StoryTrails 50 creatives recruited

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Fifty of the next generation of UK creative talent have been recruited by StoryFutures Academy to help develop and deliver StoryTrails, a unique immersive storytelling experience for audiences in 15 town and cities across the UK as part of UNBOXED, the ground-breaking UK-wide celebration of creativity in 2022.

The team of emerging creatives – a talented and dynamic cohort representative of the UK population –brings together diversity and innovation to chart a new course for the future of storytelling. Utilising state-of-the-art immersive technologies, StoryTrails will bring untold and intriguing stories from the past to life, connecting audiences with stories inspired by a real sense of place through the magic of the 3D internet.

Catalysed as a response to David Olusoga’s 2020 MacTaggart lecture at Edinburgh Television Festival on diversity in the creative industries, StoryFutures Academy has brought together some of the UK’s most established cultural organisations, including the BFI and the BBC alongside companies at the cutting edge of the 3D internet including Niantic, Nexus Studios and ISO Design to deliver a once-in-a-lifetime chance for the 50 creatives. And having recruited the diverse and representative cohort from all over the UK, StoryTrails is also working to change the face and future of the UK’s creative industries. More information about the creatives can be found at StoryTrails.com/our-team

StoryTrails will use augmented and virtual reality (VR) to reanimate public spaces in new and surprising ways in 15 locations across the UK this summer. The newly recruited creatives will be fulfilling a range of central roles in the delivery of this project from co-producer to designer, to writer and they will span the length and breadth of the UK, with creatives from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales joining up with creatives from across England.

StoryTrails is led by StoryFutures Academy, UK’s National Centre for Immersive Storytelling run by Royal Holloway, University of London and the National Film and Television School (NFTS).

Professor David Olusoga, broadcaster and film-maker and Executive Producer of StoryTrails, said: “In 2020 I gave the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival in which I explored the diversity and inclusion failures within television and the creative industries. Two years later, I am thrilled to be working with StoryFutures Academy to help bring about change in those industries.

“StoryTrails will help to shape the future of the creative industries and pioneer creative storytelling in the 3D internet. This moment, when emerging technologies are finding their form is the same moment the UK’s next generation of creative practitioners are emerging. StoryTrails represents a direct engagement with changing the face of the industry to reflect the diversity of talent across the UK and to use that talent to make the UK a world leader in immersive storytelling. “As the UK’s largest immersive storytelling project, StoryTrails will be mapping a course for this amazing set of new technologies that engrains diversity at its heart.”