Member Article

Waymark helps to pioneer new film technology

ONE of the region’s leading software developers has teamed up with an innovative media company to provide YouTube with groundbreaking technology.

Sunderland media company New World Designs has been working with YouTube on a new football channel, Copa90. The video-sharing giant wanted to further enhance the capabilities of the Bullet Time filming effect made famous in the Hollywood blockbuster The Matrix. The effect is a means of slowing a film down and allowing the audience a 360-degree view of a chosen scene.

New World Designs are specialists in this area, one of only four companies worldwide with the experience and know-how to professionally exploit the possibilities. The company has created a specialist Instacam360 rig with up to 50 cameras which capture the action from a scene.

New World Designs co-owner Steve Reeves asked Gateshead software company Waymark to help automate a run-up to the 360-degree scene, and then a way of smoothly moving out of the scene.

Waymark, who’ve worked with the Sunderland Software Centre based company and the Bullet Time technology before, were only too happy to help.

Paul Lofthouse, Commercial Director at Waymark, said they were delighted to be working with Steve and fellow co-owner Ian Wright again: “They bring us really interesting projects and problems, and we’re always happy to work with them to find a software solution to their challenge.

“Our last piece of work with them involved further automating the Bullet Point effect, and then smoothing the production process to produce perfect film. This time around we were working with them on creating sequences before and after the Bullet Time scenes. I’ve seen the finished video on the Copa90 YouTube channel, and it looks incredible.”

Steve, who has recently returned from Rome after working on special effects for the forthcoming Zoolander 2 movie, said: “YouTube just rang out of the blue, after seeing what we are capable of through our website. We were obviously interested to work with them and Waymark have been a huge help. The guys there are always easy to work with and they helped us hit a very tight deadline. They understand a problem very quickly and have always come up with an innovative, bespoke solution for us.

“We’re now working with them on automating the alignment of the cameras further, which should make final films even smoother.”

Waymark was set up four years ago, and began developing software for utility services. It has since expanded into the education, health, logistics and commercial sectors, working with more than 30 clients, rapidly expanding its workforce in doing so.

To view the Copa90 video, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmMVVuuWZ6E

For more information on New World Designs, go to www.newworlddesigns.co.uk and Waymark’s website is at www.waymark-it.com

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Lofthouse .