This week we’re getting ready to dive deep into Spooky Season across the United States, but before that happens, we get to say goodbye to summer and focus on some of the professional opportunities that the Fall is bringing.
For instance, the VIFF Immersed Co-Production Market.
Organized by Kaleidoscope, The VIFF Immersed Co-Production Market will connect Canada’s foremost XR creators and industry leaders with their international counterparts in order to co-produce and co-finance the next wave of great XR projects.
Do you have any projects in development that need co-financing? If so, we’d love for you to be a part of our market: Submit ProjectPast projects discovered by Kaleidoscope, such as Battlescar, Spheres, Terminal 3 and many more, have raised millions in funding and gone on to premiere at every major festival.
Email Wade Scanlan (wade@kaleidoscope.fund) with any questions.
The deadline is September 9th.
Those looking to have a thought-provoking experience that uses the fundamentals of escape rooms as the creative palate would do well to take heed Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist’s advice:
Privilege of Escape will reopen from September 12–29. Like with the summer installment, tickets will be free and open to the public, but are expected to book up quickly. Tickets go live Friday 8/30 at 12pm. www.creativetime.org!
Finally: since this is the LAST DAY OF THE MONTH it’s your last chance to make an impact on NoPro in September. We’ve taken a big step forward this month, but have miles to go. And it’s true that every dollar helps.
Office facilities for No Proscenium are provided by…
No Proscenium is made possible by our generous Patreon supporters.
ON THE PODCAST THIS WEEK
The co-creator of Blackout Haunted House, Josh Randall, joins host Noah Nelson to talk about the storied show — which has inspired many others in the horror genre — and his storied career.
“Each and every conversation I’ve ever had with Josh has challenged how I see our field, and this is no exception. I look forward to years more of them.” -Noah
Advisory: Explicit Language and/or content.
Check out Blackout’s Kickstarter.
FROM THE WIRE: SHOWS, EVENTS, & EXPERIENCES
Salem, MA: Daemonologie: Smoke and Mirrors
Philadelphia: Broken Bone Bathtub, Dark Passage (also Remote), Question Reality
Detroit: Theatre Bizarre
Chicago: The Silence in Harrow House
Toronto: The Stranger 2.0: above & below
Denver: 146 (also Remote), Cutting Room Floor
Vancouver: Alice in Glitterland
SF: Unhinged
LA: Delusion — The Blue Blade: Alt Delete, Give Up the Ghost, Jack The Ripper Virtual Reality Escape Room
San Diego: Without Walls Festival — Full Line Up and On Sale Date
Venice International Film Festival: These Sleepless Nights
Sign up for our newsletters to get new immersive experiences sent straight to your inbox.
Submit your show to us here or at pitches@noproscenium.com.
REVIEWS
From No Proscenium:
‘Museum Of Future Experiences’ Misses A Key Piece of The Experience: Connection (Review)Pop-up immersive ‘museum’ by a tech startup seeks to provide more than just a selfie opportunitynoproscenium.comLess Than the Sum of Its Parts: ‘ZeroSpace’ Makes ‘Zero’ Sense (The NoPro Review)The ambitious art, tech, and immersive theatre experience in NYC lacks coherence and meaningnoproscenium.comConnection As Revolt — ‘Touch: Incarnation’ (The NoPro Review)A solo sensorial journey in LA hints at much bigger ideas.noproscenium.com
From David & Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist:
Escape My Room built Escape Extinction: Sharks inside of the New Orleans Audubon Aquarium; it was something special. We’ve seen other museums (big and small) host escape games, but none of them have come close to the scope, scale, and quality of the collaboration between Escape My Room and the Audubon Aquarium.
We loved Broken Ghost Immersive’s The Rogues Gallery even though it needed a lot more refinement. In this giant hybrid of tabletop gaming and roleplaying, we were villains attempting to take over the world after the death of the world’s greatest superhero.
60Out’s Miss Jezebel was a one-of-a-kind, actor-driven game that combined immersive theater and escape-room-esque gameplay with delightful results. Part interactive performance, part sneaking around and solving puzzles, Miss Jezebel felt quite a bit like being inside a point-and-click adventure game like Maniac Mansion, only bawdier.
APPEARANCES
Find members of the NoPro team and Everything Immersive family in your neck of the woods
September: Ricky Brigante & Noah Nelson — VIFF Immersed
Ricky gives the keynote and Noah moderates a panel at VIFF Immersed.
