Etihad Airways VR

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VR FILM
CONTENT

When we pitched a VR idea to our client, I had no idea what "true, 360-degree, stereoscopic, cimematic-quality 6K VR, with robotic motion-controlled camera rig, stitched CGI graphics and binaural audio” even meant - but after an epic 8 month project, I do now.

One of my pet hates is VR for the sake of VR, just because it’s cool and seems like award bait. But in this case, it actually made sense. We uncovered data from qualitative research on the brand that stated that once people took a single flight on Etihad, they became incredibly loyal to the brand. What better way to get as many people as possible to try something without spending thousands of dollars and actually flying halfway around the globe? VR.

So we wrote a short film, starring Nicole Kidman, that moves through each of the different cabins in the aircraft and plays out a story all around the viewer.

In the single most challenging and complicated shoot I think I will ever do, we had to ground an actual Airbus A380 for 3 days in Abu Dhabi to shoot the film - and it was leaving at midnight on day 3 to fly to London whether we were done or not. Shooting a normal film on a plane is no easy task, but when every shot takes 5 passes with the camera shooting a different direction each time (even upwards where you have just ripped the interior skin off the plane to attach a custom built 3D printed robotic camera rig to the plane’s structure) with dozens of extras moving in an intricate choreography, an A-list celebrity, and a live Falcon, well that complicates things slightly.

With the stupidly talented people at STOPP Family (now Media Monks) we we able to pull off this insane project which included 3 months of post-production in Sweden, hand stitching the footage with CGI models, 360° sound design and mixing, they even created new proprietary software just to complete this project that I don’t even understand.