“Some day in the not too distant future you’ll be able to go to a movie and the movie will be all around you. The movie will be over your head, it will be 360 degrees around you.”

– Steven Spielberg, Time magazine, 2006

 The immersive experience of a 360° environment creates many opportunities for exploration and play. One result of those opportunities is HORIZON, an awe-inspiring 360° film celebrating the shared communities and common humanity of Canadians. HORIZON brought artists from diverse disciplines into our collaborative process, providing musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists a distinctive platform to contribute meaningfully to a national project and to work with over 400 artists and participants. SESQUI’s 360° film explores themes as diverse as the arts, technological innovation and the Canadian landscape. The format of storytelling (in a 360° environment) allowed the production teams myriad opportunities to stretch creatively and technically and to change how we tell stories.

The HORIZON production team sought innovative ways to embrace the creative implications of a 360° screen. For example, the production team had to hide and camouflage themselves to avoid being seen by cameras capturing a 360° shot. The film was shot with multiple cameras, “stitched” in post-production, sliced (for different projectors) and then put back together again. The intense development process required strategizing about how best to cut between scenes, how to introduce performers (there are no close-ups in this type of filmmaking), and how much camera motion would enhance the footage – without creating motion sickness!