Shooting a Rocket Launch in Apple Immersive Video With the URSA Cine Immersive

Immersive Filmmaking

by Nino LeitnerJune 15^th, 2026

Subscribe to How To

A Chengdu-based team shot what may be the first Apple Immersive Video built around a space launch vehicle, documenting LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 reusable rocket lifting off from the Gobi Desert with the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive. The result is now streaming on Apple Vision Pro and Pico headsets, and the crew’s account of working in -12°C cold and active sandstorms is a useful field report on what this still-niche format actually demands.

Immersive content for the Apple Vision Pro remains one of the harder corners of modern production, both technically and logistically, and very few crews have attempted it on a live, uncontrollable event. That is exactly what cofounders Tang Yisu, Gan Yujie, and Lu Linxuan of Chengdu Qiongjie Yingchuang set out to do, filming the Zhuque-3 flight test mission at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu in late November and early December 2025. The project, titled “Land Your Dream in Space: Zhuque-3 Launch Vehicle Flight Test Mission,” is being positioned as possibly the first Apple Immersive Video centered on a launch vehicle, and it leans entirely on the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive plus DaVinci Resolve Studio for capture and post.

Why immersive, and why this camera

The team’s reasoning for the format is straightforward: a rocket launch is fundamentally about scale, and flat video flattens it. According to cinematographer Tang Yisu, the 180-degree field of view and stereoscopic 3D capture are the only way to put a viewer “present” at the pad, including a launch perspective that very few people ever get to occupy in person. The crew screened the finished film for Zhuque-3 engineers at the Huzhou test facility, roughly 2,600 kilometers from Jiuquan, where one engineer reportedly recognized the very engine he had tested back in February.

On the camera choice, editor Lu Linxuan cited resolution, high frame rate, and above all stability. The argument was that competing approaches to immersive capture tend to introduce focus inaccuracies and demand heavy image correction in post, whereas the URSA Cine Immersive paired with DaVinci Resolve Studio offers a single integrated path from capture to delivery. As Lu put it, the footage drops directly into Resolve for editing and export without additional processing, which let the team concentrate on shooting rather than fixing files. That dual-fixed-lens stereoscopic design and the tight Resolve integration are exactly what we examined in our NAB 2025 interview with Blackmagic about the URSA Cine Immersive.

Shooting immersive is closer to theater than cinema

One of the more useful takeaways concerns camera language. Lu compares immersive work to theater: the audience is on the stage rather than watching it, so the director guides attention far more subtly than through conventional framing. The practical consequence is restraint. Most shots were captured statically on tripods, and the familiar 2D vocabulary of pushes, pulls, pans, and tilts often does not translate, since any movement risks viewer discomfort and has to be designed, executed, and repeatedly reviewed in post for comfort. That is consistent with what other crews have reported, including the team that took the same camera into the Swiss Alps for an adventure documentary shot in Apple Immersive Video.

To exploit the format’s sense of depth, the crew deliberately placed the camera at ultra-low angles directly against the ground, rendering the texture of sand and gravel in the foreground while the launch tower read tall and crisp in the cool morning light. Cinematographer Tang also emphasized the camera’s true 1:1 scale reproduction, arguing that standing beneath the rocket or sitting inside the flame trench makes viewers instinctively look up, often experiencing the genuine scale of aerospace hardware for the first time.

Performance in the Gobi: cold, wind, and sand

The environmental notes are the most quotable part of the crew’s account. According to cinematographer Gan Yujie, temperatures had already dropped to -12°C (about 10°F) on arrival, with colder nights, constant wind and sand, and a sandstorm the day before they got there. For one timelapse, the URSA Cine Immersive sat close to the sand for more than 40 minutes with only minimal shielding from a vehicle, and Gan reports it operated through the blasting grit without issue. The crew credits the camera’s built-in electronically controllable ND filters, active cooling, and intuitive menu for cutting setup time, which mattered given how quickly the desert light changed. Gan singles out a moment when the rocket intersected with Jiuquan’s fiery morning clouds as the kind of fleeting shot the camera’s ease of use made catchable.

Post-production realities at 16K

The post workflow is where immersive video’s costs become concrete. Even on a Mac Studio M3 Ultra, the team found playback slowing when adding subtitles, layering 2D graphics, or grading in detail, and for complex subtitle effects they exported sections as AIVU files to check on the Apple Vision Pro before returning to DaVinci Resolve Studio to refine. Storage planning is similarly unavoidable: the crew notes an 8TB Media Module holds only about 90 minutes of recording at this resolution. Blackmagic’s tight Resolve integration eased the rest, automatically matching the immersive editing workflow and converting flat 2D graphics into spherical effects with a single click. The breadth of that immersive toolset has grown steadily, as we documented through the DaVinci Resolve 20.1 Apple Vision Pro update and, most recently, the immersive additions in DaVinci Resolve 21.

On audio, the team experimented with first-order Ambisonics microphones to capture spatial ambience but, still working out their ASAF configuration, ultimately delivered in stereo. They say they will keep refining their spatial audio approach, which tracks with the wider industry move toward Fairlight-based immersive mixing inside a single timeline.

Where you can watch it

The completed project was finished in DaVinci Resolve Studio and packaged as a native .aivu file for direct playback on the Apple Vision Pro. The full immersive video is streaming on Migu Video, Voola, Immersive China, and DEOVR for Vision Pro users, with Pico headset owners able to find it on Pico TV and DEOVR. Within mainland China, Apple Immersive titles are distributed through the Migu Video app on Apple Vision Pro, while Immersive China and DEOVR are accessible more broadly. We were not able to confirm a single permanent direct link to this specific film, so the safest route for readers is to open the platform apps and search the title rather than rely on a deep link that may change. There is no traditional pricing here, since this is a distributed immersive title rather than a hardware release; for reference, the URSA Cine Immersive itself currently lists at 24,995 USD, with the recently announced 100G variant arriving later in 2026.

For filmmakers weighing whether immersive capture belongs in their own toolkit, this project is a clean stress test: a single unrepeatable event, a brutal environment, and a small crew leaning on one integrated camera-to-post pipeline. The fact that it held up against sandstorms and sub-zero cold says as much about the format’s viability as the finished film does about its spectacle.

Have you tried shooting or watching Apple Immersive Video yet, and does a use case like a rocket launch finally make the format click for you? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!