StoryFutures: The National Centre for Immersive Storytelling (run by the National Film and Television School and Royal Holloway, University of London) are pleased to announce their new Virtual Production Skills Report 2023.

This 2023 report provides a detailed analysis of the results from our quantitative skills and R&D survey which was designed to gain an understanding of the dynamic, fast-changing development of virtual production (VP) in the UK. The resulting data provide insight into how UK companies can take steps to take advantage of the opportunity that VP presents.

This report launched at our online webinar event on Thursday 23rd February 2023, hosted by Prof. Peter Richardson, Head of Virtual Production at StoryFutures, with report insights delivered by Dr Claude Heath, Senior Research Fellow at StoryFutures.

Chaired by Prof. Peter Richardson, the panellists included:

Fiona Kilkelly – Executive Producer, StoryFutures, and Immersive Consultant.

Ben Lumsden – Business Development Manager, Epic Games.

Sue Lyster – Executive in Charge, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) London Studio.

Andrea Miller – Founder and Director, Sunnyside Productions.

Authors

Prof. James Bennett is Director of StoryFutures Creative Cluster and Co-Director of StoryFutures and the StoryTrails project, part of UnBoxed 2022. He is Professor of Television and Digital Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. When he’s not immersed in the future of storytelling, he likes running, sea swimming and Vegemite.

Dr. Claude Heath is Senior Research Fellow at StoryFutures in the ethnography and mapping of creative workflows in the media industry, using participatory co-design, drawing and visual research methods. His research background is in human-computer interaction and cognitive science. He also has an international track record as a visual artist with work held in national and private collections worldwide.

Fiona Kilkelly is Executive Producer at StoryFutures, the UK’s National Centre for Immersive Storytelling run by the National Film and Television School and Royal Holloway, University of London. Fiona established Immerse UK, the UK’s immersive technology network in 2016, is co-founder of XR Health Alliance UK and has worked in the strategic development of emerging technologies within the creative industries for over 20 years.

Prof. Peter Richardson is Vice Dean Research and Knowledge Exchange
in School of Performing Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London and Head of Virtual Production, StoryFutures. He has been Principal Investigator on three major EU-funded projects researching emerging cinematic technologies. Peter has 28 years experience as a director of music videos, commercials, documentaries, opera, visual effects supervision in film, and recently as Producer and Executive Producer on VR and VP projects.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone who helped with the research for this report, including all those involved with VP Futures, the team at StoryFutures, Future Screens Northern Ireland, National Film and Television School, Monika Chowdhary Kuczynski, Anne McNeil, Andy Woods, Laryssa Whittaker, Declan Keeney, Paul Moore, Deidre MacFadyen, Lisa Pearson, Becky Gregory-Clarke, Sarah Brown, Beatrice Sutcliffe, Johnny Johnson, and our designer Paul Stephenson. A special thank you also goes out to the eight case studies companies for all of their efforts in making VP Futures a success, and to all of our interviewees who generously gave their time to this research.

Companies

StoryFutures