RED recently had the opportunity to speak with representatives from BBC and the Director of Photography (DP) for a unique and innovative new large screen theatre experience. For several years, BBC Earth and Sega have been collaborating and developing a high-tech nature ätheme park' that delivers a fun, educational adventure for the whole family. Orbi, as it's called, features a variety of diverse exhibits that simulate some of Earth's most awe-inspiring views and environments providing a new level of interaction and understanding of our planet. Equipped with 3D image projectors, environmental chambers, multi-sensory 360 degree viewing rooms, and more Orbi is the first of its kind and is developing new media and exhibit formats to bring the story of Earth to life.
The main attraction at Orbi, and perhaps the most groundbreaking, is the Earth theater (also known as Theater 23.4) a massive viewing auditorium with seating for 350. The theater screen towers two stories in height over onlookers and wraps 40 meters across, encompassing the audience in the 180 degree viewing surface. The theater is also outfitted with two rear screens, a 3D sound system, and equipment that generates wind, fog, vibrations, and even smells to complete the experience.
In order to accomplish the vision of the Earth Theater, BBC and Sega collaborated and developed an entirely new (and unheard of) 5:1 aspect ratio cinema format. Charlotte Jones, the executive producer with BBC Earth, spoke with Wired Magazine about their approach to program development and content creation for Orbi.
"We were producing a film for a theater that hadn't been built, on a scale that nobody had done, in a shape that nobody had created anything for‹ We've worked for about two years to figure it out," says Jones, who highlighted that an earlier film was scrapped for not being immersive enough. "We paint whole scenes [in a 5:1 aspect ratio] out of bits of HD footage. Some of them are 100 layers deep [meaning] we've taken 100 different elements from other images."
Since Orbi's official opening in Japan's Yokohama District back in August of 2013, BBC Earth Productions has produced four films tailored for the Earth Theater. The first three films were produced in coordination with BBC Earth's huge archive of nature footage, including more than 50,000 hours of wildlife video. The Earth Theater nature films are pushing the boundaries of the giant screen experience, but not without obstacles. Shortly after the initial opening, Wired Magazine commented:
"What is quite apparent though, is that even working in HD has its limits when blown up to 40 meters wide. With a screen of this size, it's a hope that higher-resolution formats such as 4K could be used in future."
The Earth Theater's most recent film, entitled Meerkats, is the first production for the theater that is entirely captured and produced for the 5:1 aspect ratio screen. It's also shot on the EPIC DRAGON. Series Producer, Ben Roy, shared BBC Earth Productions' experiences with RED, including technical challenges they're encountering, as well as how they are continuing to develop and grow the theater's unique experience. He points out that the Earth Theater projects sequential 5248 x 1080 uncompressed TIFF files to achieve high-quality sequences on the massive screen.
"When [sequences are] blown up to 40 x 8m we are right at the limit of acceptable resolution images have to be uncompressed and super sharp. 6K RAW footage is a great starting point for this. Our unusual letterbox framing and the viewing constraints of the curved screen mean that we have to do a certain amount of graphic compositing and image manipulation on the fly, so we chose to forego the offline/online workflow and edit/composite directly with native footage."
He credits the dynamic link in Adobe CC between Premiere and After Effects for the compositing and pre-grading which are an intrinsic part of the process. Ben Roy went on to say that their most recent film The Meerkats was:
"The first to be originated for this screen and was shot on RED‹ We are currently developing a series of new character-led animal dramas for Theater 23.4 (Earth Theater), building on our experiences with Meerkats and trying to further push the boundaries of extremely high resolution large-format immersive storytelling. We are planning to use RED cameras for these [as well]."
RED also spoke with Robin Cox, a freelance Director of Photography (DP), who regularly collaborates with BBC Earth Productions and headed principal photography of The Meerkats. As an early adopter of the RED ONE, Robin is familiar with the RED ecosystem and shared some of his thoughts on shooting footage for the Earth Theater with the EPIC DRAGON.
"The RED DRAGON is the only camera available which would allow us to fill that screen at full HD resolution whilst still allowing us the flexibility in the field to use kits, such as the MoVI gimbal system. Being lightweight and being able to be reactive to behavior is often key to successful wildlife filmmaking."
Given the capabilities of the EPIC DRAGON, Robin is a proponent of the RED cameras for use in many of his wildlife and natural history projects, saying:
"Slow motion capability is essential for Natural History Filmmaking, and with the RED it's available at a fraction of the cost of film. Being able to run liberally at 120 fps in 4K has been amazing. Pre-Roll [or Pre-Record] is a fantastic capability in my field of work, so useful when trying to capture a moment of animal behavior, especially in high speed where the data storage is a real issue without it."
If you're interested in visiting Orbi in person but won't be making it to Japan any time soon there are speculations for potential future locations in the UK and North America, as well as other parts of Asia and the Middle East. For more information, you can check out Wired Magazine's article: The Orbi Story, or visit Orbi's site.