If you want to tell departing President Obama, “See you around,” you have a golden opportunity. A new 360-degree video tour of the White House, narrated by the president with an assist from his wife debuted Friday morning, a project of Oculus VR headsets and Facebook 360-degree video.
"The People's House" was produced by Felix & Paul Studios, a top VR shop actually based in Montreal but with a branch in Los Angeles. Recently it landed a deal to make VR films around 20th Century Fox films and characters. It’s also produced VR of LeBron James and the Clintons, but is most famous for its videos for Cirque du Soleil.
The new White House video is just 8-minutes long but a longer one is due later this year with full virtual reality effects. Produced in November and December, it was released through the White House Website. It’s also available on Facebook, of the White House's page.
No special equipment is needed to watch the new video.
The White House Website claims "The People's House" is the first 360-degree video tour featuring both the President and First Lady. But Michelle Obama narrated and appeared in a short 360-degree video earlier and the White House Christmas decorations are also featured in a previous videos that lets a user’s computer mouse look round and round.
The President is known to be a bit of a tech buff, at least compared to many politicians.
Obama made his VR debut last summer when he worked with Felix & Paul and Oculus as they filmed the president at Yosemite National Park, as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the National Park Service. And his farewell speech on Tuesday was also captured on 360-degree video, featuring interesting views of the crowd--and not-so-interesting video of the McCormick Place convention center’s ceiling lights.