Chevrolet Launches Innovative 360º VR Tour of Manchester United’s Old Trafford

GuiltFree has teamed up with content studio Whitecoat to bring to life a 360º VR tour of Old Trafford, in a joint venture between Manchester United and Chevrolet. 

The Soho based audio post and music facility also provided the sound design on a pair of legend films promoting Chevrolet’s sponsorship of the football club, starring former United heroes Dwight Yorke and Dennis Irwin. 

Combining the latest equipment and techniques available in 360º VR production, Whitecoat and GuiltFree have created a fully immersive experience in which you’re transported down the players tunnel and out onto the hallowed Old Trafford turf, where you can relive the moments that truly make the stadium the Theatre of Dreams. 

Developed for handheld devices and utilising the latest in Facebook’s 360º video technology, GuiltFree were tasked with making the sound as rich as possible.

Nic Cosenza, Studio Manager at GuiltFree, explains: “It was a challenging brief; there’s no real way of placing sound in a 360º environment yet. The viewer will most likely be consuming the content through a pair of headphones. So the biggest challenge for us was, with people experiencing the video without surround sound speakers, how do you create an enveloping, immersive sound experience if it’s only coming from two points? 

“There can be limitations to the audio process – the sound is in 2D, not in 3D. We provided the sound design, sound effects and atmos building to create a 180º soundscape, panning the sound from the far left to the far right to complement the 360º visuals.”

As well as the VR film, GuiltFree were briefed with providing the audio post on the two legend films, including some impromptu VO. The films star Dennis Irwin and Dwight Yorke, who both talk about the number of goals they’ve scored for Manchester United. 

Cosenza comments: “It transpired that Irwin had revealed he’d scored 22 goals when shooting the film, when in reality the number was actually 33. So our sound designer, Stewart Barnes, took to the VO booth in an attempt to recreate Irwin’s voice – and he did a pretty good job as you can’t tell that it’s Stew’s voice in the final film, so we managed to fix it!

“It was an absolute pleasure to work with Whitecoat again. Their focus is on pushing the boundaries of creativity with experimental projects that utilise new technologies. Although this project took a lot of work, we were incredibly excited throughout and everyone is delighted with how the project panned out.”