WGAN-TV Podcast: How I Shot 2 Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 in 9 Days18295
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WGAN-TV | How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days | Guest: Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers | Episode: 176 | Thursday, 9 February 2023 | www.PremierImages.biz | @DouglasMeyers WGAN-TV Podcast | WGAN Forum Podcast  WGAN-TV Podcast | How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days | Guest: Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers | Episode: 176 | Thursday, 9 February 2023 | www.PremierImages.biz | @DouglasMeyers [b]WGAN-TV Podcast | How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days | Guest: Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers | Episode: 176 | Thursday, 9 February 2023 | www.PremierImages.biz | @DouglasMeyers WGAN Forum Podcast | How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days | Guest: Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers | Episode: 176 | Thursday, 9 February 2023 | www.PremierImages.biz | @DouglasMeyers WGAN-TV eBook | How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days | Guest: Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers | Episode: 176 | Thursday, 9 February 2023 | www.PremierImages.biz | @DouglasMeyers  WGAN-TV Training U WGAN-TV Training U (free course) | How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days | Guest: Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers | Episode: 176 | Thursday, 9 February 2023 | www.PremierImages.biz | @DouglasMeyers WGAN-TV | WGAN-TV | How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days | Guest: Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers | Episode: 176 | Thursday, 9 February 2023 | www.PremierImages.biz | @DouglasMeyers RCCL's Grandeur of the Seas Matterport Digital Twin courtesy of Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers Carnival's Conquest Matterport Digital Twin courtesy of Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers --- Douglas requests: Please do not post these on any sites. --- WGAN-TV Podcast | Douglas Meyers: "How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days" Hi All, [[b]WGAN-TV Podcast above / Transcript[/b] below ...] On WGAN-TV Live at 5 on Thursday, 9 February 2023, my Guest will be Boone, NC-based Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers showing and telling us about: => WGAN-TV Live at 5 | "How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days" Discussion Includes 1. Show and Tell about shooting two cruise ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera 2. Scanning Workflow 3. Post Production Workflow 4. How the client plans to use these tours 4. Douglas' thoughts about the Matterport Pro3 Camera 5. Any challenges scanning cruise ships? 6. Interesting things about scanning cruise ships 7. What Douglas will do differently scanning the next cruise ship 8. Other thoughts about scanning cruise ships? Additionally, I will ask Douglas about his "previous life" in entertainment: 1. Bizarro" on the TV show Superboy 2. Mr. Silver The Robotic Performer (45 TV shows and 15 Movies) 3. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCCL) Cruise Director (February 1980 o July 1985) Questions that I should ask Douglas Meyers during WGAN-TV Live at 5? Best, Dan Links WGAN Forum: @DouglasMeyers Website: Premier Images LinkedIn: Douglas Meyers YouTube: Premier Images Facebook: Premier Images LLC Email: douglas@premierimages.biz Coverage area: Linville, NC; Blowing Rock, NC; Hickory, NC; West Jefferson, NC; Lenoir, NC; Boone, NC; · Wilkesboro, NC; Banner Elk, NC; and North Wilkesboro, NC About Premier Images and Douglas Meyers (Source: LinkedIn) Premier Images is your number one Matterport 3D Virtual Tour service provider and Real Estate HDR photographer. We are the area's first and most experienced Matterport service provider in the area. I am Douglas Meyers and am happy to help you get this new technology for your listing up and on a 3D platform. As a FAA Drone pilot I shoot video and photos from high above the ground. We travel the World helping companies realize their 3D Virtual Tours and photographic needs. These tours are the future of digital information in today's new 3D Virtual World. We are FAA Drone Licensed and fully insured. Services also include: HDR Photography, 360 Photos / videos. We are a Zillow Preferred Photographer and a Google Street View Photographer. I was an International performer for almost 40 years. Mr. Silver was a robotic, magic performer that toured around the World from Conventions, TV shows and even Big films like "Iron Man 3". I became the youngest Cruise Director in the World at 23 yrs in 1983 and learned how the World and Cruise Industry worked. This was my college and I loved every minute of it and now I get to shoot these beautiful ships in 3D. ---   Use this We Get Around Network (WGAN) affiliate link to buy a Matterport Pro3 Camera via Amazon - WGAN.INFO/Amazon-300 - and receive - free - 12 Months WGAN-TV Training U in Matterport.  WGAN-TV Podcast Play List: Pro3 | WGAN Forum Playlist: Pro3  WGAN Forum Discussion: WGAN Cheat Sheet: Cost Worksheet for Matterport Pro3 Camera  Join the WGAN List | Join WGAN Forum  Matterport Pro3 Camera | Matterport Pro3 Camera Acceleration Kit  WGAN.INFO/pro3alerts | www.JoinWGAN.com | Text pro3alerts to 877-805-0960 | powered by texting platform: www.SimpleTexting.com  Get on the WGAN Map | View WGAN Map | Join WGAN Sponsor --- Transcript (video above) [00:00:02] Dan Smigrod: Hi all. I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. Today is Thursday, February 9, 2023, and you're watching WGAN-TV Live at 5. We have an awesome show for you today: How I Shot Two Cruise Ships with a Matterport Pro3 Camera in 9 Days. And, here to tell us about that experience is Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers. Hey, Douglas, good to see you. Thanks for being on the show; being our subject matter expert today. [00:00:34] Douglas Meyers: Thank you, Dan. My pleasure to be here. Hi everybody. [00:00:39] Dan Smigrod: Douglas, before we jump into today's topic, tell us about Premier Images. [00:00:45] Douglas Meyers: Premier Images is now seven years old. I'm in Boone, North Carolina, and I service a bunch of the areas around here. I live on top of a mountain; so I go to the Asheville area, Charlotte area, and Greensboro area, and also up here where the Appalachian State University is, which is Boone, North Carolina. I do Matterport, I do HDR photography, I'm an FAA drone pilot. Let's see: I do 360s, I do walkthrough videos. Almost a one-stop shop is the way I like to express myself in this business. [00:01:21] Dan Smigrod: Awesome. In a previous life, some entertainment experiences, and I think they actually might be relevant for today. Can you tell us about your previous life? [00:01:34] Douglas Meyers: Well, before I got into photography, which I've actually been doing now, real estate