Jaunt VR, a company specialising in 360 VR Video, has collaborated with outdoor apparel giant ‘The North Face‘, going out on into the wilderness to create a VR experience which captures the beauty of the great outdoors in 360 degree 3D glory.
Jaunt is fast gathering quite a cache of 360 VR Video content. After exiting stealth mode following investment rounds last year, they’ve become a name to watch in the rapidly evolving VR Cinema space.
Now, they’ve collaborated with ‘The North Face’ to get out into the wild and attempt to capture its natural beauty for recreation in VR. The company’s proprietary cinematic VR technology, capable of capturing images in 360 degrees with full stereoscopy, has been put through its paces as it followed The North Face global athletes Cedar Wright and Sam Elias on a trek which takes them through Yosemite National Park and Moab, Utah.
Jaunts cameras faced down precarious cliff edges and were even mounted below a specialised quad-copter in order to capture the required shots.
“Working with The North Face to capture the remarkable beauty of our national parks has been one of our favorite and most powerful projects to date,” said Jens Christensen, CEO of Jaunt. “We are creating an entirely new medium for entertainment and the content we’ve captured in Yosemite and Moab are perfect examples of just how transformative cinematic virtual reality can be.”
The experience is to form part of a marketing push in select ‘The North Face’ stores out of Chicago come March 16th. If you happen to live nearby, you’ll be able to pop in, don a VR Headset and step into the wilderness, virtually.
“The North Face and our athletes are always looking to bring people into our expeditions and spark people’s interest in getting outdoors,” said Aaron Carpenter, Vice President of Marketing, The North Face. “The North Face VR transports people to Yosemite and Moab to see the beauty and be inspired to go see it for themselves.”
Using virtual reality to market goods and brands is becoming almost common place these days. But as VR technology improves and content producers like Jaunt become more adept at honing experiences, cinematic or otherwise, the technology holds fairly potent power as a marketing tool.
SXSW Interactive 2015 visitors can also receive an exclusive sneak peek of the content on Google Cardboard by visiting the Google Fiber Space at SXSW.
Full Disclosure: Brian Hart, who is Senior Systems Engineer at Jaunt, contributes articles to Road to VR.