Project Spotlight
Accidental Theatre: Monetising Digital Performance
Partnerships: Tickle Productions, Aisling Productions and Future Screens NI
Theatre and cultural hub Accidental Theatre completed a recent report on small arts business best practice during the pandemic and beyond. Addressing pressing concerns for artists and practitioners in a time of isolation and the loss of potential revenue from live events, Accidental Theatre, with Tickle Productions and Aisling Productions with financial support from Future Screens NI sought in their research to find best practice techniques to monetise digital performance. Looking at a range of options including but not limited to streaming live shows, Accidental Theatre and their partners sought methods of engagement with audiences through a broadcast programme of live events, therefore distancing the practice from standard streaming platforms. The project sought alternative and more direct audience engagement than the passive viewing experiences of leading streaming platforms. Working with artists, festivals and other partners over a period across 2020/21 the project focused on three main case studies of One-off sales, Memberships, and Donations as potential revenue streams. The report addresses three issues of particular interests to small businesses and sole traders such as a lack of monetisation options, streaming market competition and the devaluation of artistic content. The conclusions drawn from the case studies were that a mix of subscription and one-off sales will likely be the most accessible option for companies and sole artists.
The project was funded in-part by Future Screens NI’s Rewriting the Narrative Award.
For more information on Accidental Theatre follow the link: https://accidentaltheatre.co.uk
Key Personnel
Accidental Theatre was founded in 2012 to develop an exciting brand of modern Northern Irish theatre. The group embraces new technologies, conventions, styles and techniques. Their inaugural play in 2014 The Kitchen, the Bedroom and the Grave won the BBC NI Drama Award and have since gained further recognition for their ambitious and greatly varied live productions.
Tickle Productions work in advanced media production work since 2009 and have been Accidental’s main partner in streaming live productions since 2016. In particular they have been working with Dr Elizabeth Meehan a Service Designer with Accidental Theatre to develop, test and refine virtual interactive design.
Aisling Productions is an TV and documentary production company based in Belfast. Associated TV producer Declan McGrath has 20 year experience in the field and assisted Accidental Theatre with traditional media distribution models.
Puttnam Scholarship Programme: Spotlight on Mark McNally
Mark McNally is a screenwriter based in Belfast. He has recently completed the BBC Writersroom’s Belfast Voices Programme in June 2021. The newly released video game by Merge Games, Buildings Have Feelings Too for Nintendo Switch & Playstation 4 features McNally’s co-written dialogue. He received an Arts Council of Ireland Young Ensemble Scheme grant to develop and facilitate workshops on writing and filmmaking for youths in rural areas. A produced short experimental work by McNally, Death of a Star was presented at the Centre for Creative practices, Ireland and was supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. His feature screenplay In the Land of Saints and Sinners secured him a spot on N.I Screen’s New Writer Focus 2016/17 programme. He is currently in discussions with companies in the United Kingdom and Ireland to develop a TV Pilot Nothing Happens Somewhere.
Mark was selected by Future Screens NI and participated in the Puttnam Scholarship programme in 2020.
Puttnam Scholarship Programme: Spotlight on Joe McStravick
Joe McStravick is an award-winning film & TV director /screenwriter. A range of his past projects have been commissioned and/or broadcast by BFI Network, NI Screen, BBC, TG4 and RTE 2. His short films have screened at various international film festivals; including BAFTA and Academy Award accredited film festivals.
He has also directed and produced a range of multi-platform commercial content for Randox, Cable & Wireless, PwC, HM Treasury, BBC, TCL Mobile and other international clients.
In 2018 he was selected for the BFI Network x BAFTA Crew - Director Mentoring scheme. In 2020 he was selected for the BFI Network x BAFTA Crew for the third consecutive year.
Joe will represent Future Screens NI on the Puttnam Scholarship Programme on behalf of Future Screens NI and NI Screen. Joe McStravick is Future Screens NI Future Foundation Mentor and will be available to assist and guide Puttnam Scholars appointed by Future Screens NI throughout the course of the programme.
