GoPro Odyssey: Filming A 360 Degree Roller Coaster Video With BuzzFeed

GoPro Odyssey 360 Camera + BuzzFeed + Xcelerator

In November, Knott’s Berry Farm teamed up with BuzzFeed to film the first-ever professionally produced 360 degree POV video of Xcelerator. We had collaborated a number of times before with the great folks at BuzzFeed. Our first collaboration was in 2015 when they covered their favorite food dishes from the Knott’s Boysenberry Festival. The relationship with BuzzFeed began with a pitch to them from our publicist in 2015 and has continued since then. The Xcelerator 360 degree project began with an email pitch from a BuzzFeed Video producer. Sometimes stories are pitched by us to them such as the recent Try Guys Knott’s Scary Farm Monster Makeover video and like in this instance, sometimes BuzzFeed pitches us a story idea. Through a partnership with YouTube, BuzzFeed Video was provided use of the exclusive GoPro Odyssey 360 degree camera rig. The BuzzFeed team was tasked with brainstorming different ways to best utilize the $10,000+ camera. One of their producers suggested filming members of their team riding a thrilling roller coaster for the first. The GoPro Odyssey packs 16 synchronized HERO4 Black cameras into an all-in-one rig that’s capable of capturing content in stunning 8K 30 FPS video. The footage from every GoPro is then uploaded to the Jump assembler program to create the final video.

GoPro Odyssey 360 Degree Camera

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The History of the Fun Bun At Knott’s Berry Farm

The Fun Bun

The Fun Bun almost never happened.

The new pastry creation was amazing. Warm. Sweet. Gooey. Delicious. One-of-A-Kind. It honored and continued Knott’s Berry Farm’s nearly century long culinary legacy, started by the boysenberry and Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant. The creation of the delicious combination of a cinnamon roll, boysenberry, funnel cake and a little magic was led by Chef Reuben, and supported by the culinary team. The culinary team called it a “Deep Fried Cinnamon Bun”, which was true, but didn’t provide the proper reverence to this fantastic new treat debuting at the Knott’s Boysenberry Festival in 2015.

Enter Knott’s Publicist Leidy Arévalo. She was the brainchild of the name Fun Bun. Fun Bun is one of those great names that seems obvious in retrospect. A shortened combination of the words “funnel” and “cinnamon bun.” There was a lot of resistance from the culinary team and park management to the new name. Like most businesses, the park had never used anything but straightforward names to describe all of our food offerings. The debate centered around concerns about whether the name set the right expectations for guests. Would guests know what the new dessert was and would they be curious enough to try it? Leidy persuaded the team to give the name a chance.

Fun Bun Knott's Berry Farm

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Voyage to the Iron Reef – Behind the Scenes of Marketing A 4-D Ride

Voyage to the Iron Reef, the new interactive 4-D ride at Knott’s Berry Farm, opened to great fanfare on May 15, 2015. The entire Knott’s team breathed a big sigh of relief that day. Hundreds of people had collectively spent thousands of hours designing, constructing, marketing, opening and operating one of the biggest attractions in park history.

Iron Reef porthole logo - no Knott's Small

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