Welcome to The Sandbox

--- PSST, JUST TAKE ME TO THE COOL STUFF ---
WHO WE ARE:
The Sandbox is a department within McClatchy's Video Lab that focuses on the future of visual storytelling. We're sort of an in-house R&D team. Think "Muppet Labs" but with a little less pandemonium.

We're a multi-disciplinary group that thinks about technology the way a set designer would think about set pieces. Some stories call for an orchestra pit, some call for trap doors. We want to make sure our journalists have all the latest tools and toys they need in order to communicate stories effectively. If they don't... then we'll invent something for them.
WHAT WE DO:
By design, our work can be rambling and multidirectional. So we try to stay within a few specific structures. We mostly confine our focus to lanes of strategic opportunty that we call "Dunes" and within those dunes we try to isolate our activities to certains types (or tactics) of activity.

TACTICS:
Experiments - Tinkering in order to learn
Projects- Applying new skills in the feild
Kits - Tools & tutorials for our teammates
Products - Footholds in new markets
DUNES:
360 VR    
Volumetric VR/AR   
Interactive Video   
Streaming   
Efficiencies   
Wildcard
HOW WE WORK:
We try to make everything we do public. This ensures that we're sharing what we learn, helps us challenge our assumptions, keeps a record of our failures and successes, and invites user feedback.

McClatchy is a big organization that touches many people all over the country: readers, journalists, advertisers and more. We hope this platform will be an effective way of communicating with you. Please leave lots of feedback. And don't be shy if you have questions or ideas.
OUR WORK




  • Class: 360° Video In A Nutshell

    A presentation on the best storytelling and editing techniques for 360° video

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  • TOOLS: HDML Cloner Box Pro

    A quick look at a piece of hardware that can record HD digital video from any source

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  • PROJECT: The Video Lab West V.R. Experience

    Explore a preview of Video Lab West in fully immersive virtual reality

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  • 360° Video Post-Production 101

    Use Adobe Premiere and the Skybox 360/VR plugin to edit your 360° video clips

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  • Use After Effects for 360 Post Production

    A guide for enhancing your 360° video with After Effects and Skybox

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  • VR Overview PPT

    A soup-to-nuts presentation, laying out how we advise newsrooms to think about VR.

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  • Parrot Portable Teleprompter

    A smartphone-based teleprompter with Bluetooth remote control and Dropbox account

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  • Insta360 One

    This 4K 360° camera can take stable motion shots and livestream

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  • OSMO+ Gimbal & 4K Camera

    A portable "Steadicam" with a handheld stabilizer rig and 4K zoom cam

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  • Structure IO

    A portable scanner that allows you to make digital 3D models

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  • RICOH Theta S

    This simple low-res 360 camera, shoots good stills and has live-streaming capability

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  • Samsung Gear 360

    This camera shoots 4K 360° video

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  • Nikon Key Mission 360°

    This 360° camera shoots 4k, auto-stitches and is waterproof

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  • Mevo for Live Interviews

    Going live with this 4k camera and included iPad looks like a multi-camera shoot.

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  • Verse Pathfinder Stories

    Exploring interactive storytelling and virtual touring using Verse

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  • Exploring ARCore 1.0

    How to set up an ARCore scene in Unity

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  • 3D Facebook Posts

    Facebook has added 3D Post support in the newsfeed. We need to know how to share our work this way.

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  • The Zed Stereo: Volumetric Video without Structured Light

    An assessment of the Zed Stereo camera's volumetric video capture abilities

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  • 360 with Stabilization and Gimbal Rig

    Compare moving 360 images taken on a gyroscope rig vs a camera with 6 pin stabilization

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  • AR enabled newspapers with Vuforia 7

    sprucing up a newspaper with Vuforia 7 enabled AR content

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  • Notes on Fine Stitching with Vuze

    Helpful tips for fine-adjusting stitch lines in Vuze's Humaneyes Studio

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  • "Little Planet" 360° Stills and Videos

    How to capture 360° photos and videos with the "Little Planet" effect

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  • 360 Video of Volumetric VR

    Making a 360° Video version of an interactive VR experience in Unity

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  • Volumetric Video in Unity

    Shooting volumetric footage with Depthkit and importing it into a Unity scene

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  • Embedding 3D Models

    Attach an embeddable 3D model viewing window to a clickable hotspot

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  • Personalized Videos

    Various methods for creating custom videos

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  • Scanning With Structure.IO

    Using the Structure Sensor and iPad Air 2 to create 3-D models

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  • Live Streaming in 360

    Setting up a Facebook Live feed in 360 video using RICOH's built-in live streaming feature

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  • 360° Video Cameras: A Comparison

    A side-by-side comparison of how different 360° cameras photograph the same scene.

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  • Motion Capture

    Create and edit motion-capture animation for use in Digital/VR presentations

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  • Ambisonic Audio

    Using ambisonic audio equipment to create realistic, motion-affected soundscape

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  • Amazon Alexa

    Create a McClatchy enabled voice assistant

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  • 3D Terrain

    Make a 3D mesh from public topographic information.

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  • Video Thumbnails

    Create thumbnails for a video tooltip

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  • McClatchy TV

    A little web app to play all of McClatchy's Video content.

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  • Motion Graphics for 360°

    Testing approaches to making graphics for 360° video

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  • Target based AR

    Using just a smartphone & an image marker our audience can manipulate 3D models.

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  • Hololens

    Getting familiar with the Augmented Reality device.

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  • A.I. Transcription

    Use artificial intelligence to transcribe big blocks of audio.

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  • RGB-D

    Volumetric Video using a structured light sensor

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  • GoPro-Grammetry

    Using a GoPro array for photogrammetry

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  • Hologram Pyramid

    A low-cost 3D display

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  • 360° Interactive Oval Office

    PoC for 360 interactive about Oval Office redecoration.

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  • Tango Scanning

    3D scanning, and delivery with Google's Project Tango devices.

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  • 360° Stills from Video

    Create 360° stills for Facebook from 360° video.

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  • BeardLapse - Stop Motion

    Testing DSLR stop-motion software & workflow

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