photography for about 16 years, and that's when I left LA 16 years ago, but I've been a performer since I was 17. I have been in 19 movies, 42 TV shows. If people want to look me up on IMDB, it's just Douglas Meyers and you can see several of my shows. One of my fun characters was called Bizarro. I played Superboy's evil twin brother on the TV shows Superboy from '89, '90 and '91, and that was a lot of fun. I got a lot of my start from a character that I created back in 1987 in Miami where I'm originally from, and that was called Mr. Silver and I was the world's only robotic magician and I painted myself all silver. If you want to look up YouTube, look up – Mr. Silver The Robotic Performer – and you can see clips of my own shows and some of the TV shows that I'd been on. Mr. Silver has been on Reno 911, Mr. Silver has been in Iron Man 3 all kinds of things for many years, and I'm also a magician. I was a cruise director for years with Royal Caribbean back in the '80s too, and that's how it's bringing us forward. Because now the very first ship that I shot in 3D, the full ship was the Grandeur of the Seas for Royal Caribbean. [00:02:59] Dan Smigrod: Awesome. In fact, as you walk us through one of the two cruise ships that you've shot, maybe you can even relate some of your cruise ship experience back to how that may be tied into this Matterport tour. [00:03:22] Dan Smigrod: Incidentally, I'll say to our audience, we're going to do a short walk through of one of the two ships, but you can see both tours in We Get Around Network Forum: www.WGANForum.com Go to the WGAN Forum search box, just put in – cruise ships – and you can go through the cruise ships at your pace. I'm going to just hit reload here so we can see the beginning of the fly-in of the ship. As I walk through this, how about providing some color commentary about shooting this ship and using a Matterport Pro3 Camera, Douglas? [00:04:02] Douglas Meyers: All right. Let's start off first with the Matterport Pro3 Camera. It was a great camera. I enjoyed – I use a Matterport Pro1 Camera that I've been using for seven years. Not even the Matterport Pro2 Camera, just the Pro1 has been my standby, I mean, my go-to camera all the time. The Matterport Pro3 Camera worked really nice in here because I could move further apart. I took anywhere from 12-15 strides, not footsteps but strides. A nice little walking stride in-between each Matterport scan. That made the scans much easier as far as the amount that I did. On the Grandeur of the Seas, I believe we did almost 900 scans altogether that put this together and Matterport also did something – We had an issue because the state room hallways, we could not shoot, they would not align. We'd two or three Matterport scans on a state room level, and then the next one would jump over to the back and we just couldn't get it to align properly so we could not do the ship in the full capacity that we wanted to, which would be going up and down each one of the state room hallways. We were relegated to just doing the positions in the public areas. That's what I wanted to say, sorry. We got to do all the public areas and within that public area, there were almost 900 scans in here. [00:05:45] Douglas Meyers: Doing the outside was great using the Matterport Pro3 Camera. I did have issues; sometimes on the inside. Let me go back to first of all saying if you're going to use a Matterport Pro3 Camera, please get a new iPad or one that is updated because I started using my older iPad, and then my very first night, 187 scans in, and the Matterport Capture app died. It just crashed. We never got it back. I had to go back and start using my iPhone 14 to do the rest of the Grandeur of the Seas. I really suggest if you're going to get a new Matterport Pro3 Camera; get a new iPad, or at least have one that's updated. I have a terabyte of storage and 16 gigs of RAM so the next ship when we did Carnival's Conquest, it went much easier. But we also did have a couple of problems and Matterport is working on it. I actually haven't used my Matterport Pro3 Camera since then because at home here in North Carolina, I use my Matterport Pro1 Camera to do homes and everything because with the Matterport Classic Cloud Account it's cheaper to do hosting. When we did the Carnival Conquest and put all that up, the next ship it was much easier, but we had areas that I will call a "black hole" or something. I don't know why, but my step-son, Michael, was helping me. He was on the ships with me providing assistance, and he had exactly the same issue, in exactly the same spot and we never even talked about it and the camera stopped spinning. Then we would move the camera for about 4, 5, 6 feet out of the way – to left or to the right – and then after a couple of more times, then it will start spinning again; so I'd get maybe another 100 spins in and get to another spot in the ship and it would stop spinning. We actually had to combine both cameras. We use both cameras, the original Matterport Pro1 Camera and the Matterport Pro3 Camera, when doing the cruise ships. When one Camera wasn't working, I had to use the other one. [00:07:56] Dan Smigrod: These two ships took you a total of nine days. I think some of our viewers might think, "Oh! You got to go on some cruise ships. You must have had a great time and this was a little bit on the side. " No, this was a full-time project, every moment you both were busy scanning? [00:08:13] Douglas Meyers: Well, if we weren't scanning, I was also doing videos because all the videos that are in the [Matterport MatterTags], most of them are all my videos. When you're seeing the pool activities, that was the activities while I was there and what I shot. [00:08:30] Douglas Meyers: Some of the public areas we shot from 1 am to 4 am in the morning when nobody was around, and then also the cleaning crew was also aware of us so if we asked them to take five-minutes off, they were happy to do that. That's how we got a lot of this stuff without people in it. [00:08:50] Dan Smigrod: What about when you did have people? I noticed that some people are blurred, some people are not blurred. How did you do the blurring, and then perhaps even how did your client react when perhaps all the people aren't blurred? [00:09:06] Douglas Meyers: Actually we're talking tomorrow. But as far as the blurring, I just used the Matterport auto-blur when I went in. It just said there are 1,200 blurs that we're going to do here and go ahead and start so I did that. It's very hard to go through every one of those scans. There are 900 scanned points to make sure that everybody is blurred out. Now, if they come back to me and say, "hey, a couple of people weren't blurred out," then I'll go back and use the blur tool and I'll find them and do it that way. But yeah, it seems to me, I think the people that are not blurred, you still can't even tell them. You couldn't say, "hey, that's Uncle Bob; unless you know, his sandals or his shoes or shirt." It