[Interview] Stefan Du Toit, CSO of Fancam

By Dave Mainella

One of the most remarkable adaptations of progressive technology and social engagement is Fancam, bringing gigapixel photography to large-crowd events and share-worthy immersive experiences to thousands of fans.  We got to talking with Fancam CSO Stefan du Toit about the secrets behind the process, brand outreach, and mobile marketing & interconnectivity.

…………………………………………

SoundCtrl - The Fancam website explains that, in creating these giant images, it’s not the technology that makes the magic… it’s how and by whom it’s used.  Who are these very special people that make up the photography and production teams?

Stefan du Toit - The passion that the Fancam experience instills in the user is mirrored by the team that put these together.  We have about 30 worldwide specialized photographers with years of experience in event photography.  This ensures that the raw material of each Fancam, i.e. the digital images, are of the highest quality.  The next step in the process is our production teams that stitch together these gigantic images, and then painstakingly go through every part of the 20 gigapixel image to ensure each fan is as clear and visible as possible to recreate the memory.  As a Fancam goes live 24 hours after the event, the production team often burns the midnight oil.

SC – Capturing the Fancam image takes between 3 and 15 minutes, producing hundreds of images with a composite resolution of around 20 gigapixels.  That’s a lot of data in a short amount of time!  What methods and practices have you developed to minimize that time? 

ST – All credit for this technique goes to our Director of Photography, James Taylor, for pioneering this technique.  Although I cannot give away our trade secrets, James developed this method and it is part of our rigorous training to become a Fancam photographer.

SC – How much planning happens before those crucial minutes take place?

ST – As with every event, planning is key.  This starts weeks before the event when our operations team works with the event team to ensure that the Fancam photography is not intrusive.  Our photographers will do a pre-shoot the day before to determine the best shoot position, light settings, lens selection, and access points.

SC – Exploring the Fancam portfolio, every single face appears incredibly clear and detailed.  What kind of editing goes into adjusting the imperfections of the captured images, to make sure “each and every fan is presented in the best way possible?”

ST – When ‘stitching’ a composite image, computers basically have to make millions of prioritization decisions and merge images accordingly.  They need to decide which pixel to keep, which pixel to delete, and which to adjust; the better you understand the process and the math behind it, the better you can customize the algorithms used to do the job.

Our particular strength lies in matching the correct photographic approach to the correct algorithm and then optimizing the hardware to work best with that selection.  It literally comes down to things like the type of RAM you use.

After you’ve checked all those boxes, the last thing to do is good old Photoshop manual labor. Hours of feathers erasers, levels, and polygon selection tools.

SC – The process of “tiling” the huge composite image into thousands of smaller images creates a layered approach that allows users to zoom in and explore without having to download large amounts of data, much akin to the technology behind Google Maps.  Are there other technological tools and methods of gathering and presenting Big Data that Fancam has adopted?  Are there some that you’ve pioneered?

ST – The short answer is yes.  We have a dedicated development team who ensures that we keep innovating.  Fan experience is their key objective, and the most recent accomplishment is our native iOS and Andriod apps, which are the first of their kind.

SC - Fancam is an attractive tool for brands to extend their reach beyond the single event, allowing fans to relive and share their experiences.  How can brands continue to directly connect with fans through Fancam?  Is there an integration of video and other interactive components?

ST - Because the Fancam technology was built from the ground up, we have a number of interactive features available for brands to connect with the fans on a Fancam.  Some of my favorite features include embedded pre-roll videos, ‘green screen’ videos placed within the crowd, customization of tags and treasure hunts.

The important thing however is to match the goals of the brand with the appropriate media or technology – and that’s something we’ve become really good at.

SC – You’ve done more than 250 events to date.  Has there been an increase in demand for Fancams?  Is the market for music events equally as strong as for sporting events?

ST – Yes, there has been.  More and more brands are looking for tangible, quantifiable returns on investment in the digital marketing space and because we’ve been able to consistently deliver great stats and data, interest is on a very pleasing curve. 

Historically, music makes up about 40% of all Fancams, and we expect this to keep growing as artists and brands see the value in connecting with fans through digital content.

SC – A truly global enterprise, Cape Town-based Fancam works with clients and events around the world.  How have you found fan engagement and response to differ from country to country?

ST – I would say that activation success has more to do with the type of the event than the location of it.  Fans at a music festival, for instance, are usually a more fragmented community than, say, a home game for a college football team.  In the football example you’ll find that the ‘degrees of separation’ between fans are much less than in the case of the music festival, where you will find fans of several different bands ‘co-inhabiting’ the same event.  Understanding these differences is really important, and knowing how to incorporate this understanding into digital marketing activations even more so.

The short answer, however, is no; Real Madrid fans are just as crazy about their team as Green Bay Packers fans – and luckily for us, they all like tagging themselves.

SC – 46% of Taylor Swift’s Fancam views were on mobile devices.  What was the breakdown of views between mobile browser and mobile app?

ST – Spherical gigapixel images have not been viewable on mobile devices until we released our app two months ago and the HTML5 viewer will only go live at the end of August, so making a call on user preference at this stage would be premature.  What we I can say is that we had 38,000 downloads of the iOS app for the recent UEFA Champions League Final in London and that it has had a significant impact on share-ability of the activations.

SC – It seems counterintuitive to view such a huge image on such a small device as a smartphone. Does the value to the user lie in sharing and interacting with the image and not necessarily in the picture itself? What do you think explains the popularity of mobile?

ST – That’s an interesting point, although I think with devices like the Nexus 7 and the iPad mini blurring the lines between smartphone and tablet, mobile is quite a diverse category in itself.  My personal preference is for a bigger screen experience, but the most important thing from an activation point of view is to be able to serve the fan in terms of whatever his or her preference is, and sometimes immediacy and access is more important to them than screen size.

We’ve also found that users have become more and more comfortable consuming high quality content on a smaller screen, so the general market direction has had a positive influence on the consumption of our content as well.

SC – Another high-profile artist that Fancam has worked with is U2.  An amazing intitial response in South Africa resulted in a total of 24 Fancams during the 5-month sold-out tour across the US and Canada.  Was the U2 tour a milestone for Fancam?  What kind of response was generated?

ST – The U2 tour was indeed a milestone for Fancam.  Not just because of the prestige of working with such an amazing team of people, but also because it is our CEO’s all time favorite band and one of the reasons he set out to create the technology.

SC – Does Fancam plan to introduce any upcoming new features, for either client or user?

ST – Fancam is constantly innovating for both the client and the user/fan.  We just completed our first Fancam in Russia for Red Bull and integrated the popular social platform ‘VK’, as an additional authentication tool for tags as well as another option for Russian fans to share the content.  The focus, of course, is to ensure that the fan has a great experience and that the sharing is easy and intuitive. 

Innovation for our clients has mostly been behind the scenes and we have put a lot of effort into delivering a turnkey solution for brands and agencies that work with us.  We know that most marketers are overworked and underpaid, so we provide everything from in-house design to social media activation.

SC – Where do you expect this field of large crowd gigapixel photography to go moving forward?  What’s the next step for Fancam? 

ST – Our goal is for Fancam to become a standard offering at most special events.  Every day more fans and clients get exposed to the technology so the awareness is building.

In terms of additional functionality, Fancam’s focus over the next year will be around integrating fan generated content.  Fans love Fancam as it is a post event congregation point, and enabling fans to upload comments, photos, and other social components will be a logical next step.  We also find that our clients often come up with a lot of the innovative ideas and we love to respond by making it happen.