GALY tasked 360 Labs to create an immersive video to help share their mission to save our planet by transitioning the world to cellular agriculture. They’ve done groundbreaking work to produce cotton in a lab, which could drastically cut back on the amount of water and land needed to make products like clothing for the demanding fashion industry.
“How do we communicate the size of this problem to the world in a way that helps them see what we see?” asks GALY Product Manager Anat Tewari. “We felt that creating a VR film of our work and the need for sustainable technologies was the answer.”
Bringing 360 Labs to Brazil
In order to understand just what is at stake, GALY brought 360 Labs to the heartlands of Brazil. The Brazilian rainforests are vital to our global climate and a habitat to many species found nowhere else on earth, but deforestation due to agriculture and cattle ranching has greatly reduced the rainforests and natural areas. GALY’s CEO and founder, Luciano Bueno, is a Brazilian himself, and it’s only appropriate to begin GALY’s story of sustainability in Brazil.
GALY aims to prove that cellular agriculture can create products, like cotton and coffee for example, without needing to use millions of acres of land. To accomplish this, they commissioned 360 Labs to create a stereoscopic 3D 360 video.This experience brings the viewer into the heart of Brazil in the state of Mato Grosso, to a beautiful national park known as Chapada dos Guimarães. In contrast, we also bring you to cotton fields that are seemingly endless, extending as far as you can see to the horizon.
We toured GALY’s state-of-the-art labs in Sao Paulo, and a bioreactor facility, for a brief dive into the technology. A lead scientist at GALY was the guide for the overall experience. We interviewed 6 of GALY’s employees in varying roles to get their perspective on the important work GALY is doing and why they wanted to be a part of it. GALY sent their lead scientist and an engineer with us to Mato Grosso to be our guides and our interpreters.
To make the best use of our time in Brazil, 360 Labs sent a crew of only 2 to move quickly and capture as much as possible. The Insta360 Pro2 was our main camera, recording at 8K per eye in stereoscopic 3D. The weather was a constant challenge. We had to protect our equipment from sudden downpours, and had sweltering heat in the afternoons that would cause our cameras to overheat.
We sourced and rented a local drone and brought our own Insta360 Sphere camera as a portable and quickly deployable 360 aerial option. We brought a 3D printed mount and Insta360 X3 as a backup option when we had more time for setup at each location. Local laws prohibited us from flying anywhere within the official national park boundaries, but we still managed to capture several impactful aerial scenes including a recently slashed and burned field. The aerial shots helped to illustrate just how vast the farm fields are in Brazil, they’re beyond anything we’ve ever seen in the United States.
Our custom built remote dolly system, ROVR, was deployed in the labs and bio-reactor facilities to add some walking speed motion throughout the guided tour. It’s minimalist design and slick tires make for very smooth travel for the Insta360 Pro2 without the need for a gimbal.
With many of our startup clients, budgets are often tight. We made very efficient use of our time. In just 10 days in Brazil, we accomplished a bioreactor facility tour, shot 6 interviews in GALY’s offices, toured their lab facilities to document their process, and traveled on a domestic flight to Mato Grosso where we spent 4 days at Chapada dos Guimarães. We managed to get several shots of forested natural areas, waterfalls, caves, and more interviews with activists and a climate scientist. Overall, we captured more than 2TB of media for GALY.
The Outcome
The finished video was shared internally with investors and partners. GALY raised another $33 million in series B capital in September of 2024. “We’ve been able to create lasting impressions with clients and investors through our VR film, which contributed in securing clients and investors to join us on this journey,” said Tewari.
While the finished product was for internal use only, we’re also working on a director’s cut from 360 Labs to share the magic and beauty of Chapada dos Guimarães with the world, stay tuned!