The power of an image or video with sound and lighting is what creates each unique immersive experience. This could be a primary school learning about The Great Fire of London or used in a reminiscence session for people with dementia, the key is always great content!
4D creative have recently been commissioned by Z-arts in Manchester to work on a content creation project which we will be following on our blog. Our content developer Lauren and training coordinator Inés take up the story….
Z-arts content creation project
The Sat’dy Allsorts are an urban music collective based at Z-arts who write, record and perform their own music. This year, as part of a grant from Youth Music, Sat’dy Allsorts have been working on different musical projects throughout the year such as writing for silent films, working with the Bridgewater Hall, and now with 4D creative!
The performers are 11-19 years old and range from grime MCs to soul singers. They meet every Saturday morning 11-1pm to work on their tracks and all of them write lyrics and songs in their own time.
Day 1
Using the 4D Pop Up space we have asked the Sat’dy Allsorts to create some immersive content to add to our demo library here at MediaCityUK.
On the first day of the eight week project, we inflated the 4D Pop Up then asked the young people what they thought it was. We got a some great answers such as, ‘an inflatable disco’ and ‘a spaceship’. The great thing about all the answers, is that they could all be right!
After introducing the group to what 4D creative is all about and the spaces we create, we took the group into the 4D Pop Up and asked them to close their eyes and listen to the sounds we played. This was all to get our new content creators to start thinking about the importance of sound in making you feel immersed within the space.
Inés took the group on a journey through our content library, starting with 4D Time Tunnel then drifting through space until they arrived on earth, and journeyed from city to forests and onto more abstract themes to show the range of content. This also gave plenty of examples of images, videos, music and soundscapes to give a better idea of what the brief would be for the next eight weeks.
Lauren then went on to explain the content development process which happens internally at 4D creative. Together the group discussed how to source images, the importance of finding non copyright material and finding creative commons content, and then explained some editing techniques as all of these ideas are important learning for those wishing to work within a creative industry.
Having created some theme brief mood boards back at 4D HQ, Lauren then asked the groups to choose which theme they were going to concentrate on for their own content. These included Poverty, fairytale, conflict, urban culture, electricity, Shakespeare, alliteration, Manchester and emotions.
Mood boards were then created with magazines and internet searching helping to generate a huge range of ideas for each new theme.
It was a great start to a wonderful project with the Sat’dy Allsorts and Z-arts. The young people seemed enthusiastic and eager to start their content by finding the best images and creating original music for the immersive environment.
We look forward to the next session in a few weeks!
To find out more about Z-arts and the Sat’day Allsorts visit: http://www.z-arts.org/take-part/satdy-all-sorts/