33 ECOMMERCE EBRD
“People were, excuse the pun, blown away by what they saw in the virtual reality,” says Wells. “They said it was amazing to have this experience of actually being at the wind plant. What made it exciting was that it was a wind plant under construction. Seeing a whole lot of wind turbines spinning is ok for maybe 30 seconds. But the great thing about our VR experience is that something is happening. Things were being constructed, with people digging the foundations, all the way to the blades being put on the turbine.” RIGHT TOOL FOR THE RIGHT JOB Wells sees VR as a powerful tool for producing a certain kind of eect among a specific type of audience, and that eect can be very powerful. “The problem with VR is that it’s quite diicult to show it to thousands and thousands of people. You may have only got a few headsets. Obviously, you can put it onto YouTube and Facebook as a 360,
which is great, but VR is much more of an experience when you’ve got the headset and the earphones on. It’s very dierent from watching in 2D 360 video on your monitor. “Virtual reality is by its nature time- consuming to film, but when we’ve taken it to conferences people have absolutely loved it. VR is still in its very early stage. People get excited about the technology, rather than asking, what is VR best for? It’s another storytelling technique and like everything you do, it’s got to have a good story behind it. Who are the characters you’re going to hear from in that VR? What are you going to see? What are viewers going to be able to experience that they wouldn’t experience in 2D?” The Al Rajef Wind Farm VR shows the editorial care that Wells is trying to exercise, with clear direction presenting the site in the best possible light and conveying key facts about the construction in an engaging way. Wells’ BBC news experience is on
PEOPLE GET EXCITED ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY, RATHER THAN ASKING, WHAT IS VR BEST FOR?
project. Located near the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Petra, the barren desert landscape and sleek, ultra-modern turbines make for a striking combination. The 360 rig for the shoot was a hired Z Cam S1 Pro operated by a freelancer. The video featured some spectactular 360 footage captured on a Mavic Pro drone mounted with a 360 camera. The resulting VR experience was showcased at EBDR’s annual business forum in May at the Dead Sea, Jordan, with great success.
SCRUBBING UP This smiling medical team in Tajikistan have clean water for their work thanks to an EBRD project
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