My last piece of formal work for NFTS has been developing a series of interactive & immersive screenwriting workshops as part of the ‘Train the Trainer’ scheme funded by StoryFutures Academy. The aim of this programme has been to allow attendees at a series of workshops become conversant with a range of ways of developing and delivering interactive immersive storytelling projects.
Along the way, we have tried to challenge and/or adapt traditional approaches in literature, film, TV and radio to kicking off & documenting any storytelling project – that is, by starting with a writer (or writers + producer) and a blank page or laptop screen.
We ended up focussing a lot on the possibilities for interdisciplinary working even at the earliest stages of story invention and content creation. And we assessed a number of tools and working practices that might expand upon or even replace conventional notions of a ‘script’ as the central reference point within a production.
Attendees tried a number of workshop challenges and exercises – working in small interdisciplinary groups of 3 or 4 - with a view to building up a set of materials, methods and workshop formats that could then be retained, adapted and used by the attendees themselves when working with others on interactive/immersive projects.
For the NFTS, it was hoped this programme could lead to the creation of a robust set of workshops and exercises that can be used across school departments and might be taken out for use in other educational establishments where there is an interest in new approaches to immersive production and efficient interdisciplinary working.
Research questions that were posed at the outset were:
- What kind of ‘scripts’ or ‘screenplays’ do writers need to produce for immersive and/or interactive projects?
- What is there beyond a traditional script that *everyone* on an immersive team – not just the writers - can unite around and use to devise, understand, develop and deliver a project?
- What processes and tools are the most useful when it comes to inventing, realising and documenting an immersive storytelling project? And is the role and practice of the writer (or main storyteller) changed by these processes and tools – or not?
- How much of the content that gets generated in an immersive development script or environment be taken straight into the production pipeline – or does everyone have start again in terms of generating assets, code, content based on the script?
Four NFTS Heads of Department from Animation, Documentary, Games and Scriptwriting recommended people from their disciplines who are either current tutors, or recent alumni who have already shown interest in becoming tutors in terms of giving talks, facilitating workshops or mentoring students.
The candidates were recommended on their interest in immersive storytelling and the potential to develop them as tutors who might deliver relevant immersive workshops or modules for each department/area of practice. We also tried to achieve a 50-50 mix of men and women and ensure that at least 3 out of the 13 attendees came from BAME backgrounds. In addition, I approached Arts Emergency (https://www.arts-emergency.org/) to recommend one young writer who might benefit from being introduced to immersive practice and become part of a network of more experienced professionals, and who would bring a different younger person’s perspective to the programme.
The programme was designed as a series of 3 x 2-day workshops spread across 3 months. The first 2 days took place at NFTS (3 people attended virtually due to Covid-19 safety/travel/quarantine restrictions) so that attendees could get some hands-on experience of key immersive titles and applications. The rest of the programme was delivered via Zoom.
The overall aim of the six workshops was to ‘learn by doing’, by getting all four groups to devise and develop collaboratively an early-stage prototype of an immersive project idea. In this way we could present the groups with a series of exercises and mini-challenges that could then be considered for development into formal lesson plans or even a complete module or short course.
Each group would use a range of suggested tools and techniques to work together to invent a project and then build a basic model of the idea. In this way, each group would have to agree how to:
- how to document their research and invention process (script as creative development),
- communicate their ideas and plans to outsiders (the facilitation team, other groups, industry professionals etc) (script as scoping/pitching resource)
- produce documents and assets that everyone in the team could make sense of and work from in order to create an early-stage prototype experience (script as production asset/management tool).
In terms of final outputs and meeting the goal of producing more people capable of becoming immersive trainers/tutors , NFTS HoDs have been advised about the range of possible introductory sessions, talks, workshops and practical exercises that could be developed for each department based on the materials generated in this Train the Trainer programme. They’ll also be briefed about the nominated attendees and each individual’s suitability/enthusiasm for delivering sessions as an official tutor.
Already, some of the sessions from this programme have been adapted and developed for the Documentary MA course to allow three Year 2 students to undergo a 5-day immersive development sprint, allowing then to develop their first ever ideas or immersive documentary in early testable prototypes – learning about immersive production along the way.
The Immersive dept at NFTS already offers introductory sessions to all the other departments the school and many of those have taken advantage of this opportunity over the last couple of years. With the outputs from Train the Trainer, the team should be able to offer a wider range of sessions that include not just demoing and discussing titles, but also more practical aspects of immersive development and production.
With two academics from Kingston University attending the Trainer the Trainer programme, discussions have opened up about developing some kind of immersive drawing/illustration module that both Kingston (see https://www.kingston.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/illustration-animation/) and the NFTS animation department could take advantage of.
All in all, this has been a rewarding last piece of work for NFTS. Discussions are ongoing about my future involvement at the school, but for now I’ve come to the end of nearly 4 years as an NFTS staffer. It's been challenging but fun - and it's been a fantastic way to keep abreast of new developments in interactive and immersive storytelling . If anyone wants access to the final report and slideshow about this work, please contact StoryFutures Academy.
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