Filming the 360 video

In order to try to recreate the experience, I decided to film a few minutes of stillness (to recreate just sitting in the space and getting accustomed to the light and what they were looking at). I wanted to capture the room from where the visitors would have been sitting so I placed the tripod where the chair would have been. Then a few minutes moving around the space exploring with my own light source (to recreate the 2nd part of the experience where they explore and move around within the space and create their own imagery on the walls/floor/ceiling).

The tutorials for the software that comes with the camera were very straightforward, so I felt quite encouraged when I managed to stitch my first lot of footage together. However, when I looked at it, it was really dark and grainy. I'd filmed it on the fastest frames per second speed (60 fps), so I reduced the fps speed and tried again. It was a bit better but not much. I then went to the slowest setting 25 fps and changed the ISO to the hightest setting due to the low light situation as it advises in the camera manual. But even with these settings, the footage was still quite dark and very grainy.

Next I wanted to do a video where I went around the space with my phone torch to create more reflections. It took some thought and a bit of ingenuity (and some hilarity) to create a mount for the camera which would leave my hands free to move the light source.

The first attempt was to put the camera on a selfie stick which I then put down the back of my t-shirt and tied to my head and neck! It stayed in place but you could see my hair in the video.

The second attempt was based on the fact that a lot of 360 footage is taken by mountain bikers/extreme sports enthusiasts who have special mounts on their safety helmets. I used strong double sided tape which did the job perfectly. The only trouble is that the helmet is visible in the 360 footage when you look down.

I had the footage, so now I had to edit it together.