Compared to the original, Disney’s year 2000 sequel to animated music extravaganza Fantasia isn’t thought of in quite the same glowing terms. A shame really because while the exception of the links between the pieces which were somewhat cringe inducing – Steve Martin apparently outsourcing his own body to someone else to provide the ‘comedy’ – I’d argue that the pieces themselves were (as a collective) far stronger than the original, and were I to compile a top ten of my favourite Fantasia items most of the top five would consist of pieces from Fantasia 2000. My personal number one being the piece for George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, in case you were interested.
Another item in there would be the comedic short based on Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, which provided one of the genuine laughs from the links as James Earl Jones seriously declared the piece would answer “The age-old question: What would happen when you give a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?” Before asking, after a beat to the person who had given him the offending piece of paper, “Who wrote this?”
It was through looking up this piece I accidentally stumbled on today’s video for Life In 360°. Filmed and edited courtesy of an outlet that, to my knowledge we’ve not featured before, the Japanese company Asahi Shimbun. This particular video, filmed at Tobu Zoo in Miyashiro, part of the Saitama Prefecture in Japan, and features three distinct species of the bird who are not found together in the wild. These are the American flamingo (vivid red/pink), the greater flamingo (tall, and more white in colour) and their cousin the Chilean flamingo which is white with pink joints. Asahi Shimbun set up a 360 degree camera in the water found in the bird’s enclosure and filmed what happened when the fifty-strong flock were let loose. What happens is a (very slow) flamingo stampede, before you get somewhat unnervingly surrounded by them.
Check it out below:
If you head over to their website (click here) you can also see a regular video which films the flamingos coming out and pestering the 360 degree camera as part of their ‘behind the scenes’ series.
VRFocus will be back on Monday with more examples of 360 degree video. Until then, be sure to check out everything on the site over the weekend.
via Mint VR