StoryFutures and StoryFutures Academy: The National Centre for Immersive Storytelling

Professor James Bennett is Director of StoryFutures where he has led the StoryTrails and StoryFutures Academy projects at Royal Holloway, University of London. He researches the intersection of innovation and established screen media production, business, audience and creative cultures and practices. He has led over £22m of R&D projects in these areas.

Dr Jon Wardle is the Director of the National Film and Television School and Co-Director of StoryFutures: The National Centre for Immersive Storytelling. Prior to his work in education and training Jon worked in Television Production. Jon’s first job in Television was with Hat Trick Productions on Father Ted.

Will Saunders is an independent media consultant, and executive producer. In 2018 he co-authored the DCMS “Culture Is Digital” report. As Creative Director, Digital, BBC Studios he ran Digital Development and Production for the UK’s leading media company. His recent focus has been with organisations that want to understand the storytelling potential of emerging technologies.

Rebecca is Head of Immersive at NFTS and StoryFutures, the UK’s National Centre for Immersive Storytelling run by the NFTS and Royal Holloway, University of London. This programme, funded by UK Research & Innovation, aims to help the UK creative industries to become the most skilled in the world in the use of immersive and real-time production technology for storytelling. Rebecca was formerly Head of Technology - Immersive at Digital Catapult, and a Development Producer and Research Technologist at BBC R&D.

Fiona has worked at the nexus of innovation, technology and the creative industries for over 25 years. She founded Immerse UK, the UKs immersive technology network in 2017 and is currently Chair of Eirmersive, the voice of the immersive sector in Ireland. Working primarily in government funded innovation programmes, Fiona is highly experienced in leveraging potential to support business, programme and organisational innovation & growth. She has led multiple industry ecosystem reports outlining the UKs capacity barriers and opportunities in immersive, health, creative and digital sectors. Fiona is currently Acting Head of Immersive at Story Futures at the National Film and Television School with Royal Holloway.

Amanda Murphy is a BAFTA award winning Executive Producer for StoryFutures Academy. She’s produced a range of content from digital shorts including the BAFTA-winning Missed Call and digital collections such as Adapt, to large scale TV productions like the first Big Brother & SuperNanny. She’s excited about the future of storytelling in new immersive media.

Professor Jen Parker-Starbuck is Head of the School of Performing and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. Jen is Theme Leader for the StoryLab strand of the StoryFutures Creative Cluster, and the author of Cyborg Theatre (2011), co-author of Performance and Media (2015), and co-editor of Performing Animality (2015).

Adam is Reader in Screenwriting at Royal Holloway University. He has published extensively on narrative and also writes for Film TV and Radio. His play The Gestapo Minutes was nominated for best Single Drama in the BBC Audio Drama awards. He studied Directing at the National Film & Television School.

Sarah Smyth is the Head of Delivery for StoryFutures: The National Centre for Immersive Storytelling. Before joining the National Film and Television School, Sarah worked as a Production Manager with independent production companies, in factual programming.

Sarah Brown is the Marketing and Communications Manager – Immersive for StoryFutures: The National Centre for Immersive Storytelling. Sarah has held a number of different comms roles within the Film & Television and Education Industries over the past 15 years. She has a broad range of marketing & PR experience ranging from digital marketing to content production.

Renae’s 20 years of lived experience spans the public and private sector in television, film, arts, digital, marketing, and product delivery. She enjoys occupying the space where technology, story and commerce intersect. Relocating from Sydney to London in 2021, Renae is an alumni of the National Film and Television School Master of Creative Business for Entrepreneurs and Executives. She has a deep interest in nascent technology that produces larger than life entertainment experiences.

Kyle has worked as a freelance producer for television and feature film companies in Outreach and Post Production roles with a particular focus on Impact Producing for companies including Keo Films in the UK and Madman Entertainment in Australia. As a Producer Kylie brings skills from a successful career as a diplomat in South Korea for the Australian Trade Commission and work in the Education and IT start-up sectors.

Polly Dalton is a Professor of Psychology and Head of Royal Holloway’s Psychology Department, where she is also the Director of the Attention Lab. Polly’s research examines multisensory perception, attention and awareness, all of which are essential for achieving effective audience engagement in immersive experiences.

Professor John Ellis is co-director of StoryFutures work on metadata flows in production. John founded an independent production company in 1982 and returned to academic life in 1999. His research on archive TV and the history of analogue TV production technologies has made him eager to work in three dimensions.

