Virtual Africa

The Picture

Apart from being a very high definition image, which allows you to explore the stadium like never before, we’ve also built in functionality which will allow you to tag anything you find interesting and share the zoomed in image with your friends.

click to access

The idea

I can’t take full credit for the idea itself, like all good ideas it grew from a multitude of discussions and became a reality via collaboration. I remember discussing it with Rohan Strydom from Innovation Trampoline in mid 2009 while we were brainstorming the in3sixty system, but I was to busy to really go into it and the GigaPixel technology was still kind of new to us.

A few weeks later Justin Stobbs of and RW Liebenberg, two flash guru’s from http://www.actionscript.co.za , opened my eyes to the social media potential, after one of our Monday evening touch rugby gamea, but once again, time and resources made it fade into the background …

Then came the viral success of our Cape Town GigaPixel Image – it got 250 000 page views in the first 3 weeks of December and proved that people LOVE this type of technology.

I was discussing the idea with Dave Duarte earlier this year and when he got almost as excited about it as I was, I just knew I should make it happen sooner than later. Dave knows a thing or two about what works online and I’ve learnt to take his opinions seriously.

The problem remained: where, when and how?

(Who knew the Stormers would host a semi-final this year?)

By last week Wednesday all the puzzle pieces where lying in front of me:

- we knew we could create the image (we’ve been practicing a lot)

- in Tiaan Willemse, our super-hero developer, we had the know-how to create the tagging functionality

- and I discussed the idea with Bob Skinstad, while watching the Stormers playing against the Reds a few weeks ago – he was keen to help make it happen

Two hurdles remained…..

1. James Taylor, our head photographer, was in bed with a broken back (check out the full story here) and I really wasn’t keen on doing it without him. It was his 4th week in bed and he was supposed to stay there for another 2.

2. Honestly, I was a bit tired of doing cool things because they’re cool and not getting paid to do them.  I know it seems silly, but try and explain the internet and the value of interactive content to corporate marketing managers a 1000 times, and then watch them drop a few million of a TV ad – and you’ll understand the frustration.

Richard Branson

Anyway – then came Thursday morning…..

When I’m frustrated by the fact that my circumstances don’t reflect my ambitions, I say weird things to amuse myself.
One of my favourites is:”Branson doesn’t have to put up with this shit“.

It’s a bit of humour between my wife and I, and it functions as a kind of short hand for my emotional state.
When I use it as a reply to having to do the ‘little things’ in life, she knows I’m in bad place…

She would ask me if I’ll make sure I pay a traffic fine or the municipal tax, and I’ll reply ” Branson does not have to put up with this….”

Changing a nasty diaper, “Branson does not have to put up with this shit”  ….. and so it goes.

On Thursday morning, for some reason, every time I joked by repeating my ‘Branson mantra’, one of Richard Branson’s real slogans started popping up in my head: Screw it, let’s do it, Screw it, let’s do it.

By 10:00 I spoke with James and learnt that, against all odds he had started walking again – and that he was keen to give the project a go.

SCREW IT, LET’s DO IT indeed!

At 11:00 I shot off a mail to Mr Connected himself, Bob Skinstad, and by 15h00 we had permission from Rob Wagner to do the shoot. As they say, Bob’s you’re uncle …..

All that was left to do, was get the equipment ready and have Tiaan start on the coding.

GAME DAY

On the day, I went to pick up James at his cottage in Melkbos and headed towards the hallowed ground of Newlands.

We were like two kids – excitingly planning the best way to shoot and creating contingency plans for emergencies. What do we do if the dancing girls need the center spot 5 minutes before kickoff? How late can we leave the shooting? We need the most possible people, but don’t want to be standing in the middle of the field when Schalk Burger wants to use the spot to crush someone.

At the stadium, we met up with the dapper Mr Skinstad, all suite and tie for his commentator gig.

He introduced us to everyone necessary and lead us to the center spot where we spent the next 90 minutes ’till kickoff.

The shoot itself was tricky. You’ll see from the picture below that it seems like Jeff Ayliffe, the photographer who took it, used a flash – he didn’t, that’s just how bright the spot lights are!

Taking a picture directly into those spots was quite challenging and made the stitching process a bit of a nightmare.

Be that as it may, the experience of standing there with 50 000 people brimming with excitement and anticipation was immense. You can literally feel the sound when the crowd makes itself heard and it gives one a unique perspective on what home ground advantage can be worth…..

Since then we haven’t slept much, to be honest, but it’s been a hell of a ride getting this thing done and we’re really happy with the end result.

The image is also up on Bob’s site and what makes it EXTRA cool, is not the fact that you can zoom in and identify friends, family and weirdo’s, but that you can tag and share whatever you find.

Hope you have as much fun playing with the image as we had shooting it.

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