In the late 19th century, Eadweard
Muybridge – to win a bet – took several pictures of a horse in
motion, and in the process, basically invented film. It was a brand
new way to experience media, and it changed the world. Radiant Images
hopes to do the same with an investment in 360 video production, and
VP Michael Mansouri drops in to explain how.
Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today’s guest is Michael Mansouri, co-founder and vice president of Radiant Images. Michael is known as one of the industry’s most knowledgeable, inventive, and passionate technologists. Born into a family of filmmakers, he has produced and directed several high impact documentaries, most recently for the United Nations Geneva Summit for Human Rights. His documentaries help raise awareness of human and animal rights violations around the world, to provide a voice for the voiceless. He’s been always interested in the overlap of film and technology, so he co-founded Radiant Images in 2005. Mr. Mansouri’s efforts in filmmaking led to NASA and JPL’s 2018 Emmy win for outstanding original interactive program for Cassini’s grand finale, which was NASA’s first recognition in the film community. At Hawk-Eye, he hopes to break through the technology barriers surrounding digital innovation and provide a more meaningful impact that connects and engages humanity. You can learn more about the great work that Michael and his team are doing at radiantimages.com.
Michael, welcome to the show.
Michael: Hey, good morning,
everyone. Michael Mansouri, co-founder of Radiant. Very happy to be
on this podcast with you guys.
Alan: I am super excited. You
know, the first time I found out about Radiant Images was at the
UploadVR launch party in LA. And I was in this beautiful space and
people were drinking drinks and everything. Good time. And I walked
into one of these small rooms and I saw the collection of quite
possibly the craziest 360 cameras I’ve ever seen. There was cameras
with 20 lenses. There was ones that fit on your head like a helmet.
There was little miniature ones. You guys had kind of everything. And
I just– coming from somebody who started in VR using 360 cameras —
you know, the GoPro rigs where we glued them all together — and
coming from that and then walking into this room, where you would
take in what we were doing from a basic standpoint of collecting 360,
and you just took it to the next level. How did you guys get involved
in that? Like, what was the first precipitating factor of going from
traditional film to 360 filmmaking?
Michael: That’s a great
question. Radiant’s history is traditional, but we do traditional
way, in traditional methods. How we got really excited and involved
in immersive was our background is documentarians, we ask always
questions. And we ask a lot of questions that break beyond the
surface and beyond the obvious. We always were much more interested
in taking deeper and deeper. And part of what we did is we started
really looking at our industry, motion picture, media, entertainment,
and just in fact, communication, our communication methods. How have
they changed in the cycles of technology shifts that happens every 10
years? What is the new method of how we engage? And what we realized
is, the average American sees between 4,000 to 10,000 pieces of
content, every single day. How do we distinguish?
Alan: Say that again? What?
Michael: Yeah. It’s a fact. [chuckles] The average American sees between 4,000 to 10,000 pieces of content every single day.
Alan: Okay, we’ve got to unpack.
That is ridiculous.
Michael: It’s the truth. And the
reality is, when we were kids or when we were much younger, our
choi...