was easy enough just doing the blur afterwards. [00:09:57] Dan Smigrod: I noticed sometimes the ship is in darkness and sometimes it's in daylight and sometimes you go from darkness to daylight. Can you talk a little bit about when you shot? Why did you shoot when you did? Where did you shoot when you did? I'm thinking of the ports. [00:10:17] Douglas Meyers: When I shot it at night from 1-5 am in the morning, I was in the lobby so the lobby goes out to one of the decks. I needed to connect that because tomorrow when I want to go shoot the decks when we're in a port, and it's nice and it's pretty outside, and most of the people are off the ship, then I have a connection point. That way I didn't have to open the doors and people would be in the lobby and all that stuff. When I shot all the lobby at night then I just did my connection point going outside. A lot of the doors when you go out the first door, it might be nighttime and then when you click over one more to the left or the right, then it goes into the daytime and showing the beautiful ports that we were in. [00:11:02] Dan Smigrod: Was there any trouble, challenges connecting inside – looking out – with a nighttime shot, stepping outside now in daylight? Was the transition a problem for any reason? [00:11:21] Douglas Meyers: Not at all. [00:11:22] Dan Smigrod: Not at all. [00:11:23] Douglas Meyers: Yeah, I didn't find anything. The Matterport Pro3 Camera just picked it up and just kept going. [00:11:28] Dan Smigrod: It sounds like your client was okay if there were people in the shots because there are people in the shots. But you did most of the shooting that you could at night for the interiors, and you did as much of the decks when you were in port. [00:11:49] Douglas Meyers: Yeah, that's correct. [00:11:50] Dan Smigrod: That was your strategy to say, "oh, we want to minimize the number of people." Let's shoot from – and what time of night is it literally 2-6 am in the morning 2-5 am? [00:12:04] Douglas Meyers: Anywhere from midnight-1 am – depending on – first of all, I was a RCCL cruise director back in the early '80s, so I think it really gave me a unique perspective to get onboard ships because I know how to deal with everybody. I know what the timing of dinners and theater and all that stuff is and where I could be and where I couldn't be at that time. Spending five years on cruise ships back in the day was really important for this because I knew what needed to be shot and I also know the other aspects too that we will probably get into later on which would be taking some of this and doing training, virtual tours for some of the cruise lines for their new employees that are coming on. They'll be able to do walk-throughs and see videos and all that stuff. [00:12:50] Dan Smigrod: I'll come back to that, if you don't mind, I'd like to stay on this topic because of your perspective as a cruise director. I've been lucky enough – I think my wife and I have been on seven cruise ships, including RCCL and Carnival. The theater generally isn't a majestic, huge, beautiful space, but I imagine that it's often busy either with rehearsals or events or performances. How did you coordinate having the space empty? [00:13:24] Douglas Meyers: Well, again, from midnight to 5 in the morning, most everything on that ship rather than the nightclub is going to be empty and clear. I'd say the difference would be if I was in some of the dining rooms and I'm shooting at night, you're not going to be able to see out those pretty windows. Other than that, I relegated a lot of it to working late at night when nobody is around and then trying to do the deck shots and things like that when we were in port when most of the people were off; because even during the day and at night it is not pretty doing the decks. I mean, I can do a little bit. When you do the pool area, there's usually a big movie screen up there, and then there's the lighting that's pretty at night. That's why I tried to do that double shoot where you get a little bit of seeing some of the deck at nighttime and all the pretty photos, and then it goes to the daytime stuff. [00:14:24] Dan Smigrod: Well, even when you did the theater spaces, all the chairs were in place. I didn't see any trash, so were you coordinating with the cleanup crew to be in these spaces before you actually moved into those spaces? [00:14:40] Douglas Meyers: Well, as soon as we get on the ship that very first day, I have a meeting with the hotel manager and we go over all of the aspects. I have a shooting schedule that I already anticipate before you even get there, so I just look at all the deck plans and I go through it one by one and say, "this is what I need to do this day and this day," I have a little schedule that I give to the hotel manager and then we go over everything to make sure that the shop manager knows that I'm coming Tuesday night at 10 pm for a half an hour. That the bar manager knows that I'm going to this bar then that bar. They have everything set up pretty nice; and the dining rooms too. [00:15:25] Dan Smigrod: Everything looked like it was set for you that I would describe it as a hot set, that it was exactly the way it should be for a photographer to pass through. That wasn't an accident. This wasn't like, "I'm going to wake up at two in the morning and I'm going to go... " No. You had coordinated where you would be – when you would be – as you said, so the bartender would have the bar area looking nice, the theater to be pristine. Did you run into any challenges where you were supposed to be some place and you got locked out? I'm thinking maybe the spa, you went to go do the spa and it was closed and then you had to go find somebody to let you in. [00:16:09] Douglas Meyers: Yeah, I would say there might have been a couple of spots like that throughout, like the kid's night club one night and basically all you do is just find somebody in security and that's usually hanging around and just, either if they don't have a key, they'll get a key. But again, since the entire ship knew that we were going to be there, things were understood. [00:16:33] Dan Smigrod: On a cruise ship was the hotel manager? [00:16:36] Douglas Meyers: Yes, very much so. [00:16:40] Dan Smigrod: Also, I wonder how that went. Because even though you were on a Royal Caribbean Cruise ship, a Carnival cruise ship, I don't believe that your client was actually either RCCL or Carnival. Can you speak a little bit about your client and then maybe how that got coordinated with the cruise ships for permission to do what you were doing? [00:17:03] Douglas Meyers: How this all got started is I think four or five years ago, my wife and I were on a cruise with MSC Cruises and I did a sample. I was there and I didn't tell anybody. Nobody knew anything. I just went on with my Matterport and shot late at night and did two things. We went to a cruise ship convention shortly after that and this went over everybody's heads, so I just left it on online and