The Essential 360 Storytelling Lab is the most advanced and comprehensive short courses in multi-platform media in the world and will be run by experienced cross-platform dramatists Rik Lander and Hazel Grian. Participants will experience both the exciting opportunities and practical difficulties of using social media to tell a story. It will be of great value to any writer, producer, director, AP, web designer, development team member or executive producer who wishes to advance their skill and experience with 360 media. The learning will be equally applicable for people working in drama, non-fiction and advertising.

The five-day course at the NFTS, Beaconsfield is a mixture of lectures on state of the art 360 practice, daily work-shopping of ideas and finally a live online transmission where selected ideas can be tested with an audience. Actors and a web design/tech team will be available. Professor Jon Dovey of the Digital Cultures Research Centre, University of the West of England will undertake live user testing on an invited audience at the Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol. Participants will receive detailed feedback on how their ideas were used.

Booking and funding opportunities

Please note that participants on this course may be eligible to receive funding. Click here to find out more about Skillset's Multiplatform Bursary Scheme. Please also note that early booking is highly advisable: Click here to book. 

Course Aims and Objectives

  • Practical experience of making multi-platform projects
  • Creation of real media products using many platforms that will be consumed and participated in by a real audience
  • Understanding and experiencing how different a cross-media production is from a TV production in terms of roles and working method
  • Feedback of real audience behaviours is a unique part of this proposal. UWE's real time research into audience responses through the Pervasive Media Studio will be fed back to the group and will be a key learning objective. This is a unique opportunity to be part of the most advanced audience research undertaken for multi-platform drama.
  • Participation in a 'post-mortem' analysis of the project to gain useful understanding for participants entering future cross-media projects or devising their own

 

By the end of this course, participants will be able to: 

  • Devise their own multi-platform story - drama or non-fiction.
  • Understand the differences between how multi-platform projects are made and traditional TV production methods.
  • Understand the role of audience feedback in multi-platform productions. 
  • Understand the difference between how you expect audiences to interact with your cross-media programme and how they actually do.

 

Tutors

Rik Lander is a highly experienced producer, director and writer, who made one of the first web dramas in the UK, magic-tree (2001) and Wannabes, the BBC's first interactive soap.

Hazel Grian, maker of many alternate reality games was lead writer for KateModern the Bebo online drama, won the One World New Media Award for the British Red Cross game Traces of Hope and was a writer and co creator of the Star Trek movie ARG earlier in 2009. She was once described as 'a funny film-making genius' by The Simpson's creator Matt Groening.

Find out more: http://www.you-are-here.co.uk/youarehere/courses.html