The Brief
Nissan approached Inition to help them create an exciting experience for this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Nissan wanted to leverage their current ‘Built for Thrill’ campaign and TV commercial for the Nissan Juke, which features sky-divers assembling the car whilst free-falling through the air.
Nissan Juke, wingsuit flying experience. from Inition on Vimeo.
Solution
Inition, working with brand experience agency TRO, came up with the idea for the ‘Built to Thrill Wingsuit Experience’ which is designed to immerse participants in a multi-sensory 3D world inspired by close-proximity wingsuit flying.
Inition designers built a state-of-the-art wide-angle 3D head-mounted display which was housed in a bespoke case also designed and 3D printed in-house. To make the experience all the more exciting and realistic Inition built a multi-axis motion platform and control surface for realistic motion based flying – with variable speed fans and spatially rendered sound-design.
Inition’s 3D artists created a vast city and mountain environment to fly through on an experience that begins with a jump out an aeroplane at 21,000 feet. Participants are given a mission to collect as many Nissan Juke components as possible. Participants steer themselves by leaning on articulated ‘wings’, powerful fans mimic the rush of air as they fall down from the plane whilst the head-mounted display provides a wide-angle adrenalin-inducing voyage as a ‘virtual skydiver’ navigating a cityscape and finally trying to land on the Nissan Juke, collecting ‘Thrill Points’ en route.
Results
Muriel Holdsworth at TRO reported that, "The Nissan Juke Built to Thrill simulator was the star of the show and acted as a real stand attractor. We only had a few weeks pre-production before the experience went live but the ride was ready in time and loved by TRO, Nissan and the Goodwood audience alike. The creativity and graphics of the software was particularly impressive."
The opportunity to take part in a fully-immersive human flight experience attracted a constant stream of willing participants at this year's Goodwood Festival and was also enjoyed by hundreds of onlookers. The game attracted 368 participants across the four days it was at the festival, with as many as 103 participants on the busiest day. Nissan is taking the Built to Thrill Wingsuit Experience to the Frankfurt and Paris motorshows and it will also feature at the ATP Tennis Tournament at The O2.
In an interview with Event Magazine, Nissan’s Brand Experience Manager, Caroline Earley, described the game as “the headline feature on our stand this year.”
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3D Promo Shoot: Nissan FreeRide Tour
The Brief
Leading extreme sports television producer Boomerang Film approached Inition to produce a high octane 3D promotional video to support Nissan’s sponsorship of the 2011 FreeRide World Tour after a successful collaboration shooting Tony Hawk on his European skateboard tour in Berlin and Brighton for Canal +
Solution
Inition provided stereoscopic consultancy, two portable 3D camera systems, a stereographer and camera assistant for two shooting days as well as 3D post production services including 3D fixing, depth grading and mastering.
Inition were commissioned with the ambitious task of delivering a 3D online post, short promo film and 30 second trailer on a Blu-ray disc within 48 hours of the final shoot. Inition’s team edited approximately 4 – 5 hours of footage into a 2.5 minute compelling promo film in time for the opening of the Nissan FreeRide World Tour.
The offline edit was undertaken by the client in Avid and the final post stages were completed at Inition. We were provided with a graded DPX sequence (Digital Picture Exchange) for the left and right channels which were ingested into our Speedgrade XR suite, where 3D geometry correction and a depth grade were performed. The final piece was then mastered in the side-by-side format for Blu-ray.
The Right Tool for the Job- The client required a stereoscopic video capture system which was as lightweight as possible, able to take POV shots and portable enough to be taken to challenging locations such as mountain faces. Always keen to embrace a challenge, Inition developed a custom built helmet with a mounted 3D rig based around two Toshiba Minicams recording to Nano Flash recorders on Compact Flash cards.
Small enough to achieve an interaxial separation of just 4mm, the custom built rig was highly versatile and could be controlled and genlocked with a camera control unit up to 30 metres away. The recorders were synced (in terms of being triggered for recording) via a breakout cable joined to a single trigger.
Alignment of the cameras was performed before mounting to the helmet with wedges to fix roll and vertical offset. Being a fixed interaxial, calculations were made to allow for the best 3D in the given environment with locked off cameras. The professional athletes were prepped before shooting, so that they were aware of the 3D limits i.e. how close to get to objects.
Results
With its production partner Boomerang Films, Inition delivered an attention holding 3D promotional film to Nissan on schedule, which was taken on tour around major European ski destinations in a Nissan branded truck complete with 4D alpine mountain breeze effects.