probably I think it was late October, the company called www.CruiseBound.com – They called me and they had found the sample of the MSC Cruises, and then they said, "we would like to talk further about possibly doing this" and I said, "well, if we're going to do this, we need to do two ships as a sample." Because it just wouldn't work with one, let's do two and Cruise Bound is a little over a year old and they're like Expedia, Hayak.com. They just sell cruises. We decided on these two ships. These two ships were two of their bestselling ships. That's what they wanted to use. That was the RCCL's Grandeur of the Seas and Carnival's Conquest. [00:18:11] Dan Smigrod: Why two? Why not just one ship? Why did it take two? [00:18:16] Douglas Meyers: Because I wanted to get the cobwebs out. I just saw one being, that's cool but if they're going to put money into doing two ships, then it's worth it to me because I also wanted to buy the Matterport Pro3 Camera with proceeds that I got from this job (which I did). I just thought it would be much better if we had two ships to choose from and two different cruise lines to see how it works, then they coordinated on their side with Royal Caribbean and Carnival and they were all about it. Matter of fact, the head of Royal Caribbean just got back to me the other day and just said, "Wow, what a fantastic job! I'm sending this off to everybody in the company." That was that. [00:19:05] Dan Smigrod: Congratulations, I hope it turns into a ton more business, particularly since now you've developed, "Oh! Well. Now I know if I'm going to do this again, what works and what doesn't work and why." I would imagine. [00:19:19] Douglas Meyers: Sure. [00:19:23] Dan Smigrod: I just could have imagined, you have this sample that you did on your own while you and your wife are on a cruise. I could just imagine how that conversation went. "Oh, I just want to bring another piece of luggage and it's just going to have my Matterport camera in it. Don't mind me but three in the morning and I'm going to sneak out of the room and I'm going to go find a space. ;-) Then you go to a cruise convention. And were you just totally blown away that they couldn't conceptualize this would be a useful, helpful tool to them? [00:19:56] Douglas Meyers: Oh, yeah. I mean, we bought a nice big TV with a touchscreen, so I had the Matterport tour on a 60-inch TV showing that off and talking and I think the company put us in the wrong – the convention people – I think they put us on the wrong floor because we just didn't have enough walk through, but the people that came by, they thought it was very cool and that was about it. That was all very disappointing. Now to come back four years later and it's coming back into fruition in somebody's actually saying, "hey, this is cool." Matter of fact, if this goes well right now, Cruise Bound has this on their [www. CruiseBound.com] and they're doing a test to see how – they want to convert it into sales. If it works out well, it turns out then we're talking 50-100 ships after that. [00:20:51] Dan Smigrod: That would be awesome. I should say because I just couldn't imagine there's a number of Matterport Pro3 Camera pros that are going to raise their hand and say, we can help you with that. We can help you with that. Douglas's website: www.PremierImages.biz www.PremierImages.biz And, in the We Get Around Network Forum: @DouglasMeyers I imagine that if you get that order, you're going to need some help with some other Matterport Service Providers that have Matterport Pro3 Cameras. [00:21:32] Douglas Meyers: They've already said that. They said, "if this goes, you better hire more people" and I said, "I'm on it." [00:21:39] Dan Smigrod: Because I would imagine when they say yes, we would like more ships, they don't want a linear Douglas doing one a week for the next three years, they want their ships like pronto. [00:21:53] Douglas Meyers: Yeah, I said, tomorrow actually, we have – unfortunately, the lady that I've been dealing with at Cruise Bound has gone through a lot of family issues in the last three weeks, her mother and stuff, and so now she's just now getting back into the office and so we're going to sit down tomorrow and really hammer out the rest of this. Because one of the other things that we're probably going to be doing is I'm going to start breaking the tours down. I've actually already done it, so there's one now, just the fine dining steak restaurant. I'm going to start breaking those down so when people go to the website, [www.CruiseBound.com] and start looking, they don't necessarily have to go through the whole ship. If they want to just see the lobby area. We will probably do seven to 10 specialized areas for each ship. Some people can just "fly" right into and see those. [00:22:43] Dan Smigrod: That's awesome. That might be one for every restaurant, might be the theater, might be the disco, might be the pool areas, it might be the spa area. [00:23:01] Dan Smigrod: Excuse me, does Cruise Bound [www.Cruisebound.com] Does Cruise Bound in addition to selling cabins, also do the add ons like spa up-sell or a paid restaurant? [00:23:20] Douglas Meyers: I don't think so. I mean, I don't think they get a cut. [00:23:24] Dan Smigrod: But it's something that they want in order to help a perspective cruiser, if that's the right word to make a decision about that particular ship. [00:23:38] Douglas Meyers: Right. Now if you go to almost any cruise website, all you're going to see are a few photos of the pool, a couple of bars. Some people have done a few 360s, but the information to view a ship that you might possibly want to go on is almost nil. I don't understand, they almost really don't care. [00:24:01] Dan Smigrod: It's very interesting because my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary on a cruise just prior to COVID. We did get an upgraded suite, nice cabin to celebrate our anniversary. The amount of visuals that there were to understand that space and say, "Oh! What's the difference between this cabin? This suite? This suite? This cabin? This cabin? " was very hard. At least at the time when we were looking, there were no 360s, certainly no Matterport, and you're looking at maybe some tightly edited beauty shots, but you can understand the space. It's surprising. If you're going to spend a few thousand dollars to go on a cruise for a week, it seems like you might want to have some visuals that help tell the story to make a confident decision. You did the ships, but you didn't do the state rooms. You didn't do the cabins. [00:25:10] Douglas Meyers: I didn't do the cabins. I did the cabins in 360, but I didn't use them. I liked the video that I did better. It's a walk-through video. When you go into each Matterport tour of these cruise ships, the very first you're going to hit is you're going to land on the lobby and off to the left, there are little purple icon. Those will be videos of the state rooms that now you can see them. Again, this