Introduction

The UK has a unique creative industry with strengths in art, culture, entertainment and technology, sparking trends and influencing practice around the world. CreativeXR unlocks the opportunity for this industry to experiment with creating immersive content that will inspire future audiences.

Digital Catapult and Arts Council England launched CreativeXR in September 2017, driven by the common mission of enabling new formats of content innovation and future-proofing the UK creative industries market.

The programme has been designed to allow creative teams to quickly experiment, iterate and bring immersive project ideas to reality. Teams are given tools such as prototype funding, workshops, peer-to-peer learning and access to facilities. Each year as a final phase of the programme, project teams also compete for further production funding with the aim of becoming market-ready and pushing the boundaries of what immersive technologies can offer.

What’s new in 2020: Strands

In 2020 CreativeXR will focus on helping teams creatively innovate with the format, develop project impact and build new business models through bespoke mentorship and support from leading experts in the industry.

To increase confidence in undertaking boundary-pushing R&D, this year CreativeXR will engage with technical experts to help develop experimental prototype builds and support the teams throughout their three-month build journey.

CreativeXR and its partners are looking to support projects from specific themed strands

Considerations on production methodologies and distribution formats

The Covid-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented time in human history, which has caused the world to respond in unique ways. Arts, culture, entertainment and the collective and creative inspiration it brings is now needed more than ever.

At CreativeXR, we encourage applicants to reflect on how the immersive landscape will pivot and grow. We ask that creators use all their ingenuity to think about what production methodologies they will safely be able to use as they produce their content, and how that in turn will affect the final output.

Furthermore, while the ethos of the brief still remains the same, and we are hopeful that location based entertainment format will thrive in the future, we would like to also encourage applications that consider the current situation in which we are living.

Examples of distribution formats that are currently relevant could be:

• Experiences delivered in home (for example, content is distributed online, to users’ own devices, and is expected to be consumed in a home setting. This could be either through already existing platforms or new ones) Experiences distributed on Social XR channels
• Multi-platform experiences (for example location based experiences that can be adapted for in home use as well)
• Experiences delivered through the web
• This list is by no means exhaustive – we encourage you to use your creativity in thinking about how your project will reach your audience.