Stokefarm Productions presents Oceania VR, an underwater immersive VR film series exclusively available on Meta TV, exploring the beauty of locations across Oceania, from Australia to Fiji. From concept through to filming, editing and post production, James brought the series to life. To experience Oceania VR in your Meta Quest headset visit www.oceaniavr.com and follow the links.

Underwater cinematography with highly specialised 3D VR camera rigs presents unique challenges requiring a meticluous technical approach and advanced dive skills. James Donald, Jon Diver and Jon Shaw were succesful in navigating covid-restrictions, severe weather, camera faults and sickness across numerous locations in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

Stay tuned for a behind-the-scenes presentation exploring some of the challenges faced in bringing Oceania VR to life!

Technical Director and 360° Camera Operator for the Boss Bottled Infinite 360° Commercial in Byron Bay. James was engaged specifically for his technical experience in shooting 360° in challenging outdoor environments including simultaneous aerial and water-based action-sequences. James also contributed pre and post production advice to get a premium result for a premium high-end brand experience.

Watch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLENOvUVbz8

Directed by Mick Waters

Stokefarm Productions had the privilege of working for many months on post production for the epic 2-part VR series Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR from Jon Griffith Productions, Meta Quest and RedBull.

Specifically James’ skills in stereography, vfx and stitching were integral to solving the unique challenges posed by such an ambitious cutting edge production.

Learn more at https://thesoloist-vr.com/

Stokefarm Productions was engaged to consult and provide technical post production expertise including stereography, stitching and vfx for the unique VR experience ‘Serengeti River Crossing’ by John Downer Productions, XiX Entertainment and Verizon.

This uniqe film takes viewers right into the heart of the action at the plains and rivers of the Serengeti featuring all the drama with zebras, corcodiles, wilderbeasts and giraffes.

Trailer can be viewed at https://youtu.be/YzShskTl_qU

With experience and skills in stereoscopic 3D VR production, James was contacted by Adam Savage’s TESTED team to work on the 180° 3D imagery for TESTED VR Series 1, 2, 3 & 4 from 2019-2022.

This ground-breaking series in partnership with Meta Quest offers VR audiences a unique and intimate experience inside the workshops of some of the most creative professionals in the world.

James’ role as stereographer and stitcher ensured a consistently high degree of visual comfort for VR audiences.

Learn more:

https://www.provideocoalition.com/adam-savages-tested-vr-the-production-of-a-virtual-journey-for-oculus-headsets/

In partnership with Oculus and Phoria, James played a key role in the technical pre and post production of the Ecosphere series across Kenya, Borneo and Raja Ampat.

As VR Stereographer and Senior Post Production consultant, James worked with Phoria over a period of 6 months to develop and implement a robust 3D 180° post-production pipeline that would meet the highest-quality technical standards required for such an ambitious cinematic production. From stereo 3D stitching and paint work through to stabilising and compositing, James took care of the more complex post production challenges encountered in key scenes throughout the series: including intimate animal encounters; drone sequences; and underwater imagery filmed with custom 3D rigs.

Stokefarm Productions is proud to partner with AARP on the creation of over 30 high resolution 3D 180° and 3D 360° VR relaxing wildlife and nature experiences for the innovative social VR app Alcove. Available on Oculus Quest and GO.

https://alcovevr.com/

Stokefarm Productions provided post production stitching and vfx consultancy to help bring to life the 2021 VR series Tokyo Origami VR by COSM and Meta Quest.

Stokefarm was engaged by International Productions to consult on post production for the Macau 360° VR Toursim Campaign. James subsequently delivered post production for the entire campaign with over 40 individual stitched 360° clips across 4 VR films for Playstation VR.

Post production: Stitching, stabilization, rig removal, paint, noise reduction, sharpen, colour grade

Challenges: Fine stitch due to high parallax 360° cameras (GoPro Omni) with close subjects. Noise reduction in low light. Variety of motion shots

JDVR is an exclusive provider of 360° VR filming and production services to ECOVR - a not-for-profit initiative with a purpose to bring the best in VR nature experiences to health and education.

Learn more at www.ecovr.world/manta

JDVR has provided post production services for a number of commercial 360° VR projects in partnership with Australian industry-leading UAV drone experts XM2 and Heliguy

With extensive experience in manually stitching custom 360° video rigs, James brings a unique understanding of geometry-based stitching methods to provide clean results that avoid typical visual artifacts. He has personally delivered over 50 individually stitched and stabilized drone-based 360° clips for local and international commercial projects: including lifestyle brands, insurance companies and developers.

JDVR also provides drone-based 360° filming services in partnership with trusted and accredited pilots along with end-end production expertise across a range of common issues including stitching, stabilisation, rig removal, motion tracking, compoisting/insertions and sky replacement.

With VIP sponsorship from Insta360, James was one of the first 360 operators in Australia to offer stable 8K 360° filming @ 60fps with live HD monitoring over 300m. This was immediately proven in the field in late 2018 on a high pressure commercial for HugoBoss. James currently offers a range of capabilities with a number of reliable camera and drone rigs to suit any scale production.

Get in touch for more sample and a discussion of what is now possible.

In collaboration with Monash University and MindSightVR, James was engaged over 2 years and 2 seperate projects to create 3D 360° VR content for clinical research into skills training for Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Project 1 tested recall of a psycho-motor skills training task presented in VR versus traditional media. A first-person 3D VR view was created of a model engaged in completing the task and providing instructions.

Project 2 simulated social skills training for those with Autism Spectrum Disorders. 8 individual 3D 360° scenes were created for the research trial.

James provided cinematography and post production services for both research projects.

JDVR completed production for the REA Group (realestate.com) 360° Timelapse Project with iTSPTAYLOR!.

Role: Stitch, re-time and colour grade

Cameras: Insta360Pro

Challenges: Workflow with large amounts of data. Stitch 6 videos with 30-45 minute takes to create each 30 second 8K 360° clip.

JDVR is an exclusive provider of 360° VR filming and production services to ECOVR - a not-for-profit initiative that James founded with a purpose to bring the best in VR nature and wildlife experiences to health and education.

See more at www.ecovr.world

JDVR was engaged to provide live 360° broadcast of select sessions of the Ecocity World Summit 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. On behalf of ECOVR and San Fransisco based not-for-profit organisation Ecocity Builders, James also filmed and produced 3D 360° VR recordings of interviews and workshops during the 3 day summit.

JDVR was contracted by Phoria to provide 360° post production services on the IBM Bluemix Garage 360° experience.

Role: Stitching drone rig, rig removal, paint

JDVR was engaged by award-winning VR director Lester Francois of Studio Bento to create a stereoscopic 3D 360° scene for VR title The American Dream by Samuari Punk.

Role: 3D 360° shoot, post production, VFX

Challenges: Create a unique first-person 360° view in a relatively small environment with comfortable stereoscopic 3D. Composite realistic gun smoke animation. High contrast scene requiring multiple exposure passes.

Camera: Insta360Pro