have this thing externally  powered and so we have to figure out we have so   many challenges right we initially thought that we  could place these cameras and have access to an AC   um power source like a wall outlet right well this  facility is so big they have their own substation   so they they're getting transmitted power in there  and they there's they're have a substation conver   it uh down to you know another high voltage and so  there's there's there's nothing there's things are   still being worked on I mean this it's literally  like a little city but it has no infrastructure   everything's gas powerered right now they're using  cranes and stuff so we have no short power long   story short we have no AC power available to  us not really you know so we need an external   battery solution and the internal battery is just  not good enough the construction cameras they're   using right now these utilitarian cameras are  like running on doublea's and they last a year   and that's great but these these cameras that we  want to use and like the 360 you know there's a   trade-off right so if we use these it's going to  require a lot more uh we're going to have to tend   to them a lot more we're going to have to check on  them check you know check the uh file size check   battery life um because you know we're trying  to go for a desired result we the end product   deserves a better result than it is required  of us to work during production if that makes   sense right so like the outcome is going to far  um exceed the the work requirement the production   requirement so it's it's worth it to do this  and so we're my initial thought was okay how   do we keep this camera the Integrity of the  waterproofing of this camera as as intact as   possible knowing that we're going to have to  expose a port USBC port to keep it powered and   so um I my mind immediately went to like how would  I do this a pinch and then work up from there so   the first thing I thought was okay we got to make  this work in a day or in half a day and it has to   start today how do we make that work and I I go  to the most bare Bon simple way of doing it and   it's just like you know plug in a USBC cable uh oh  you know open the port plug in the USBC cable just   smash a bunch of hot glue in there you know make  a make a temporary but you know durable seal it   won't be perfect but it'll stop the weather and we  can get rolling right away and then it's it's like   okay where does this plug into well it'll be a USB  type A probably it needs to plug into a block and   that would go into AC that was my initial thought  and then we found out there was no AC power but   you know I was going to weatherproof these links  in the chain along the way just to get us up and   running and then I thought well maybe we need a  housing so you know I was starting to think how   can we make a a somewhat of a housing on top to  keep direct sunlight off the camera to prevent   overheating or just overall UV exposure and you  know it might degradate um and then maybe you know   something to block um direct rain right cuz um we  can kind of compromise the camera's waterproofing   spec as long as it's not submerged or in direct  rain you know I think we can do a a lot of   moisture blocking with something like hot glue  which you know it sounds so bad to say you love   your hot glue I'm telling you I use it all the  time you know I do a lot of 3D printing and it's   great but but no the hot you know I say that as  like I'm telling you that's a Quick Fix right it   heats up fast it dries fast but really what you'd  want to do is get some type of Aqua seal some type   of you know um moisture rated type of medium but  something that also won't leave permanent residue   and damage the camera so um you think about  housing and things like that well we find out on   a on a on a technical Scout that you know we don't  have access to power and then um our mounting   options are somewhat limited and they're in high  traffic High activity um just busy construction   areas uh there's like a power pole that we can you  know attach to and I looked at on site today where   their you know their other time-lapse camera is  and this Pole's 60 foot you know it's a 60ft pole   and it's probably buried you know it was a good  vantage point it it it would showcase all all   the whole facility I do have a question too we  were talking about um you know uh time like it   I guess um we would have uh one what was it one  SD terabyte card would shoot you know would take   a time lapse about every what five minutes how  long would that last in your opinion that's a   good question so like obviously file size um you  have a terabyte to work with um a frame every 5   Seconds which means you know if you're looking  at a 2398 timeline which is what we're going to   use so 24 frames a second um every 5 Seconds you  get one frame so how many seconds to get you know   one second of footage you know you need 24 frames  to make one second and so um you know you you run   the numbers on that and I believe it's something  like um I guess it would be 5 * 24 and that would   give you that one second right so we're looking at  you know um we get one second of footage every 125   minutes I think it works out something like that  or whatever or or yeah something like that um when   it comes to doing math I almost want to use like a  a calculator online or something because the more   you do math and you and you you stack up all the  numbers and you divide and you add and you divide   you you know every now and then I'll do the math  the same exact way and get two different numbers   so um but just off the top of my head right you  kind of get a feel for the ratio but really I feel   like breaking it down to the most basic unit which  would be a 360 file right so we know how much   the average DSLR a mirrorless camera taking  a high quality steel image you know you're   thinking about between you know at the lowend 12  megabytes all the way up to like 50 60 megabytes   per picture maybe more you know depending on  your settings but you can average but what is   this insta 360 file giving us um there's going  to be a lot of metadata probably because um you   know you're going to we're going to be able to  open this up in the editor and then reframe and   adjust since it's 360 so there's probably  some metadata there's probably some propri   um data that comes with that file each file so you  know what we need to do is really test it out you   know I haven't used it insta 360 in a time-lapse  mode over a long period of time so um we would   need to test it out and what we would basically  do is we wouldn't aim to shoot to fill up a one   tbyte card we would aim to shoot for a day or a  quarter of a day or a half a day but but but a a   a userfriendly divisible amount of time and let's  say we did from like like 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.   