Felix & Paul Studios got together with Oculus Studios and National Geographic to shoot 360 video footage of President Barack Obama’s recent Father’s Day trip to Yosemite National Park, becoming the first official appearance by Obama in a VR presentation.
To commemorate 100 years of the US’ National Parks Service, Felix & Paul Studios, along with Oculus Studios worked with National Geographic to document a visit, earlier this summer, of President Barack Obama to Yosemite National Park.
The President was there with his family over Father’s Day weekend this year to take in the sights, meet with key National Park representatives, including National Parks Superintendent Don Neubacher, and generally highlight the majesty of it all.
“National Geographic has been a pioneer in visual storytelling throughout its 128-year history. We see virtual reality as a new frontier and are thrilled to use this powerful medium to help celebrate the National Park Service’s centennial anniversary.” said Rajiv Mody, Vice President of Social Media for National Geographic.
Whilst the debate may rage over the tedious semantics of whether 360 video “is or isn’t ‘real’ VR”, there’s no denying that 360 video presentations when shot expertly can be a worthy addition to a VR headset’s content lineup. Felix & Paul’s output has been consistently good in this regard and this latest effort is well worth checking out immersively if you can.
“As filmmakers, we wanted to use cinematic virtual reality’s unique transportive power to bring audiences into a journey with President Obama where they could experience firsthand the vertiginous, lyrical, and timeless beauty of Yosemite. We were deeply inspired by the idea that American national parks such as Yosemite were originally established ‘for all people for all times,’ as a way to allow future generations to experience the extraordinary and untouched beauty and richness of these natural wonders.” says Félix Lajeunesse, Co-founder of Felix & Paul Studios.
You can can catch the new 12 minute video in a variety of ways. Watch it on your Gear VR or Oculus Rift headset by grabbing the experience from the Oculus Store, or you can catch the Facebook 360 stream here and finally the YouTube version here (as embedded above).