A two-day conference (September 28–29), Immersed features case-studies, roundtable discussions and hands-on workshops with some of the world’s leading immersive content creators. In addition, a week-long exhibition offers fans firsthand engagement with immersive experiences that are re-imagining storytelling.
October: Kathryn Yu — Indiecade 2019
I’ll be taking the stage with friend of No Proscenium Jenny Weinbloom this October at IndieCade, the festival of independent games, to talk all things immersive! Here’s the page for our talk:
Participant Agency in Immersive Experiences:
Get No Proscenium’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
SubscribeSubscribe
Playing the Accessible Unknown
Immersive experiences are increasingly changing the landscape of entertainment, retail, dining, art and gaming. Immersive creators across a wide spectrum of scales, budgets and mediums are drawing audiences into rich story worlds where each participant is the protagonist of their own experience. These experiences can be powerful, transformative, playful and challenging, and offer the participant a unique opportunity to engage their empathy and sense of autonomy, as well as to rethink their relationship with society’s status quo.
Following a short presentation, Meow Wolf Executive Producer Jenny Weinbloom will be joined by No Proscenium Editor Kathryn Yu to discuss immersive gamification, Meow Wolf’s unique approach to interactive narrative, and the ethics of choose your own adventure storytelling in physical environments.
STORIES
From No Proscenium:
From David & Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist:
If you love escape rooms, please take the 2019 Escape Room Enthusiast Survey. This data is more science! — Lisa
Plus bonus endorsement from Errol Elumir of Room Escape Divas/Inverse Genius:
“This is the annual 2019 Escape Room Enthusiast Survey. Now available to complete in 13 languages. Survey will close September 12, 2019.”
From Lance Weiler of the Columbia Digital Storytelling Lab:
The Raven combines state-of-the art augmented audio, immersive theatre, and elements of game play. In honor of the 170th anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe, the experience guides attendees through a completely transformed historical 5th Avenue mansion where they will uncover details about Poe’s life, legacy, and the mysterious circumstances of his death. The World Premiere at the New York Film Festival kicks off a month long engagement. Preview tickets are now available…
From Ricky Brigante of Pseudonym Productions:
Museum of Ice Cream has closed a $40M Series A to fund a spin-off company creating what they are calling “experiums” — the intersection of experiences and museums — for other businesses and brands.
THE DISCOURSE
Discussions and posts from Everything Immersive & Twitter:
NOW FUNDING
Carte Rouge, A Puzzle in 52 Parts
via Michael Andersen of ARGN
Daemonologie: Smoke & Mirrors
An immersive game theatre experience where you will decide a woman’s fate.
The Ode at Pint’s End
Chicago’s Birch House preps an immersive folk tale
The Ode at Pint’s End, written by Lauren N. Fields and Janie Killips, is an epic folktale that features traditional Irish music and new music by Janie Killips.
As they celebrate a full year on dry land, three Irish sailors recount the story of a shipwreck that changed their lives and the secrets they found at the bottom of the sea that still haunt them. Their tale unfolds in increasingly magical ways with the help of the mystical Merrows, the sailors’ wives, and the audience. The Ode at Pint’s End explores the journey from ambition to wisdom, the weight of our choices, and how we learn to let go.
PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
Jobs, Grants, Gigs, and more
The VIFF Immersed Co-Production Market
Deadline Extended
Got an XR project in-development? Looking for co-financing?
Kaleidoscope is putting together “Canada’s foremost XR creators and industry leaders with their international counterparts in order to co-produce and co-finance the next wave of great XR projects. Are you a Canadian XR creator looking for international support? Or are you developing an XR project outside of Canada and looking for a local co-production partner? If this sounds like you, then submit your work below and join Canada’s premiere XR market.” Submissions now open. Deadline September 9th.
Virtual Being Developer Grants
Deadline September 17th
Sundance New Frontier Story Lab Applications
Deadline October 1
Immersive Design Residency
Applications accepted year round. Fall session: November 8–13, 2019
NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers: join them today!
In addition to the No Proscenium web site, our podcast, and our newsletters, you can find NoPro on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, in the Facebook community Everything Immersive, and on our Slack forum.
Office facilities provided by Thymele Arts, in Los Angeles, CA.
Discussion