I showed the first 2 360 experiments today to get some reactions and feedback. There were some really interesting conversations that echoed some of the difficulties that I was having approaching where to start with editing 360 footage.

A number of people commented that is was difficult to know where to start with a critique of the work because watching 360 is still such a new experience.

Experiment 1 started an interesting conversation about the frustration of having the control taken away from viewer when the video cuts, once a viewer is fined control to choose where to look it is jarring having it taken away again. The feedback did suggest that once the rhythm of the repeating images became clear that frustration was removed. I am going to try using slow cross fades on the cuts at the beginning to try and lead the viewer through the transition. I think it is worth pursuing this experiment further as viewers seemed to be engaged as they got the narrative expectation on the approaching cow. It was also notable that viewers didn’t start to ask more thematic questions once the more direct narrative became clear.

Experiment 2 seemed to be more immediately engaging as viewer commented that they wanted to explore the whole space to understand how the composite images had been created. I wonder if this interest will be engaged over multiple viewings and exploration once the novelty of the images has worn off?