you know you know so this would give us a 3-hour  window of time lapse in our desired setting and   then we can take that and say okay for a quarter  of a workday the card fills up three gigs okay so   that's so for a full day that's 12 you know that's  that's 12 gigs well we know that let's say 12 gigs   you know that's not very much um we could do 10  days and that's 120 gigs well that's a little   more than the tenth of the card that's 12% of the  card yeah so then we know that that card is good   for you know however many days and that way you  know we have a a good Baseline of what our data   rate usage is going to be because we want these  cameras to operate without you know with minimal   um intrusion uh the more you access the camera  you move it you open PCH you you're taking a   card out you know the these things um they make  move the camera you know and for a camera that's   mounted like on a on a tripod or mount it to a  pole or something that's not 360 it's a bigger   deal you don't want there to be a jolt in your in  your composition 360 is going to be a little more   forgiving but we still don't want to do that so  we want to we want to go as long as we can um with   we'll be we'll be able to test it out and have you  know we'll be able to see some some of the footage   um you know now sorry go ahead no I was just  saying we'll be able to test it out and we'll be   able to Showcase you know kind of you know we'll  go back to this video about what we're talking   about and we'll be able to say hey well does this  good this good yeah yeah and so right now the big   to me the biggest hurdle is going to be how are we  going to power this thing and so right now we're   you know we're we're we're looking at we need a  Battery Solution now um I even thought and like   I said I immediately think of the most simple  get it done now solution that we can do and I   can take you know a 12vt car battery you know and  and and and literally connect it to a USB port and   plug it in and is that ideal no it's not but a car  batter how about a vmount what I mean we could do   a vmount so a vmount is great so that the problem  with the vmount though what you need to look at is   is your your your your milliamp hours right your  your yeah how much stored power is this thing   going to have and how is that power discharged and  what is what's being used so if we can keep these   cameras in a low power State you know this is  another thing we need to determine this is where   you know it might take problem solve this is how  you have to problem solve all these scenarios we   could figure out how much data we're going to use  in three hours but how much power are we going to   use we need to run this thing for a day and and  then check our levels on our vmount you know we   need to run it for a day and then and then put  some you know multimeter on a car battery you know   whatever but we got to have a portable Solution  that's very energy dense that can go a long period   of time without needing recharge or anything  like that here's another thing to consider   let's say my immediate cuz cuz what if we're out  there and we don't have access to a vmount I can   find access to a car battery I could probably get  that it'll be hard but I can do it you I can pull   it I don't know if three would allow the battery  that just that makes me a bit nervous but I'm I'm   really saying this to kind of to kind of make a  like set set like a case like make a make a make   like an example so like you know what's the hot  swapability of a car battery well if you drain   a car battery all the way a lead acid battery  you have to you know recharge that thing with a   trickle charger it's going to take you know a lot  of time and you can damage the battery you know   and there's all these components but a lithium  vmount battery is designed for many many cycles   of of full charge to no charge so that's where a  vmount actually makes a lot of sense right here's   another option a battery power bank you know like  one of these anchor power Banks or something that   could be a good option and you got to think too  most most battery most consumer batteries on the   market even prosumer batteries you know like I'm  going to show you an example oh this right here   this is just a Craftsman drill battery right you  know it's not it's not anything special you would   think that the battery is you know shaped like  this but really it's most likely filled with   18650 batteries which is readily available you can  import them from China or wherever um and they're   Vape batteries like if you ever had a vape or a  rechargeable flashlight um and it's just multiple   cylindrical battery cells in here you know not you  know bigger than a able a smaller than a c battery   but they're just the the standard of you know  your lithium battery and then you just you know   put them in you know you connect them all in  series parallel whatever and then you put them   in a housing and you sell the housing for a lot  of money that's what Vmail batteries are that's   what these batteries are that's what probably is  in those anchor power Banks but it's so many of   