was working out the bugs and everything and since I didn't do the state rooms because I couldn't go down the hallway to connect them. Then I realized later, well, I could have done them individually, and they would be in their own separate links. That's a question for tomorrow with Cruise Bound, do you like the videos? or do you think we'd like to, the next time, go back in and actually do a 360? I liked the videos because I did some of them when we were out at sea. I actually did a nice – out the porthole – looking out at the beautiful ocean and then pulling back in, showing the room, which I can't do with Matterport. [00:26:16] Dan Smigrod: Did you provide color commentary going back to your experience in entertainment? [00:26:22] Douglas Meyers: No. We just put music to it. They didn't want any voice overs, so just a little music was fine. [00:26:31] Dan Smigrod: Cabins. Frankly, I'm going to guess if you were asked to have done every cabin type, there probably wasn't enough time. The changeover from guests leaving the ship at 88 am and guests coming on the ship at 4 pm gives you a really super-tight window to try and do state rooms. [00:26:57] Douglas Meyers: That was part of the reason because the second ship, Carnival's Conquest, when we did that, we got on at 8 am in the morning and we started shooting at 9 am. Because they already knew we were coming, so they already had the five state rooms cleaned and ready to go. All I had to do was walk in and do some nice little quick video. I also did 360s, but yeah, we shot – Inside a cabin you get three, maybe four spins on a Matterport. Doing the five cabins only took us about two hours to do those five cabins, if that. We started working the moment we got on board. [00:27:38] Dan Smigrod: How many cabin types do you think there are on a typical ship? [00:27:42] Douglas Meyers: Average, I will say 5-6 different state room types. [00:27:47] Dan Smigrod: That's it. That would be enough to make a confident decision. Your bathroom and maybe a backwards mirror image facing the other direction than what you shot, but it's going to be the same look, feel, square footage. [00:28:01] Douglas Meyers: All of that, yeah. [00:28:03] Dan Smigrod: I suppose it's still missing the exact view. If you're really getting a specific suite with a balcony, with the view, well, I guess it's going to be the ocean. ;-) Well, not always, it actually could be an obstructed view. [00:28:22] Douglas Meyers: Well, I had to be creative too on this one because when we shot Carnival's Conquest and we started shooting at 9 am in the morning in Miami, we were in port. When we did the larger suite with a larger balcony, when I came out back and opened the door, there was another cruise ship facing us. If you did Matterport there or anything, when it spins, you're just going to see the ship there. In the video, what I did is I videod the whole room and when I got to the balcony, I started low on the balcony and started coming up. Then I took a different balcony shot when we were out at sea and spliced that together so when I started to pan up, it looked like it should have been that view. --- (Continues below ...) |
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| (Continued from above ...) --- [00:29:08] Dan Smigrod: It wasn't the competing cruise ship going by? [00:29:12] Douglas Meyers: Right. [00:29:13] Dan Smigrod: The beauty shot of the competing cruise ship going by. ;-) For the most part, you shot this with a Matterport Pro3 Camera. I heard you say you used the Matterport Pro1 Camera at certain places – for certain problems – that still not quite sure what caused that. Could you have done the entire project with a Matterport Pro1 Camera? [00:29:40] Douglas Meyers: I could have, but the outside stuff would have had to have been shot very early in the morning or late in the evening and that would have been really taxing. [00:29:57] Douglas Meyers: [Sun infrared challenges.] It's possible, but I'm glad I had the Matterport Pro3 Camera. [00:30:01] Dan Smigrod: I'm thinking three challenges: 1) is daylight solved with the Matterport Pro3 Camera. 2) was the distance that you could put between scans and have them be successful with the Matterport Pro3 Camera versus a Matterport Pro1 or a Pro2 Camera and 3) I'm just guessing, maybe I'm wrong, with the Matterport Pro3 Camera, did you feel like it's more reliable in stitching from one scan to the next, to the next, to the next at that greater distance versus trying to use a Matterport Pro1 or Pro2 Camera? [00:30:40] Douglas Meyers: Well, there was a trial and error period. As soon as I got out there, especially when I was on the decks and especially in the daytime part, the Matterport Pro3 Camera did connect very well. I had very few missed connections. If so, I was either just a little too far out or around a corner, something that it just didn't see in the last one, but I think the Matterport Pro3 Camera – it worked very well for me other than when it stopped scanning. [00:31:11] Dan Smigrod: Was it related to mirrors or windows or glass? [00:31:16] Douglas Meyers: When did they stop scanning? [00:31:17] Dan Smigrod: Yeah. [00:31:18] Douglas Meyers: No. [00:31:19] Dan Smigrod: Could it have overheated because you were going for a long period of time? [00:31:24] Douglas Meyers: No, because it wasn't a big deal at the beginning, but I would say one of two things. Either it was a software error, which Matterport has now done two firmware updates since then and they keep calling me and saying, "is it working?" "I haven't used it yet, but I will." The other thing is it's possible that some of the areas on the ship, like I said, could be a "black hole" ... It could have been an area that right underneath me was all kinds of Wi-Fi or electronics or radar and things like that. Those could have thrown off the signal inside the Matterport Pro3 Camera. [00:32:03] Dan Smigrod: Yes, we've actually had some reports in the We Get Around Network Forum (www.WGANForum.com), going back, I want to say, seven or eight years where a Matterport Service Provider ran into the issue where there was so much electronics in the space. That was everyone's conclusion about why there were some challenges. [00:32:23] Douglas Meyers: I did [Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa] a while back and everything went great until I went downstairs to the bottom level and it took me twice as long to do the bottom level because of that issue. I think that's what it could have been. [00:32:40] Dan Smigrod: Did you solve it just by scanning closer together? [00:32:44] Douglas Meyers: Well, once I found the "black hole" it was then moving the camera 5-6 feet out of that black hole, finding my connection point, and then just moving on. [00:32:55] Dan Smigrod: Ah! Got it. Good to know. We've talked about people, we talked about blurring people, we've talked about the sun. I presumed that that was not an issue at all with the Matterport Pro3 Camera. [00:33:08] Douglas