Note: For the best experience, we encourage you to watch this video with a head-mounted display that supports Youtube streaming. If one isn’t available, you can still enjoy the experience by clicking and dragging through the 360° environment.

Giant Oak Search Technology (GOST) is a revolutionary threat detection tool that goes beyond the typical state of the art methods of identifying threats by sorting through data with machine learning.

The Challenge

This wasn’t our first time working with Giant Oak. Previously, we had created several simple animated videos to demonstrate their product on their website. But this time, they needed something completely different. Giant Oak noticed that their presence at trade shows was an opportunity to give potential clients not just a head knowledge, but a felt experience of why their product is necessary. We needed something that would invite visitors to their booth into an unexpected, emotionally driven view of the problem that GOST solves.

The Approach

You guessed right… it doesn’t get much more immersive than VR! We partnered with Giant Oak to develop a story that works just as well in 360° as the ones we craft for flat video. Our main visual strategy was to treat the graphics as if seen through an amusement park tour ride. This simplified our canvas by giving us a sort of playbook for different kinds of graphics. We allowed ourselves to place simple 2D graphics on a closer sphere (as if on the windshield of our tour vehicle) and 3D graphics further out (as the environment the ride is moving through.)

We created basic design frames in 2D for story reference, but let the final style be defined during the 3D production. The environment was animated in Cinema4D and rendered with Octane, then brought back together with the flat elements in After Effects. Because there were certain moments of focused information that we needed to pull the viewer’s attention to, we used the movement through the 3D world to encourage a sense of “forward” to the viewers. We found that if we kept the tour moving, even if just very slowly, viewers would be encouraged to look where they’re going… which is exactly where we placed the information they needed to see.

We created an original score for this video and mixed it in 360° with ambisonics. The result is a more immersive and realistic sonic experience as you turn your head inside the experience. More than that, we also found that by “panning” the VO to the front, we could further encourage viewers to look in the right direction for the occasional informational graphics.

The Results

Giant Oak’s first use of this video at a trade show was a hit! They will continue using it as part of their trade show presence, and they’ve discussed sending it to prospects with a free Google Cardboard viewer to extend the experience beyond the show floor.