Neoco Toolkit & Playbook
partnership: Future Screens NI, NI Screen, Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University
Neoco Toolkit & Playbook is a new web platform aimed to help people find ways to improve the way they work, collaborate and build successful lives for themselves. Neoco includes over 240 tools, 50 published guides, 16 case studies and much more. The playbook aims to be of particular value to anyone currently working remotely or considering remote work – both independently and within teams and organisations – in any sector, but with a specific focus on the creative industries. The project was funded through Future Screens NI’s Rewriting the Narrative award scheme.
More information can be found here: https://neoco.io/
Key Personnel
Ben Bland is a leader within the digital industries, spearheading developments in online marketing and e-commerce, digital strategy, and wider tech startup consulting & entrepreneurship. He is a partner at a newly founded innovation practice, Loopers. http://loopers.co/
Ben has a twenty-year career split between London and Belfast, working within agencies, small-to-medium size businesses, NGOs, and as a freelancer. Ben's creative industry experience includes working with dozens of local startups, agencies and industry bodies. He led operations at Belfast-based AI company Sensum for five years, and serves as Chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ P7014 working group to develop a global standard for the ethics of empathic technology.
For more information on Ben please follow the following link: http://benbland.me/
Glove Play Pain Relief
Partnership: Action Sense, Future Screens NI and Ulster University
ActionSense have developed a bespoke digital solution for use in the treatment and rehabilitation of rheumatology (http://www.actionsense.org/solution/). Glove Play Pain Relief is a state of the-art technology sensor infused glove, which has been developed to analyze the movement of hand, wrist and fingers, in order to detect and measure joint stiffness.
ActionSense have developed a cost-effective efficient sensor system for the monitoring of exercise and rehabilitation of rheumatology patients remotely at home. Most arthritic patients suffer with pain, swelling and stiffness but current outcomes tend to focus on pain and swelling as opposed to stiffness. Where clinicians have sought to measure joint movement in arthritic patients, they continue to rely on manual goniometry. This however is widely seen as having fundamental deficiencies in terms of accuracy, time taken and lack of adaptability.
ActionSense are utilising gaming technology to enhance their gloves as a form of pain relief, to distract from pain during clinically prescribed home exercise routines. Through this unique provision of tailored computer games ActionSense can enhance engagement and completion of prescribed exercises using gamified processes and tasks to aid motivation. Their unique provision adds 3D graphics to augment the presentation of feedback and continuous real-time visualization of clinical data.
Key Personnel
Professor Condell. Joan is Co- founder and CEO of Action Sense and Professor in Intelligent Technologies at the Intelligent Systems Research Centre at Ulster University. She has brought in over 31.2 million euros of funded projects and has over 280 publications.
Dr James Connolly PhD, BSc. Lecturer at Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT), is Co-Founder of Action Sense and leads the technical team in Action-Sense Ltd.
Warren Young BSc (Hons) leads the business development team in ActionSense Ltd and has over 26 years’ experience in the Apparel industry focusing on technical and PPE products, sourcing and design of products.
There is also a clinical advisory team of consultant Rheumatologists in NI, who between them have vast experience in their specialist fields and combined have more than 60 publications to their name.
Mr Niall McShane is a Research Associate in the School of Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems. Niall is a creative and disciplined software developer who enjoys collaborating with others in a motivated, creative environment.
For more information on the team follow see here: https://www.actionsense.org/our-team
CO-Investigator
Dr Darryl Charles is a Future Screens NI Co-I and a Senior Lecturer in School of Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems. Darryl’s research background is in Computational Intelligence and he has applied his expertise in this area to serious games and apps as well as a number of research contexts such as intelligent interactive storytelling, machine learning in games, user modelling, cloud computing, and connected health.
For more information about Glove Play Pain relief visit here: https://www.actionsense.org/
The Hearios
Partnership: ALT Animation, Future Screens NI, and SARC
The Hearios is a new and exciting stop motion animation and live action mixed media series aimed at a pre-school audience featuring a family of musical moles who teach children the important developmental skill of active listening.
Since their formation, ALT Animation have been focused on developing a slate of animated properties for the global market. In 2017 ALT Animation optioned an idea for an animated series from children’s author and music expert Ann Bryant.
