TECH IMMERSIVE
F or decades, film and TV production has meant a horizontal rectangle with images updated a few tens of times per second. People have experimented with shape, size and frame rate, but that fundamental has been remarkably resistant to change – until recently, as director of photography Robert Hollingworth discovered on a project for a VR headset manufacturer. Hollingworth’s background, he says, bridges natural history and drama. “I try to bring the same thing to all the genres I work in. For natural history, it’s traditionally been very documentary- like; shot in available light, outside. I’ve started moving into image-based and pixel mapping; using some more recent innovations in lighting from the likes of Aputure, you can achieve much more complicated stuff much more easily,” he says. “We were given that opportunity in shows like A Real Bug’s Life , Tiny World and Surviving Earth , which was a VFX- heavy dinosaur show. “And we’re not using conventional lenses, which for natural history is zooms,” Hollingworth continues. “Zooms do have their place – in particular, I use the 70- 180mm Nikon macro, which is much- loved by underwater people. Otherwise,
DOP Robert Hollingworth & 3D specialist Chris Parks discuss an innovative optical rig that brings viewers into nature in immersive 180° stereo
WORDS PHIL RHODES
I’ll shoot on primes and then also use extension tubes and dioptres. I treat the natural-history work I shoot like drama. You should never notice it, but it should look more considered than turning a light on in the corner of the room.” That enthusiasm for bringing the technique of high-end drama to natural history made Hollingworth, well, a natural for a project that would involve both practical and technological challenges, as he puts it: “The company came to us knowing we’ve done 3D stuff before and
asked how we would film something that requires a 180º field of view, but natively in stereo. “I’ve done a lot of 3D: Attenborough projects, Sky, IMAX. They were shooting stuff on the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera, but you can’t film a subject closer than around 1.2m with that. It uses two sensors with two fisheye lenses next to one another. If you want to film things closer, you have to bring the lenses together, but you can’t because the hardware is in the way.”
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