| The Narrows Bridge, Perth, Western Australia.
3.00am December 22nd 1997 WA Standard Time,
to synchronise with 9am Dec 21st Hawaii Standard Time
for the inaugural Wrinkle in Time event. The Background: December 1997. On the QuickTime VR List, a bunch of QTVR enthusiasts were kicking around the logistics of a synchronised panoramic shoot at the imminent MacWorld. A lot of us weren't going to be there and would miss out. An inspired, creative, spontaneous list member from Hawaii, known as rabbett, came up with a brilliant suggestion which caught on like wildfire. His vision was that with only 5 days notice, at exactly 9am on 21st December 1997 Hawaiian Time, people all around the world would shoot a panorama, synchronising exactly, to capture a global moment. The panoramas were all uploaded to a website and were dubbed "Wrinkle in Time" after a novel by Madeleine L'Engel.
The thrill of knowing that at that very same moment around the world, in Alaska, and Paris, and Hong Kong, and a hundred other locations, our friends from the QTVR List were also shooting panoramas made the moment especially precious. When we raced home from the shoot, and logged onto the list, reports began to pour in from around the globe: experiences; triumphs; technical snags overcome; sheer delight. We were priviledged to be a part of this very rare and special moment of spontaneous global creative cooperation. All of this could not have happened without the technological nexus of the world wide web and Apple's QuickTime VR Technology, but it also could not have happened without Rob Abbett's inspiration and energy, and the enthusiasm and cooperation of all the participants.
Shoot Details: At 3am we shot our pano sequence of Perth City from the Narrows Bridge which spans the Swan River. The panorama takes in the bridge (with smears of light from occasional passing trucks and close-ups of the bitumen), the Kwinana Freeway access, Perth City skyline, the Swan River, Barb's head, the Christmas tree lights display at the Old Mill in South Perth, and the illuminated War Memorial on King's Park (the tall white obelisk floating in the darkness). It was a clear, breezy summer night, with a half moon. We forgot to bring the thermos of coffee, but a family-sized block of Cadbury's Fruit&Nut Chocolate kept us awake.
The strong sodium lighting is evident in the yellow tint, but the colour of the city lights is reasonably accurate. We were going to position the camera over the top of the railing but the wind was too strong and would have caused too much camera movement.
The Participants: Geoff Jagoe & Barb de la Hunty from Mastery Multimedia Pty Ltd, and Richard Jenkins from Curtin University of Technology.
Tech Specs: We used a Canon EOS 620 with 35-105 AF lens, with 10 second exposures at F8 onto KodaColor Gold III 400ASA. The prints were scanned on a flatbed scanner at 144 dpi for stitching in V2.0. Recent remastering saw postproduction adjustments done with PhotoShop 5, then compressed with Sorenson Codec at 75%, and stitched using QuickTime VR Authoring Studio.
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