Panoramic video has found its way onto the racetrack courtesy of Chabin Mullen and Sendit Productions. As an experienced extreme sports producer who has worked for ESPN and filmed countless major events, Mullen’s current focus is producing the Formula Drift Professional Drifting Championship Series for NBC Sports.
Formula Drift is the world’s premier professional drifting circuit featuring drivers from around the world and a nationwide series of events. In addition to producing Formula Drift for television, Mullen and his team are utilizing 360Heros gear to present the action with a panoramic field of view:
Prior to Formula Drift, Mullen’s previous work includes producing the Pro Wakeboarding Tour, Boardstock, The US Open of Surfing, the US Open of Snowboarding and the Vans Triple Crown of both wakeboarding and skateboarding.
With such a high profile resume, Mullen approaches production with the same boundary-shattering mentality that his subject matter lives by. This is evident in his willingness to adopt 360° video as a medium and to start filming motor sports in an innovative new fashion.
The content Sendit Productions uploads to the 360Heros hosting center allow viewers to experience drift racing from every angle. A midst all of the smoke and engine revving, viewers can explore the action and get a more realistic feel for the driver’s perspective. The 360Heros team caught up with Mullen to discuss Formula Drift and his use of 360º video to share it with the public:
“I’ve only been messing with it for a couple months. Really the possibilities are out there to utilize 360. We’re able to now export them into QuickTime files and do different editing. It’s really cool that you can see a fully panoramic view of what happens on the racetrack. Everyone I’ve shown is kind of blown away by it especially when I show it on an iPad – they really like the ‘steering’ aspect.”
The steering comparison is fairly appropriate in this case, as the 360Heros Video Viewer app allows Mullen’s viewers and clients to physically interact with their mobile device and his content.
Aside from enjoying the interactive features and limitless field of view, Mullen sees a broad range of potential for 360 video:
“The applications and possibilities for viewing 360 are really cool. I’m really stoked about the creativity that is possible with 360 video. The fact that you can put it on a drone, a zip line, or any kind of mounting device you want and that there’s a ton of different applications makes it a great product.”
In terms of our hosting center, Mullen is one of our top producers with his selection of high quality and engaging content. Just as our casual viewers like checking out his drift racing content, Mullen enjoys the hosting service’s benefits from the perspective of the producer:
“Actually having hosting is pretty nice. It’s good that you guys are out there. I think it’s great and I’m pretty happy that it’s available. I like the fact that you guys are promoting me and it helps me a little bit more. It’s cool that you guys are interacting with your producers.”
With a great selection of 360 video content already uploaded to our server, we’re excited to see what else Sendit Productions has in store. When we asked Mullen about his plans for this technology, he revealed aspirations that include capturing wakeboarding content, filming the Redbull Air Race in 360 and shooting underwater footage. Whether Sendit Productions sticks to the race track or drifts to a new focus, it sounds like Mullen and his team are just getting started with 360.
With unpredictable weather leading up to the Top 16 show, the track was a mix of all sorts of driving surfaces, never being consistent due to a rainstorm that rolled in hours before, and the continuous spitting from the clouds as the night moved on. What worked in dry qualifying the night before, was obviously not going to work in competition. We know that most of our readers don’t want to sit through a 2 hour long replay full of commercials and track delays, so we break down all the action Cliff Note’s style, or “TLDR – Too Long Didn’t Read” style, for our attention span challenged friends. We have something in common.