Kristina leads R&D programme development and delivery, the integration of our work within the Royal Holloway research community, and exploring application of immersive into new areas such as health and sustainability. She was responsible for building our industry network and developing our business support events programme. Kristina has 20+ years experience in creative and digital sectors, having worked in business and innovation roles at Nokia, Ofcom, mySociety, Project Everyone in the past. As a social entrepreneur, she co-founded and led Impact Hub Brixton (2014) and Makerhood (2010) - initiatives that supported creative business, innovation and skills in South London.

Paul joins the IPAC team for the Department of Research and Innovation with a professional background as a contracts negotiator within the creative media industries, in particular commercial book publishing (most recently at Hachette UK, previously BBC Worldwide and Harlequin). Having qualified as an advanced Executive & Leadership Coach with the Institute of Leadership & Management, Paul is passionate about helping both teams and individuals unlock their full professional and personal potential. He's also a keen swimmer, a dedicated QPR supporter and lifelong Prince fan. He lives in West London and is married (to novelist, Samantha King) and they have two children.

Claude Heath is Senior Research Fellow in the ethnography of collaboration and data-sharing in creative workflows. Claude’s research will feed into the StoryFutures understanding of storytelling practices in immersive. He has a background in HCI, participatory design research, prototyping, and visual art - and is often to be found drawing, mapping and diagramming.

Niki moved from television production into creative digital media delivering innovation events for global brands including Visa, PwC and Thales. An assessor for Innovate UK, Niki has published and co-edited books and articles on digital production exploring media independence, social media and public service broadcasting. A lifelong Spurs fan, Niki lives in Brighton with her husband, son and a cockapoo called Betty.

Mark specialises in the ways that value can be derived from big data. Prior to academia, he spent several years in industry in project management and consulting. At StoryFutures, Mark leads our work on understanding future business models and value chains in the immersive sector, as well as working on specific innovation projects with SMEs.

Dr Laryssa Whittaker’s background is in ethnomusicology and her doctoral research focused on the experiences of young people participating in South African music-centred development programmes. As part of the StoryFutures team her ethnographic research helps her explore attitudes, values and patterns of engagement around immersive experiences to understand the industry’s future audiences.

Andy has a background in academia, industry and the start-up world. His focus is on the interplay between audience insight, software development, and new immersive measurement technologies. Andy can help deliver new solutions to audience insight, based on a mashup of cutting-edge technologies and developing new innovative psychological audience insight techniques.

Chris is a Teaching Fellow at RHUL. He teaches creative social media, podcasting. He is also a playwright who writes from the corner of digital and human. In 2018 he won best BBC Audio Drama Podcast. Also in that year he became a writer in residence at Theatre 503.

Johnny Johnson is a Senior Technician of StoryFutures: The National Centre for Immersive Storytelling, based at the NFTS. He has produced many VR productions and spends his days working with the latest and greatest in XR technology.

Neil is a Senior Technician at StoryFutures. His previous roles were in video production,including post-production, graphics and interactivity and his MA is in screenwriting. He has recently moved into the field of XR and game design, specialising in Unreal Engine 4.

Beatrice is the Social Media and Events Coordinator for StoryFutures. With a first class degree in English Literature and Film Studies, she has a passion for gender equality and representation in the creative industry. Prior to joining the StoryFutures Academy team, Beatrice curated her own film festival, the ‘Women in Film Festival’, in London to celebrate intersectional female creatives and their work.

Anne is the Centre for Digital Creativity Administrator. She has a long background in Education including Primary School Teacher, Educational Research Administrator and International Study Centre Administrator. She enjoys swimming and completing the Diabetes UK Swim 22 challenge.

Helen is an immersive participatory and site-responsive specialist with 20 Secret Cinema productions under her belt and having led special projects for the National Trust and The National Archives, reimagining how we engage with history and culture. She ran west London's site-specific commissioning Festival InTRANSIT for seven years, commissioning over 100 new pieces of innovative work in the public realm, and mentors Masters students conducting artistic research into Public Space in the Netherlands. Helen is currently based at home in Scotland where she is using mobile technologies to propose new futures for rural tourism.

Christos is a doctoral researcher in Creative Data Tools. He has studied Computer Science at Royal Holloway since 2015 and is now working towards his PhD in Media Arts with StoryFutures. He also has an interest in creative writing and aspires to publish a novel.

Jack is a Doctoral Researcher specialising in cultural and political geographies with his PhD research focusing on freelance labour in the video games industry. He has been at Royal Holloway in the Department of Geography for 4 years, completing a BSc in Geography and MSc in Geopolitics and Security.

Rich is a Doctoral Researcher in implementing procedural and spatial audio in virtual environments within the Electronic Engineering dept. His particular focus is on assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired, creating a ‘visual-auditory sensory substitution device’ to aid spatial awareness and navigation. He was Head of a Game Audio Ba (Hons) & Masters and is involved in audio design for immersive experiences, pursuing research and development opportunities in commercial and academic projects.

