Is This Even Possible?: Co-creating University and Industry Learnings for Immersive Experiences

This article discusses an ambitious university-industry collaboration based at the University of South Wales that was designed to further develop digital storytelling practice within the UK Creative Industries. During this UKRI-funded, Audience of the Future R&D demonstrator project, the authors collaborated with Bristol-based animation studio Aardman, who were both licensors and content contributors for an immersive transmedia experience called The Big Fix Up based on the globally loved Wallace and Gromit intellectual property. Working closely with Aardman, the consortium drew upon their combined skills in games production, animation, creative marketing and new technology development to create a mobile application that marries Wallace and Gromit with mobile storytelling and the latest augmented reality and mixed reality technologies. One of the key aims of this larger industry-led demonstrator programme was to propel new immersive storytelling insights informed by extensive audience research. In their article, Davies and Patrickson examine this university-industry collaboration in methodological terms, outlining the factors that enabled them to negotiate cross-sector issues whilst reflecting on the multi-faceted approach to audience research that emerged from those negotiations.