As creators of immersive events, attractions and experiences, we know that great storytelling is at the heart of everything that we create. We work with a range of talented script and story writers who are experienced in the profession of writing for immersive experiences – a genre that offers no shortage of challenges but also no shortage of fun! It’s at this early writing stage that we can really get creative in bringing our clients’ stories / attractions / shows / games, etc., to life! The range of immersive style experiences that we write for is fairly broad, covering scare attractions, escape rooms, interactive theatre and immersive audio, all of which require a unique writing approach that we have learned to shape and perfect. However, in our quest to explore immersive storytelling further we were keen to explore other methods, covering a number of other challenging immersive genres. How can we approach writing for transmedia experiences, alternate reality games and live action role play (LARP)?
Luckily, the Immersive Experience Network came to the rescue last month when they hosted an event at the Bridewell Theatre in London. The event, a creators’ ‘Huddle’, ‘Writing for Immersive’ was focused on getting from the blank page to a script and in some cases how to work without a script!
Three inspiring presenters took to the floor: Owen Kingston – Artistic Director of Parabolic Theatre, spoke about writing for high-interactivity immersive theatre shows, Rob Morgan – Creative Director of Playlines, delivered his perspective on writing for AR & VR experiences, and Chloe Mashiter, Game Designer and Theatre Maker, shared her wealth of knowledge on what we would consider the bravest genre LARP (live action role play) something we have yet to explore at The Business Creative but we now know a lot more about it! LARP is a live action role-playing game where the participants physically portray their characters. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by real-world environments while interacting with each other in character – brave and challenging for both creator, performers and participants but sounds like fun!
The Immersive Experience Network will be hosting their next Huddle event, Immersive Creator Workshop & Social at Alcotraz London on the 24th April. You can find more details here.
There are also some great books available on this subject. A favourite with our writing and creative team is ‘Immersive Story Telling – For Real and Imagined Worlds’ by Margret Chandra Kerrison who has worked as a writer on immersive projects around the world including National Geographic, NASA and Disney. The book is the first of its kind, written specifically for writers of immersive storytelling and is backed up by some fascinating behind the scenes knowledge of world-famous attractions.