Alex specialises in user-centred design. His most recent position before joining academia was in product development at a European online e-commerce and market research startup.

Alex can help digital businesses with designing, planning, and executing usability studies and other forms of user-centred research.

Camille Baker is an artist-performer/researcher/curator within various art forms: participatory performance and interactive art, mobile media art, tech fashion/soft circuits/DIY electronics, responsive interfaces and environments, and emerging media curating. Baker develops methods and approaches to exploring the body within performance & interactive art contexts, using soft circuits/etextile, wearable electronics & mobile media and new mechanisms to elicit engaging experiences using evolving approaches to participatory performance.

Baker’s interactive practices and experience includes: teaching, curating and making, with a background in wearable technology and e-textiles, mobile media art and performance, the body, VR/AR performance, digital art curating, video art, new media art, alternative music, interactive installation, and emerging technologies research and education.

Expertise: Public awareness, Changing behaviour, Elderly care, Pervasive healthcare (artificial olfaction, body hydration, interactive exercises), Smart Cities, Smart sensors, Digital controllers.

Alin’s research is focused on creating neuromorphic hardware designs with applications in pervasive healthcare (smell recognition, body hydration, unobtrusive health monitoring). Part of the Internet of Senses research, Alin investigated the feasibility of developing affordable body hydration checkers to be placed in public toilets for raising public awareness on body hydration: an important parameter that influences human behaviour (e.g. driving and cognitive capabilities) and several health issues.

Alin has also investigated the development of an unobtrusive domestic activities monitor system that acquires acoustic information generated in a house, classifies them, creates behavioural profiles, detects abnormal events and finally makes decisions for raising alerts.

Aneta Mancewicz has experience with the application of VR and AR in live theatre practice. Her research focuses on the use of digital technologies in performance, and their implications for new modes of creation, reception, and perception of theatre as a medium. From 2016 to 2019 she worked as a dramaturg / researcher on VR adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with a Brussels-based performance collective CREW.

Angela Chan is a doctoral researcher with StoryFutures, an immersive storytelling research centre at Royal Holloway University and one of nine clusters within the UK Creative Industries Clustering Programme. Her research focuses on inclusive innovation in creative clusters.

Angela has worked in the UK television industry for over twenty years. Most recently she was Head of Creative Diversity at C4. Prior to this she worked at the BBC as diversity lead for Television and managed the BBC’s relationship with the independent sector. She has worked in the creative industries as a documentary director, executive producer, commissioning editor & senior manager at the broadcasters and in the independent sector. Her specialism is in unlocking the potential of creative businesses and promoting under-represented voices.

Maruša has a background in psychology, sociology, and anthropology which she has implemented in her (soon-to-be-completed) PhD in social change in youth engagement with music. As a mixed-methods researcher, she loves chatting to strangers about their experiences of immersive experiences as well as diving into statistical trends of new data. In her free time you are most likely to find her on a long walk in nature, in a dance studio, or obsessing over a new book (which is highly likely to be feminist fiction).

Michelle works with the Audience Insight Team facilitating our audience testing, focus groups, and surveys in our host libraries. An experienced producer for creative agencies with a background in TV post-production and animation, she helps run StoryFutures’ user testing platform, TestXR.org where creatives can get feedback on their immersive storytelling projects while they are in development. Michelle is also a fine artist working with trails and maps - creating installations and exhibitions in public spaces such as Southwark and Hereford Cathedrals and leading public engagement workshops and events across the UK.

Lisa is a highly experienced Coordinator within film and TV (plus a few years in radio) and has worked for a range of companies within Development, Production, Post-Production, and Distribution. A graduate of the Pinewood Diploma in Studio Management, she has a proven track record in coordinating activities and managing a variety of events and projects (from organising Camera Crew bookings on Features and HE-TV Dramas and post-production admin to Sales and Digital Marketing responsibilities…amongst other things!)

Hannah has a background in research management within universities and cultural organisations. Prior to working with StoryFutures she was Research Manager at Imperial War Museums. An avid gamer, Hannah has a passion for exploring new technologies and forms of storytelling. Hannah’s academic background is in the history of science and technology, and in her spare time she researches and publishes on women in science.

Destiny Lawrence completed her degree in 2022 at Royal Holloway University in BA Digital Media Culture and Technology. During her third year, she was a Student Ambassador at StoryFutures. Continuing with StoryFutures, she is currently working as a Tech and Showcasing Coordinator.

Nina Brown is a producer/writer working across independent British film, HETV, immersive and live event production. She is currently very excited to learn about and share the storytelling power of immersive tech