Hi all:

Working with a producer who wants to shoot a VR demo reel for their clients NOW! I have been researching, have written some articles for HDVideoPro (http://www.hdvideopro.com) on high end VR like the Google Stories "Help" piece, directed by F&F director, Justin Lin, been researching some of Chris Milk's VR work and it's all good. But these are pieces that have a fairly large budget and resources.

We have been looking at and eagerly anticipating the Sphericam 2 but it's not really that close to shipping yet. What about VR rigs that can be rented (for a reasonable cost of say, $500.00 per day?) today? Does anyone know of any LA area rental houses who are renting a decent quality VR acquisition system today that doesn't take a week long class to learn how to use? Anyone have a line on any LA-based VR post experts who know the right plug-ins and workflow to use, have the headsets, can handle the stitching, etc.?

Since this is spec, the producer is willing to spend a little money but not a large crew, big scale production. What do you know? Who should I speak with?

Hi Dan,

Contact Andy Shipsides at AbelCine and look into renting Nokia OZO. https://www.abelcine.com/store/Nokia-OZO/

The plugins I've developed function with OZO stereoscopic 360 footage once it is output from their stitching app.

Cheers,
Tim

Given your extremely tiny budget, perhaps just try and source somebody small with a 6x GoPro rig who is happy to help out for a token payment of a few hundred?

Spoke with the guys at Radiant Images, they rent the Go Pro 6, 7 and 10 camera rigs, the Ozo, as well as some very high-end proprietary systems. Go Pro 6 is $900.00 per day, the 7 and 10 systems are $1,200.00 per day. Radiant Images charges a three day week, so $2,700.00 per week for the GoPro 6 system. They have a proprietary system based off of of the Sony A7s that rents for $2,200.00 per day. It seems the Ozo system may have some heat issues which could affect us as we may be shooting a project in the African desert. They do rent the Ozo system though, I think it rents for about $3k per day. I may check in with Andy to see what Abel is doing with it and what the feedback is on it (the Ozo).

We are planning on shooting a test with the GoPro 6 system and if it works out well, we will take that system to Africa. Will keep you guys updated with our progress.

I was going to add a GoPro 6 rig to our rental inventory and pegged on renting it for $300/d. $900/d?? Wow!