In 2022, ten studios were successful in securing the Innovation and Immersive Development Fund. They have been working hard since and all the projects are reaching completion this summer. We are delighted to share a few updates about some of them with you!
The list of projects selected for funding:
| Name of Studio(s) | Name of Project |
| AdventurVerse Studios | The Wing-Ed Freaks |
| Algorithm | Landfall |
| and maps and plans | Wold |
| Calico Media | The Time Keeper |
| Emagine | Nano Nagle |
| Emily Aoibheann / 1iing heaney | Turrus |
| EZ Films | Dublin Can be Heaven |
| Little Moon Animation | The Scavengers |
| Out Left productions | Scrap Metal |
| Turnip & Duck | Atom Town |
Calico Media Interactive presents:
The Time Keeper
12 year-old Benjamin Weir’s world is suddenly turned upside down when a package arrives in the post – an antique Time Keeper – addressed to him from his distant AUNT SYBIL. Now when I say distant, I mean waaayyyy distant. Aunt Sybil has been dead for over a hundred years and the Time Keeper isn’t just any old clock – it’s a time-travelling device. In this thrilling time travel adventure, Ben and his neighbour LUCY, become the only means to stop the ruthless SIR HORATIO MAUDLIN from stealing all the priceless treasures of the past.
This cross-platform adventure is being developed as a book series, interactive app and episodic television series as well as a tourist experience.
Emily Aoibheann/ 1iing heaney presents
Turrus at Bray’s The Mermaid
Emily Aoibheann / 1iing heaney has been rigorously cooking up a lot of pretty juicy art and is ready to share a big chunk of it in real time. Introducing Turrus, an ambitious, immersive, collaborative work with digital artist 1iing heaney.
Turrus plays with beauty, disintegration and loss within virtual and simulated paradigms, explored in part through the European folktale of Ondine, where a water-sprite desperately yearns for materiality through an ill-fated union with mortal man.
The work features Maurice Ravel’s virtuosic ‘Ondine’, from the suite of piano pieces Gaspard de la nuit (1908), music which in its raw form is impenetrable and ephemeral, accessed only through intense physicality and ingenuity, to become transcendent and other worldly: a celebration of artistic brilliance, aspiration and beauty drawn from the unseen world.
A tale of impossible desire and necessary death in the meeting of material and immaterial worlds. Data-capture technologies and digital art meet aerial dance in an immersive performance experience.
The performance took place in front of a sold out audience on Friday 21 July at the Mermaid, Bray.
The Experimental Circus Showcase will take place on Saturday 29 July, also at the Mermaid.
The Experimental Circus Award is a new initiative directed by artist Emily Aoibheann to facilitate intellectually engaged, experimental circus practice among Irish and Ireland based artists. The award recognises the authority of the artist as distinct from institutional, government and corporate authority. The award centres peer-to-peer and artist-led exchanges, bursary and residency opportunities in partnership with a variety of arts venues including: Dance Ireland and Project Arts Centre, Dublin; Courthouse Arts Centre and Mermaid Arts Centre, Wicklow. The pilot programme was funded by the Arts Council and emerged from Creation Aerial Research and Ideas Studio (2014 – 2020).
The four artists in receipt of the award in 2022/ 2023 are Monika Palova, Seve Feathers, Gill Byrne and Lunar Tzu a.k.a Aoife Kavanagh. Two artists are Wicklow based and two are Dublin based.
EZ Films presents
Dublin Can Be Heaven
Dublin Can Be Heaven is an ambitious social history project using immersive technology to build a collective memory of a long-gone theatre by name of the Theatre Royal. The project is coming near the end of the development stage and we have create diverse assets including photogrammetry scans, volumetric capture, Blender environments, oral testimony, documentary assets, archive research and stakeholder engagement.
The project will ultimately land as multi-platform with diverse assets to be produced including a public campaign to participate, a VR experience, a documentary and an exhibition.
Out Left Productions presents
Scrap Metal
SCRAP METAL is an animated short film being created by Richard Keane and Darko Mitev with Out Left Productions. The short was developed by using the latest motion capture technology from Perception Neuron and exploring the integration of the Unreal Engine with their pre-existing Maya pipeline to create a feature quality short. The teaser trailer is now available to watch online…
TURNIP + DUCK GETS INTERACTIVE WITH
ATOM TOWN: MEET THE ELEMENTS GAME PROTOTYPE
Creative partnership with Belfast-based Whitepot Studios
to explore gaming potential of original IP, Atom Town.
7th July 2023. With support from Screen Ireland’s Animation Innovation and Immersive Development Fund, Turnip + Duck have created a game prototype based on the original IP Atom Town, an educational comedy preschool co-creation of Turnip + Duck and Treehouse Republic.
Turnip + Duck have used the innovation fund to activate a series of creative partnerships across Ireland, the primary collaborator being Whitepot Studios, an award-winning Belfast-based studio who specialise in interactive games for children’s media. The creative team have also worked with staff and students from the Computer Games Development program at SETU Carlow, making this a truly innovative and collaborative process.
The ATOM TOWN: MEET THE ELEMENTS game is aimed at 3-7 year olds, and allows players to interact with their favourite characters from the TV series in an explorative & fun point-and-click manner. The producers believe this prototype can help Atom Town to reach audiences in new innovative ways, and serve as a template for creative cross platform dissemination of future Turnip + Duck IP.
Turnip + Duck’s Creative Director Aidan O’Donovan says,
“The Screen Ireland Innovation Fund has allowed us to try something new, and to work with other creatives from digital and educational fields. Cross platform potential for new IP like Atom Town is enormous, and we’re very grateful to have been given this opportunity.”
For further information, please contact: Aidan O’Donovan; email aidan@turnipandduck.com
If you’d like to apply for this year’s Innovation and Immersive Development Funding please see more details here!