Tim Heidecker’s Adult Swim parody movie review show On Cinema went full 360 in its latest episode, strapping a number of Ricoh Theta 360 cameras around the set.
In On Cinema, Heidecker’s fictional alter ego is usually looking for the next big thing, whether it’s vaping dangerous chemicals bought from a sham doctor or his rock band Dekkar, and in the latest episode ‘Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero’ & ‘Overboard’, he’s thinks he’s found it in 360 video.
“We used to have 15-20 people working here, and they’ve all got the pink slip because we are going into the future. It’s an automated situation,” says Heidecker.
Reluctant as always to embrace Heidecker’s fleeting obsessions, co-star (who is constantly demoted to ‘recurring guest’) Gregg Turkington is none too pleased, saying “nothing about this reminds me of being in a movie theater, that’s for sure.”
As usual, the episode devolves into a running infomercial for Heidecker’s fictional ‘Rio-Jenesis Germ Removal System’ that he says is the only way to cleanse the body of all germs.
The video itself, while fairly good quality (max 4k), hilariously underlines some of the issues that arise when simply tossing a few commercial 360 cameras on set and hoping for the best. Both Heidecker and Turkington have their own Ricoh 360 cameras positioned too close for comfort, and occasionally smack them, making the 360 video shaky and uncomfortable to watch. Transported back and forth between the two as they argue, eventually you come back to a fairly unleveled centrally-positioned camera.
For the full effect, you can watch the video in VR on Google Daydream and Google Cardboard by using either the Daydream YouTube app, or by clicking the ‘Cardboard’ button on the YouTube Android app.
Gear VR owners can watch it by browsing to YouTube through Samsung Internet.
For SteamVR-compatible headsets such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or Windows VR, simply download the YouTube VR app on Steam and search ‘On Cinema’.
