Motorola used to have ownership of some pretty cool short film technology and a brand that it was part of called spotlight stories, but that particular tech and short film brand stayed with Google when Motorola was sold to Lenovo. It was pioneered as part of Motorola’s ATAP division, but has since moved to the Android arm and Android is exactly where we might expect to start seeing more short film projects. Like the upcoming short film that is being worked on called Help!, using this special Google tech which is a sphere like device stuffed with a bunch of camera’s to basically catch 360 degrees of footage, making for an immersive and interactive film experience.
Google calls this device they’re using to shoot the live action short the spidercam, which we can only surmise is because the many lenses of the camera would act like eyes belonging to a spider and see just about any angle. This new short film is expected to hit Android devices some time in 2015, and is comprised of a distressed looking young woman running from something. The spidercam comes into play to allow the user watching this spotlight story to utilize their device’s display to see what the camera sees. They have choice to view the short film essentially as they see fit, as they can choose to turn their device one direction and not the other, giving them a completely different perspective to the film if they had chosen to look the other direction.
It all sounds like a really cool way to watch any sort of film, short or not, bringing a really unique experience to the viewer, almost like they’re in the film themselves. Google’s Sundar Pichai told Backchannel that Google is excited to see how the Spotlight Stories are utilized by artists to bring stories and characters to life. For this particular spotlight story described briefly above called Help!, they have brought on Fast and Furious director Justin Lin, so there’s bound to be a little bit of action. With this technology it could open up a whole new world of ways to watch films. While we’re not sure how likely it is that movies like the ones being brought to life by this project would make it to the big screen, it’s exciting to have them available no matter the platform we use to watch them.
