Michael Kors — Walkbox

Experiments with Computational Cinematography

In collaboration with Technology Humans and Taste and AV&C — we designed and created Walkbox — an immersive experience machine of epic proportions in Shanghai that capped off Michael Kors’ global The Walk campaign.

Walkbox made each guest the star of their own brand fashion film, through the experience of a director-led film shoot moving down a 50’ walk against an LED wall that placed the subjects in glamorous locations shot around the world.

By night’s end, we’d published over 300 unique, personal, and beautiful films — shared broadly by celebrities, influencers, and guests — and engaged with by millions online.

Behind the scenes of The Walk — Image Courtesy of AV&C
We had 1 camera on a dolly tracking our model, one on a steady cam, and one end of stage providing dynamic framing as the model walks down the runway. Image courtesy of AV&C
Sync — the rough cut generation software leveraged features from CoreML and produced edits for Final Cut Pro X. Note that each rough cut has different timing, but is quantized to a multiple of the BPM. If you look closely you can also see a “compressed” middle chapter with syncopated edits for the paparazzi moment as a sort of ‘climax’ in the edit. This was the result of one specific edit rule.

Head and tail refers to ‘extra’ video at the beginning and end of an edit, so that an editor can adjust the timing of an edit without adjusting the entire sequence and having a cascade of fixes to make.

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Special Circumstances is a Computational Cinematography R&D company. We build next generation tools for film makers.

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Special Circumstances

Special Circumstances is a Computational Cinematography R&D company. We build next generation tools for film makers.