Working with Ann and Mark Gordon of Score Draw Music, ALT have developed the idea into The Hearios, a property with true international appeal which promises to couple compelling animated content with a very valuable message for a modern pre-school audience.
In order to make The Hearios stand out from its competitors, ALT are proposing to bolster their current proposition by carrying out user testing with their target audience, in collaboration with QUB, to provide information about the existing listening skills and vocabulary of pre-schoolers and how they are affected by the central premise of the show. The series has been designed to improve children’s active listening skills which have been shown to assist with their development in areas such as speech, language skills and memory. ALT propose to carry out some user testing in order to establish the effectiveness of the show in capturing children’s attention to the sounds presented and their development of a vocabulary of sounds. Educational aspects of a series are of huge importance to broadcasters, especially public service broadcasters who have a particular remit to inspire and educate their audiences.
Academic Collaborators
Dr Trevor Agus is a hearing researcher based in SARC at Queen’s University Belfast, specialising in the auditory perception of everyday sounds.
Dr Tim Fosker is a developmental psychologist at Queen’s University Belfast, specialising in the development of speech and language.
Dr Franziska Schroeder is a Reader in Music and Sonic Arts at Queen’s University Belfast and a Future Screens NI co-investigator.
Agus and Fosker have previously collaborated to develop methods for testing the auditory abilities of preschoolers (e.g. Gillen, Agus & Fosker, Auditory Perception & Cognition, 2019; “Measuring auditory discrimination thresholds in preschool children: An empirically based analysis”).
For more information on ALT Animation: https://www.altanimation.com
For more information on The Hearios: https://www.altanimation.com/development/
The Makers Series at the Designerie
Partnership: The Makers House at the Designerie, Enterprise Causeway and Future Screens NI
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many of the most vulnerable people faced increased isolation, resulting in decreased opportunities for social interaction and physical activity - so vital for good mental and physical wellbeing. In addition, local artists and makers faced a loss of income and significant negative impact on their small businesses, due to closure of physical premises, local markets and craft fairs.
The act of creating something, and our and others, appreciation of it, provides an experience that can have positive effects on our physical and mental health. The current situation demands that opportunities to participate in, and connect with others through creative activities need to be made easily available, affordable and accessible. With that in mind, and with the support of Future Screens NI, Makers House at the Designerie Bushmills have created “The Makers Series”.
Funded by Future Screens NI- ‘Rewriting the Narrative’- The Maker’s Series comprises eight, easily accessible and free ‘virtual’ workshops, led by established local artists/makers, allowing those most in need to engage in creative activities and connect with others. The workshops introduce crafters, makers and artists to a range of traditional crafts and art forms that they may already be familiar with, but have not engaged with for some time (weaving, macrame) and new crafts and arts forms they may not have tried before (photography, needle felting, paper crafts). Each of the workshops will encourage viewers to explore their talent, through expansion and extension of learned skills, and to continue to develop and to express themselves creatively in their own time. All workshops feature clear audio and visual instructions and will also provide the option of free downloads of user friendly, printed instructions, featuring full colour photographs of each step.
Workshops are free, and carefully planned to keep material costs low, and/or will include materials viewers may already have at home. The artists of Makers House at the Designerie hope you enjoy them and would love to hear your feedback. Contact clairemcdowell256@gmail.com for more information.
Clíona Ni Bhuachalla
Puttnam Scholarship
Clíona Ni Bhuachalla of Icebox Films is award-winning feature film and TV drama producer with extensive credits including the Award-winning feature documentary “Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous, Legend and The Clinic. Clíona is a bilingual industry trailblazer well-known for transforming Irish Language Broadcasting.
Clíona’s current project ‘Tarrac’ is her first feature film for cinema in which she is producer and storywriter with Eugene O’Brien (Pure Mule, Eden). ‘Tarrac’ has been commissioned by TG4 as part of their Cine4 scheme, and is in active co-funding by Screen Ireland, BAI and S481 to a budget of €1.2m. It is currently in early pre-production with an anticipated filming date of 7th September 2020.
Clíona will be moderating and observing the Puttnam Scholarship Programme on behalf of Future Screens NI and NI Screen.