them or maybe they're using like a different form  factor than that battery but that's usually what   you find in these so you know the more of those  so maybe we can we can test out a few different   options and then uh kind of come back and do a  followup about what we're talking about now and   that's kind of what we're what we're going going  over with some of these um you know some of these   podcast videos is like onset situations problems  we're trying to solve right maybe you can help   out a few people they can list a few ideas in the  comment section but we're just trying to talk talk   and brand out to the community right yeah exactly  I mean and that's really what film making is about   right you're you there's a lot of problem solving  and so many times we'll be on autopilot because   after you do so many Productions you you learn to  anticipate you know everything your client's going   to say or want you you you work them away from  their radical uh edge of the cliff ideas and you   bring them home and you deliver a great prodct you  do that so much you know it I guess it's sometimes   you can get comp you know not complacent but you  get comfortable with your typical production and   we're in an atypical production right now a  lot of you know the the um prog you know the   the production of this is going to be you know  um this very custom approach and so you know for   people in those situations this is a good muscle  to to to to work out because right if you could   solve these kind of problems and you could  start thinking you know and break break these   problem Downs problems down into components you  know data power accessibility mounting you know   manufacturer all these different little things  all come together to form a solution and so you   know um sometimes you just need a custom approach  and this is kind of our thought process and how   we got to this point and you know I could sit and  talk about it for a long time but really the gist   of it is you break these problems down and you  just work through different you know multiple   scenarios per category you know for example power  car battery it's it'll work but it's not it's not   smart vmount it's cool but to put a v-mount  battery up there those are expensive and then   if we have a production where we need them on  a c camera well now V mount's tied up but what   we don't use on our cameras is a power bank you  know so maybe we get a power bank you know and   but there's so many things to consider and really  what it comes down to is is budget your time frame   and and and how you know how many resources  can you have and how much time do you have to   experiment you know right um and that's you know  those are the things that we we have to consider   and every every job I'm sure you can identify  and a lot of the other um uh filmmaker people   out folks out there can say is like you learn  something new on every job there's always it's not   if there's something you got to solve it's always  what you have to solve on every project y yes and   a lot of times you don't have a lot of time  you got to improvise on set and uh fast as   you can and solve these but it always helps like  when you know if we're doing we're anticipating   these scenarios and we try to problem solve  before we get on set so to make it but but I   think it's cool man uh I'm I'm excited to get this  uh get this project going I guess we'll just upd   this uh this content as we go and and we get  and I'm curious to know what everybody else   uh likes to use if it's insta 360 GoPro the new  GoPros and uh any other manufacturer out there   we'd love to like I said it's just a we want  to build a community and we we want to share   our our documentation on our projects uh films  commercials uh documentaries um whatever it may   be yeah yeah and that's a great thing about  about the filmmaking Community you know you   ideas everybody else's experience you know you  could tap into that you know and get some great   ideas that's what really I feel like helps us grow  as a film making you know uh group is is you know   um everybody's experience comes together and you  you know in a lot of ways that's what influences   us artistically so you know it's it's cool but  I hope that this brainstorming session uh shed   some light on your next project you know for you  watching and and maybe you know you look at your   next typical production in an atypical way and  even if you don't have to uh solve any types   of problems like we're facing right now think of  potential problems you might have to solve even   if you don't have to and start Theory crafting  your Solutions start theorizing how you would do   it and really it's like going to the gym you work  that muscle you know and and absolutely you know   if you've ever played with Legos as a kid it's a  great time to grab your equipment and piece things trial and error at when there's pressure the  you per Under Pressure right absolutely well   said and uh I'm excited to uh keep keep this uh  keep the podcast going of just updating uh our   uh projects and our our ups and downs and our wins  and sometimes our fails and you know yeah and it's   just it's just what what comes with the nature  of the Beast man that is just an insight into a   current problem we're trying to solve you know  we're we're we're working through it and uh we   want to show you guys our thought process right so  if you have any comments if you have any ideas let   us know cuz we would love to have some more input  um it's a long project so you know sooner the   better but you know we can Implement things as we  go if you are interested in this kind of content   if you want to see our behind the-scenes process  our thought process in pre-production everything   that we can possibly show you you know within  reason within our NDA constraints like subscribe   follow us whatever we'd love to have your support  and uh we appreciate you big time thanks [Music]

2025-01-12 05:16

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