We currently have a PhD Scholarship Opportunity for a practice-based PhD in Mixed Reality Storytelling.... please share with any suitable candidates. Details below

Best
Peter Woodbridge
Senior Lecturer in Immersive Storytelling
Liverpool Screen School, LJMU



PhD Exploring The Future of Mixed Reality for Immersive Entertainment
 
Immersive Technologies, such as AR, VR and MR, are continuing to transform the way we can engage in entertainment experiences. From television programmes and documentaries that you can literally walk into, to cinematic experiences where you can become a part of the narrative, to games that enable you to interact with your environment in creative ways. The narrative possibilities for combining the real and virtual are seemingly endless for media storytellers.
 
This blending of physical and digital worlds presents a number of challenges for content makers. From thinking about the ways that we might spatially engage with an interface or character, to using games engines and data to dynamically trigger and render content, to creating new opportunities and spaces to experience stories in location-based and at home entertainment.
 
This practice-based PhD* will be exploring this future, working between the Liverpool Screen School and the Department of Computing in the Faculty of Engineering at LJMU and our network of industry professionals across games, film, documentary and television.
 
You will be making and testing prototypes and speculative design ideas and concepts. You should have an interest in the future of spatial computing, mixed reality, augmented reality and immersive technology and ideas for how it could transform documentary, fiction or other forms of moving image.
 
Questions/Areas you might explore are:
 
·      What are the future possibilities for the broadcast, film and games industries in adopting mixed reality? And how might this be appropriate for specific audiences
·      What are the possibilities for narrative when it interacts with you and your environment, in both at home and out of home contexts?
·      What might mixed reality cinema or television entertainment look like in the future?
·      What are the User-Experience Design Challenges in developing Spatial User Experiences?
 
You will have access to a wide variety of facilities including the new Liverpool Immersive Experience Lab (LIVELab) and the content production facilities and resources in the Screen School. This includes facilities such as green screen film studios, mixed reality and augmented headsets, volumetric creation tools, cameras, content creation software and games engines, UX design tools and emotional measurement facilities.
 
There will also be opportunities to engage with our industry networks across games, film, television and the growing immersive sector in the region.
 
We are primarily looking for someone with strong conceptual and realisation abilities and an interest in the future of Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality. You should also have a background in either games development, immersive experiences, animation, 3d modelling, film, design or digital arts. Although we are open to interested candidates from a range of other disciplines.
 
In the first instance, please send an expression of interest and a brief outline of the area you would like to focus on to [log in to unmask] as soon as possible, and by 15th February 2019 at the latest. We will then look to working with you on the proposal which needs to be submitted by Monday 4th March 2019.
 
*PhDs can either be fully funded scholarships including stipend and fees, or fees only, they are offered on a competitive basis. For more details about the terms please see this link https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/research/phd-scholarships/phd-scholarship-application 

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