Neilson 360° Windsurfing Experience (Bafta Award Winning)
London agency MBA commissioned Atticus Digital to produce this 360° Oculus Rift virtual 360° experience for Neilson Active Holidays. Neilson wanted a windsurfing experience for their customers to allow them to 'Have a go, before you go' at the London Boat Show.
Atticus filmed the 360° videos on location in Turkey with partners On-Par Productions. Our very own creative director Ben Walsh was the talented windsurfer carrying the 360° camera rig on his head, and yes we do have some embarrassing photos of him.
Challenges
This was our very first 360° video and our challenge was to create an experience that felt realistic to Neilson customers to get them to sign up for a holiday. We had to overcome to the obstacle of creating a way to capture the windsurfing from a first person perspective and edit the footage to ensure a smooth experience.
Solution
We built a custom go-pro rig to support the 360° camera that was attached to a helmet to catch the windsurfing in action. Our team had the task of stitching the 360° clips together (before the various programmes were out there to make this an easy process) to create a realistic user experience.
Outcome
The London Boat Show a stand was created to allow the user to be fully immersed in the experience. In additional to wearing to oculus headset the user stood on a rumble board while holding on to a boom, while wind blew in their face. The combination of this gave the user an extremely realistic simulation of windsurfing at one of Neilson’s resorts.The experience was delivered using Oculus Rift for the London Boat Show. The experience was also available online and via iOS and Android apps, which enabled the user to look around by physically moving their mobile device around or using their mouse.
The London Boat Show went down very well, with over 500 people having a go including ex-Olympic windsurfer Jonnie Hutchcroft.
Atticus won a BAFTA Cymru Award for Games and Interactive Experience for this experience.