Meyers: No. [00:33:09] Dan Smigrod: The distance in terms of your paces. [00:33:19] Dan Smigrod: Did you feel like the time that you blocked out to do each of the levels that you did a good job predicting [time required], or there is a lot of learning about actually how many decks you could do in a day? [00:33:36] Douglas Meyers: No. I had enough time. The first ship was five days long. Then the second ship was four days and the four-day one. I'm going to tell you I think that is the shortest amount of time I will ever – I will never do a three-day cruise and get a full ship. I had enough time. Like I said, since I was a cruise director, and I've been there and done that for so many years, I knew how the flow of a cruise ship works and how the people there work and my working with them was easy-peasy because I'm a performer, I was a cruise director, I know how to talk to them. They know what to expect and they saw the sample that I did and they just went, "Oh my gosh, we want that!" So what can we do to make your job easier, Douglas? [00:34:25] Dan Smigrod: Isn't that awesome? You actually did a little show and tell with the people on the ship to help get them excited about what you're going to do to help "open doors"... get things to look right, nice, and be available when you need it to be scanning. [00:34:46] Douglas Meyers: Correct. Both ships, both companies, everybody on board, they were so nice and so helpful. I have to tip my hat to all of them. They were great crews on both ships and I appreciated that. [00:34:59] Dan Smigrod: Always helps to work with a nice client that is excited about what you're doing and helping make things happen. What do you think were some of your learnings? You've mentioned, it sounds like you would never do a cruise ship again unless you had the fastest/latest iPad that had the most memory and it had the fastest processor on it. That seemed like it was really good learning. What else was your takeaway of, "Okay! When we go to our third full cruise ship, we're going to check that box?" What else? [00:35:41] Douglas Meyers: What else? I don't know. I think I had it pretty much under control by the time I finished the second ship. Matterport is not a science, we just go out there and scan. It's just knowing what you're shooting. I already knew I would go over those deck plans one by one. When I get a cruise ship deck plan, I actually start counting how many scans I think it's going to take me to do that area. I know that on an average now, an average size ship is – each deck could be anywhere 40-50 scans. I've learned those things, I've learned that I want to continue shooting late at night. Like I said, some of the dining rooms have beautiful back windows and you like to be able to see out there, so I might start adding a little bit more spice by doing some of the nighttime and daytime things. But the hardest part about that is when you're going in to watch the Matterport virtual tour, you clicked on this one in your day time when you don't know that you can click over here and go to the nighttime one unless you do [a MatterTag] and blah blah blah, and say that. I think sometimes [MatterTags] are a little bit of an overkill. I don't know how many I think I have. I have 45 [MatterTag] icons on one of the ships, I would hate to see 80. To me, that would just be overkill [tagging] the nighttime or the daytime shot. [00:37:20] Dan Smigrod: How about in terms of post-production, you obviously did a lot of Matterport MatterTags, you still had a lot, you had some with videos, some with gifs and with photos, some with text. Did you have a conversation with the client about that? Do you just say, "we'll do what we think makes the most sense, and then you can critique and comment on that?" [00:37:43] Douglas Meyers: No. We went the other route. I told them, all you have to do is say the deck 5 is the lobby, and you want the lobby, and tell me the description and show me the picture or the video that you want. They did a great job of doing all 45 [MatterTag content prep]. I mean, I had deck 5, deck 6, deck 7, so all I really had to do was just go in and decide where I wanted to put the icon in that venue, and then I already had her description and my video or photos that she wanted. They made it quite easy for me, which was great. [00:38:25] Dan Smigrod: It sounded like they were perfectly fine with user-generated content, your content, as opposed to giving you a video that they shot? [00:38:34] Douglas Meyers: Well, they don't have – Some of the videos that I didn't do are videos from the cruise line themselves, and they are pretty much generic stuff. There was one in the casino. It was a quick gif file, people gambling real quick. But it's not the casino that we shot, but it was just a casino in general. Whatever I didn't cover or we didn't get as far as video-wise, they filled it in with the other pictures or a little video from the cruise line itself. [00:39:10] Dan Smigrod: Talk to us about Matterport cruise ship use cases. I get it that you could use this to help make a decision to book a cruise on one of these ships, what are some of the other use cases that you anticipate that either www.CruiseBound.com – will use this for? Or, I think you started to talk about training related to the cruise lines themselves. [00:39:35] Douglas Meyers: Well, Cruise Bound will only use this as generating more sales for them. What we're going to talk about tomorrow in my book is how to get this – In my opinion, I think they are doing a disservice to themselves. The only way you can find these Matterport tours through [www. CruiseBound.com] right now is if you go to their website, of course, and you say, "I want to take a five-day cruise in the Caribbean out of Miami." They're going to show you four different cruises. One of those cruise ships is Carnival's Conquest. Then you click on it. Then once you click on it, it says, "would you like to see this in 3D or a virtual tour of the ship?" That's one concept that I need to talk to Cruise Bound about tomorrow. I think this needs to be more viral because we need to get people excited about going in and looking at the cruise ships on these Matterport tours. [00:40:28] Dan Smigrod: Yes. Douglas, you published the two tours to the We Get Around Network Forum. (www.WGANForum.com) Would it be possible for you to come back and add a deep link to www.CruiseBound.com – a deep link that gets you to that five-night cruise on RCCL's Grandeur of the Seas or the Carnival's Conquest? So you can see Matterport tours in the wild? [00:40:54] Douglas Meyers: I think so. I'll look at that when we finish up here and see if I can. [00:40:59] Dan Smigrod: Okay. That would be awesome. That said, if you want to go to www.CruiseBound.com and see if you can find it, the first one is RCCL's Grandeur of the Seas, Grandeur of the Seas, and is that a five-day, four-night? [00:41:19] Douglas Meyers: That was [four nights and five days]. [00:41:26] Dan Smigrod: Five-day