Covid Diaries Part Two: How four ground-breaking immersive experiences launched in lockdown

May 25, 2021

Part two of the The Covid Diaries video series continues to follow four Audience of the Future award-holder projects, funded by UK Research and Innovation, as part of the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The programme explores the immersive future of the Creative Industries, with new large-scale experiences for mass audiences.

Discover how these ground-breaking projects survived and thrived through lockdown, in part two of The Covid Diaries looking at innovation in the creative industries. Hear about the challenges each project overcame and the creativity applied, to launch new live experiences, that adapted to meet the limits of a new consumer landscape created by Covid-19.

Watch part two of this video series, from the makers and creators behind Dinosaurs and Robots/Lost Origins, Dream, Wallace & Gromit: The Big Fix Up and Weavr as they share their experiences.

Watch the Covid Diaries Part 2 Videos…

Wallace & Gromit ‘The Big Fix Up’

In this Augmented and Mixed Reality experience from Fictioneers, featuring Aardman Animations’ Wallace & Gromit, users interact with the story as it unfolds. Hear from Edward Russell (Producer) and Thomas Mahoney (Lead Unity Developer) at Fictioneers. 

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Dinosaurs and Robots

Dinosaurs and Robots is a Mixed Reality experience led by Factory 42 and originally created for London’s Natural History Museum and Science Museum. Hear from Steven Stewart (CEO) Sucharita Ghosh (XR Producer) and Niccolo Temporanza (3D Artist) at Factory 42.  

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WEAVR

WEAVR is an AI-driven, Mixed Reality platform that launched a new version of its experimental platform, creating the world’s first online-only Esports tournaments. Hear from Andy Elliot (Lead Virtual Studio Developer) at DOCK10 and Jess Payne (Project Manager) at Future Visual. 

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RSC’s Dream

A live, online performance, ‘Dream’ is set in a virtual midsummer forest. Created by the Royal Shakespeare Company and partners, hear from Oriana Neidecker (Real-Time Producer) at MarshMallow Laser Feast and Julia Walter (Project Manager) at the RSC. 

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THE COVID DIARIES

Combined, the demonstrator projects funded by the Audience of the Future challenge, represent the most advanced set of public trials of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality content anywhere in the world. Since the pandemic, the projects have been reimagined and redeveloped for audiences in the UK and internationally.

This video series follows part one, in which we heard how these projects continued to develop, originally due to launch through the pandemic, and pivoted amidst the extreme limits presented by lockdown.

The video diaries are part of a project that will consist of a three-part visual diary filmed and recorded with each of the four Audience of the Future demonstrators, to document their journeys in meeting the new challenges brought about by the impact of Covid19.

All of the demonstrator project teams were asked to record their progress as ‘video diaries’ to comply with Covid 19 restrictions.

All video diaries in this series can be seen in The Covid Diaries playlist on YouTube and to stay up to date on the latest from each project, sign up to the Audience of the Future newsletter.

CREATIVE RESILIENCE

The Covid Diaries projects also feature in this video story revealing how even more projects, supported by Audience of the Future and Creative Industries Clusters Programme, faced challenges presented by the pandemic using art, technology, passion and creativity.