Living Coasts
Here in the UK, we have met some of the penguins inhabiting at Living Coasts, Paignton. This is the coastal zoo as part of the Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust. We swam amongst them along with our 360 VR camera rig to get footage of them up close and personal.
We used this footage to create a VR experience so that audiences could experience being underwater with the penguins at feeding time, virtually of course. Along with some other animals, we created a VR experience for people to experience animals up close which you would never normally be able to do so. This VR experience proved very popular at the Scientist Live Exhibition in London last year.
Falkland Islands
More recently, we had travelled over 7,000 miles to the Falkland Islands. During our time filming material for a new VR experience for the Falkland Island Tourism Board, we met lots and lots of different species of penguins. These included: Rockhopper, Gentoo, Magellanic, King penguins. We hopped across to different islands where we were met with different species of penguin who inhabited on different areas.
The 360 VR footage is now in post production and will shortly be shown and experienced in cruise ships across seas. We felt that video, especially 360 VR, was the best method of gaining attention towards the destination as it is a unique tourist location that had been shied away from.
Filming Wildlife in 360 Virtual Reality: Falkland Island Penguins