cruise, so four nights, five days. The other one is Carnival's Conquest, Carnival's Conquest, that would be an interesting question about whether you can even find it on: www.CruiseBound.com One would think it would be on the front page as a way to tease taking the Matterport tour of a five-day cruise experience. [00:41:52] Douglas Meyers: The first issue that they would have with that is they don't have what I would call a website page. Their front page (www.CruiseBound.com), all it does is says, "you want to go on a cruise?" "Where do you want to go?" "Where do you want to go out of?" "How long do you want to go?" There's no way of really looking at anything else because I said, it's like Kayak and Expedia. There's only places to fill in where you want to go and what you want to do, and then they start bringing you down to the ship section. [00:42:26] Dan Smigrod: We'll just at least say to our viewers, "Save some money. Go to www.CruiseBound.com and it's Kayak for cruise ships." [00:42:34] Douglas Meyers: Correct. [00:42:35] Dan Smigrod: Okay. [00:42:36] Douglas Meyers: To finish off the other question, "so what else I can do with this is?" I also see this for training for the cruise lines themselves. Because being onboard cruises, I've seen new employees come on, have no idea where they're going and what they're doing. We'd be able to do a background show from behind the scenes. Going into where they do all the cooking, where they do all the other background stuff, and do those tours just for the cruise lines, just for training purposes. [00:43:15] Dan Smigrod: That's cool. To be clear, the two ships that you did Matterport tours of do not include the behind the scenes. Frankly, even as a person who's been on a cruise, I would find it interesting to be able to go see some spaces that perhaps were not – [00:43:33] Douglas Meyers: You're not allowed to go into. [00:43:34] Dan Smigrod: – not allowed to go where it's not practical for them to bring thousands of people into a particular location on the ship. [00:43:42] Douglas Meyers: We've talked about that: possibly going up to the bridge, possibly going down to the engine room. A few simple things like that too might be on the next ship. [00:43:55] Dan Smigrod: That might actually be a different client for you because that might not be www.CruiseBound.com that might be the cruise ship itself. That's interesting because it's opening up some doors for you having now done the Matterport tours of two major brands, RCCL – Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd. (Royal Caribbean Group) And Carnival Cruise Line, that may just open up some doors for some other business opportunities. Training is one example. [00:44:22] Douglas Meyers: Even if we just go to Cruise Bound and do it again, the next ship I go on, I will talk to the hotel manager and get behind the scenes tours so I can show what I can do to another cruise line later on. If they don't get it yet, I'll make sure they understand it later on. [00:44:42] Dan Smigrod: I know there's a lot of interest in – when you publish that to cruise ship examples to the. We Get Around Network Forum (www.WGANForum.com). Do you think this is something that, "Oh! I've been shooting Matterport for five years. I have a Matterport Pro3 Camera. I'll just contact the cruise ships." This is really because of your understanding of the cruise business, your relationships that you've developed over time. I could imagine that if someone really wanted to do a cruise ship, they'd probably be more likely to do it for your company, Premier Images (www.PremierImages.com) rather than trying to figure out how to do it on their own. [00:45:27] Douglas Meyers: Well, I can tell you this, when the cruise ships first saw this four or five years ago when I did that and they didn't get it, this is now starting the ball rolling. The cruise line can go out and get any Matterport person they would want to. I would assume that if they were going to reach out to somebody, they'd reach out to the company that's already done three ships: two full ships and then a sample and knows the ins and outs of a ship. [00:46:01] Douglas Meyers: I told Cruise Bound, I was uniquely qualified to shoot this for them. While I was on there, I also did training videos for when I go to the next level and hopefully I can hire some extra Matterport Pro3 people. I have started creating some training videos that explain what I'm doing and how I'm doing it onboard ships. [00:46:24] Dan Smigrod: It may not be obvious. You just think, "Oh! Well, I'm going to go do this space." Well, you might be halfway through doing the theater that looks empty, and I'm all of a sudden, here comes an event. If you're not coordinating with the hotel manager on the ship, you're going to be in their way and you're not going to get what you want. It sounds like because you were a Cruise director, that you spent a lot of time on Cruise ships speaking the language of the hotel manager. That probably just gave them a lot of confidence in the shorthand conversation you could have and the way that you ask the questions. [00:47:12] Douglas Meyers: I think so. Also when I was talking to the head person at Royal Caribbean and then Carnival, they also understood that I knew what I was talking about going on board ship, how to get it done. What time to shoot it. Where to shoot it. They understood too that my knowledge was what they needed. [00:47:35] Dan Smigrod: Do you think there'll be a possibility instead of saying, "Okay. You got five days to shoot this ship, so that they might put you on the ship for two full cruises so that when you shoot outdoors, it's not a cloudy day, when you shoot outdoors? Because when I look at your tours, I go, "On! Well that's interesting. There was a rainstorm in the distance on that particular tour." That's not typically what you tell people when you go on a cruise. "It's always sunny. It's nice. It's beautiful." But there's a rainstorm coming. [00:48:11] Douglas Meyers: Yeah, it's the Caribbean. [00:48:16] Dan Smigrod: It's okay. It is what it is and that's the story that we captured as it was. [00:48:22] Douglas Meyers: I think at this point it is what it is. It would really depend on a three-day cruise, I would have to say I need to be on here for two cruises to get what I want and do it right. Anything – a 4, and 5 day cruise – If I missed – say tomorrow we're in Grand Cayman and it's just a rainy day and that was my day to shoot the decks, and then the next day is a day at sea. Those are the things you have to juggle and learn. I don't know that they would put me up for another Cruise just to take one more shot of that to make it look nice, because you can always take some video and do the MatterTags and show a video of what a Caribbean island – it's pretty and what it looks like, normal and not rainy. [00:49:20] Dan Smigrod: Did the Cruise Director make any announcements about what you were doing or documented in any newsletter that went under