360° “lenses” (which generally aren’t actually lenses, but spherical reflectors) are perfect for simple, single-shot video production. Especially given some inventive viewpoints, staging, or post-production.
Recently Merlot’s “Loser” impressed me with its combination of a surround angle shooting and a snorricam setup.
LOSER – Merlot from Julien Widmer on Vimeo.
I was reminded of this today by Hot Chip’s “One Life Stand”:
“Reflective sphere dangling in front of the camera” is probably the easiest way for someone to get started with this kind of shoot. The Hot Chip piece physically rotates the camera so as not to lose resolution, but this effect can work beautifully with a simple polar co-ordinates filter to unwrap the viewpoint, as demonstrated by Loser. Like any single-shot piece, it’s all about putting inventive things in front of the camera, or putting the camera in inventive locations.