Nokia Technologies today announced that it will be providing The Walt Disney Studios with OZO, the company’s 360 degree camera. Disney will use the camera to create ‘special VR content’ for upcoming films.
Disney recently used OZO to create two 360 videos for The Jungle Book (2016)—a 360 view of the film’s red carpet debut and an interview with the cast—both available through Facebook’s News Feed and Facebook 360 videos on Gear VR.
The news that Disney is going with Nokia for their 360 video solution comes as a surprising turn of events, as the mouse-themed entertainment giant lead a $65M investment in Jaunt, the ‘cinematic vr’ company that most recently produced their own 360 rig, Jaunt One. The agreement between Nokia and Disney, although not specified in length, is said to be for multiple years.
Nokia will be advising Disney marketers and film makers on how to use the supplied software and the 360 rig itself—and for a steep pre-order price of $60,000 per camera, they better do it smiling.
While the initial price is pretty daunting, the platform itself is considered one of the more hassle-free 360 rigs out there, as it comes stock with a number of time-saving features like an integrated spatial audio array and global shutter—something that isn’t available on the home-grown amalgam of GoPros that film makers have been using up until now. Combined with real-time VR preview for OSX over integrated WiFi, the camera is touted as a way to “dramatically reduce post-production time, complexity and cost.” And when you’re producing 360 videos featuring some of the world’s biggest movie stars, saving time generally equates to saving money. Lots of money.
You can check out the full specs of the OZO 360 camera here.