MARGEAUX ERASMUS
Students who were at the Varsity Cup final at the Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch last week Monday can tag themselves in a 20 000 megapixel image captured at the game.
The Fancam is available at varsitycup.co.za/fancam and students who were at the event can go tag themselves and share the image with their friends on social media. Students can also tag their team logos to show who they were supporting at the game.
Varsity Cup and Fancam, a Cape Town-based company, felt that the Varsity Cup community would fit in well with the Fancam product. Surike Viviers, who is part of Fancam’s business development, said that it is the type of community that is very active on social media and is passionate about the sport. The Fancam image can be shared on Facebook, Twitter or via email.
Viviers told Perdeby that Fancam will be available on the internet for a minimum of three years, so there is no specific cut-off date for students to tag themselves.
Fancam CEO Tinus le Roux said that “99% of our Fancams are created for international teams and bands, which is why we were very excited at the opportunity to capture one in our own backyard. The fact that the Danie Craven Stadium is such a historic and beautiful venue with colourful and engaged fans made it so much easier to create something that’s worth looking at. We hope the Tukkies fans enjoy it as a momento of a well-deserved victory and the Maties fans as a consolation that they study in a beautiful place.”
Bodo Sieber from PlasticSoldiers, the company in charge of Varsity Cup’s online channels said that “the Fancam has made some nice waves for us in our social media channels following the final” and added that “it was great how seamlessly Fancam could be integrated into the Varsity Cup online communication, definitely an exciting feature.”
Fancam is a proudly South African company and was the first in the world to create a 360-degree interactive gigapixel platform. The Fancam is built around a composite image which is captured a few minutes before an event from the centre of the area. Once the photographer has captured the different images they are transferred to the production office where the images are “stitched” together by a specialised production team. They use custom-built computers to create the Fancam and then deliver the product to their clients within 24 hours.
Fancam allows fans to zoom in to the back of the stadium and to tag themselves in the high-resolution image.