cabin doors? "Hey, just want to let you know...." [00:49:34] Douglas Meyers: No. That's a good question though, but no. They didn't tell anybody because it was really funny. There's one old guy. He was in the buffet area when I was coming through the buffet shooting that during the day, and he kept looking at me, and then I went out to the pool area straight after that and then he moved out to the pool area and then he walked right up to the camera. I swear it looked right in the lens. He goes, "what is this thing?" I said, "sir, I'm just shooting a 3D virtual tour." "I hope I'm not in it." I said, "well, sir," and he goes, "If I am, I'm going to have you arrested." [00:50:17] Douglas Meyers: "Arrested for what?" He just walked away and that tickled me pink. Because I think if you tell everybody, if you put it out there, people can start saying, "I don't want to be in it, I don't want this" and I don't understand the blur effect and that you won't be seen. [00:50:37] Dan Smigrod: I know I was out doing some Google Street View and I was going to be in a park. I got one of those yellow construction things – vest – and I put it on and somehow that made me look official and people just left me alone. That was how I solved what you're describing, "he's wearing a yellow vest! He must be official." "Stand clear of the guy with the vest!" [00:51:03] Douglas Meyers: I always wear my shirt, so it's got my name on it and everything, and I'm always dressed professionally, and so is my stepson. The good thing about the Matterport Pro3 Camera is that it goes so fast, it's 20-30 seconds or so before – when you look over and you say – "I'm going to go ask him a question," I've already moved. I didn't get too many people asking me, "what was I doing." I got some, but not too much. And that was the only guy that had a problem with it. ... [00:51:39] Dan Smigrod: If you were the Cruise Director and you were going to make an announcement, let's hear a 30 second description of what's about to take place by Douglas Meyers – the President and Founder of Premier Images? [00:51:57] Douglas Meyers: I can't hear you, I didn't move. [00:52:03] Dan Smigrod: Let's see, you froze. [00:52:07] Douglas Meyers: There'll be shooting in and around there you are. Did you catch me or should I start over that? [00:52:15] Dan Smigrod: What I'd like to ask you is that. Since you were a Cruise Director in your previous life, let's hear your PA announcement for 30 seconds talking about Premier Images Founder and President Douglas Meyers and what he's going to be doing on the next five days on this RCCL Grandeur of the Seas ship? Maybe we'll turn [your scanning] into an entertainment experience. [00:52:42] Douglas Meyers: I don't know if I'd be thirty-seconds, so tell him that much. It would be more like, "Ladies and gentlemen, this week we will be having a film crew on board ship. They will not be getting in your way, they will be just filming all of the fun and activities that are on board ship. No one will be recognized and we hope you enjoyed the cruise." Simple and sweet, I would have done it. [00:53:05] Dan Smigrod: The Matterport Pro3 Camera: you've obviously used it a lot. Other than the fact that you're Matterport Pro1 Camera is part of the Matterport Classic Cloud Plan – which is no longer available to anyone going forward – that's 2019 and before pricing, if you had a choice, would you be shooting all your properties with a Matterport Pro3 Camera – if you didn't have that, it's less expensive with the Matterport Classic Cloud Plan issue? [00:53:36] Douglas Meyers: Yeah. I'm still looking for – I haven't done a Matterport Pro3 Camera outside. I've done an inside but because I live in the mountains, so sometimes it's hard to go around the house. I'm looking forward to the first time I can actually do that and get that nice Matterport dollhouse view. But yeah, I would use the Matterport Pro3 Camera for everything if their pricing was a little bit more easy on our budget. [00:54:05] Dan Smigrod: Pricing being the Matterport Cloud Plan which is way different for Classic versus the current pricing. Are you happy that you bought the Matterport Pro3 Camera? If you had to buy it again – Would you tell people, "I was happy with the Matterport Pro3 Camera. Buy it." [00:54:24] Douglas Meyers: I was very happy with the Matterport Pro3 Camera. For me, again, it's the Matterport hosting as far as that's concerned, I would love to use it for everything because – matter of fact – I'm going to be doing a house and in another month that I've done before. This is a 12-bedroom home with a pool, an Olympic-size pool, and the pool house itself is a 2,000 square foot house with the pool. Now I can do the house, I can do around it, I can go to the pool, I can go outside. Yeah. I would love to be able to do that, but you also have to “up charge” a little bit more because even if I was on the Matterport Classic Cloud Plan, it's still taking me more time. [00:55:09] Dan Smigrod: Really the more important question about that house, Douglas, does the homeowner need to adopt any children? ;-) [00:55:17] Douglas Meyers: Exactly. There you go. ;-) [00:55:20] Dan Smigrod: 2,000 square foot pool house, I love it. Before we say, "bye," is there anything that we haven't discussed about doing Cruise ships that you go, "Oh! I really wanted to talk about that today?" [00:55:32] Douglas Meyers: No, nothing. First of all, you said earlier it sounded like you had a fun time and everything on the Cruise, we worked our tushies off. There were only a few times that we took a hot tub late at night at 10 pm at night before going out and actually starting working – my stepson and I. But other than that, we worked a lot. It's not an easy thing to do on a cruise ship and it's not as easy as I thought it was going to be, but it was exactly what I thought it would be when I got there and I started doing it. Did I have fun? No, not at all. Was it interesting to shoot? Yes, it was. Would I do it again? Absolutely. [00:56:16] Dan Smigrod: Awesome. Douglas, thanks for taking us on a Matterport cruise ship tour. [00:56:22] Douglas Meyers: My pleasure, and thank you for inviting me on your show. I look forward to hearing from some people if they enjoyed it. And, yes. Hopefully opportunities later on when Cruise Bound says, "Douglas, let's go full force." And I can't do it on my own and my stepson will be helping me, but I'm sure there's going to be – I'll be reaching out to a few people here and they're. [00:56:45] Dan Smigrod: Awesome. We've been visiting with Douglas Meyers. Douglas is the Founder and President of Premier Images. You can find him at: www.PremierImages.biz Also in the We Get Around Network Forum (www.WGANForum.com) @DouglasMeyers For Douglas in Boone, North Carolina. I'm Dan Smigrod in Atlanta – the Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum and you've been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5. |
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