University Brief: Exploit a range of media technologies and demonstrate the ability to collaboratively develop, plan and manage a substantial project.

Introduction & the Museum:

Western Approaches Museum is a restored large World War II bunker based in the centre of Liverpool where Commanders, WRNS and WAAF formerly worked within the headquarters as the nerve centre of the Battle of the Atlantic. The museum still has original rooms, where operations took place, this including: the Central Operations room where the U-boat activity was plotted and analysed, the Cypher Room where codes were broken and deciphered but they also have scene rooms made up to demonstrate the time period from the 1940s War Street of the Blitz to the Commanders offices.

In addition to paid guided tours that take visitors through the many rooms within the bunker and provide explanations of the bunker's history. The museum provides self-guided tours that let visitors explore scenarios that have been meticulously reconstructed to represent specific rooms or operations during the war. Along with showing off war equipment such as the Enigma machine, communication equipment and other artefacts.

Therefore using the elements that were already presented, this project tasked us into enhancing the war artefacts and its history. We made immersive elements for a war based immersive showcase of collaborative projects for Western Approaches.

Team Planning:

When we started out the project we originally planned out as a group different concepts that we could use and once we had a base idea of different concepts we designated main roles to each others strengths, so even though we would be working together on the whole project we all had main aspects to work on to make this project run smoothly.

The Groups Main Roles:

Rey - Concept Artist/ Project Manager / Projection Mapper
Lauren - Designer/ Scenic Designer/ Project Manager / Projection Mapper
Kieran - Convai / Unreal/ Head of Technology
Konrad - War Game / Unreal
Jonghwan - Dreamscape/ Designer
Simon- Blender

Initial Meeting & Planning:

In the concept development stage we began by going to the location and experiencing the museum. We found that there was a lack of audience interactivity and engagement to keep the history alive, especially for the younger audiences. So, we started developing ideas early on for what each part of the museum could have that would engage the audience. Our early stage ideas were:

Alternate realities within particular rooms, such as what if Britain lost the war?
Real life Stories, that of people from the different parts of the bunker or Liverpool based war stories.
Creating games about the war, a war (room) game experience, telephone war experience.
Creating immersive experiences that will make an audience feel a particular way such as fear or pride. This would be done using specific lighting, such as red or blue, projections, animations, QR codes, A poppy wall, Convai (Conversational Artificial Intelligence), changing some of the Bunker’s environment (e.g: to look like a U-boat or a scene) and have interactive elements in the different rooms such as the street.

Audience:

We had to consider the particular target audience that we would be working with and how we would appeal to them. The target audience of the museum we learned did vary between school children and those over 50; we had to find a way to engage both younger minds whilst keeping the older audience interested in the production as well.

Processes, Progressing concepts, Production and Collaboration:

Once we had our main concepts, we narrowed down our ideas to those that better fit that of the museum’s atmosphere. We started putting together designs and production details to be able to bring together the design for the end product. We were able to explore the spaces and have the staff give us the full layout of the museum to plan out the environment that we thought would benefit us most.

Budget:

One of the considerations we faced was having an uncertain budget or no budget, from the clients and university, for creating immersive experiences. With limited university resources, we got creative, using existing equipment and our own skills to build the project.

Development content:

We created communication channels to continue to develop our ideas. As we were collaborating with not only each other but also the clients we needed to establish communication with both. As a team we started out using Miro to make our beginning plans where we then moved to Notion where we stored our concepts and work so that everything we were working on could be seen in one place.

Then we had several groups and paired meetings on WhatsApp, Discord and in person to formulate each individual aspect of the project. Along with having email communications set up with the clients to be able to meet their needs for this project and this allowed constant communication with the client where needed. We were also able to present the main concepts to the clients to see what aspects they were content with, wanted to see developed into a full prototype and to meet our aims. This led us to pulling everything together, putting the practical and progression steps onto a range of folders in a OneDrive.

We wanted to have an exhibit design that demonstrated visually innovative use of exhibition space using actual physical installations, time artefacts, lighting and sound designs. We wanted to produce captivating but historically accurate sound, audio and visual designs within our projections and components. One of the most important aspects would be the interactivity that would engage the visitors whilst still making sure to keep the world war two stories and feel to the spaces.

What I was in Charge Of & Developed:

Even though we all heavily intertwined our responsibilities throughout the creations of this piece I was still responsible for particular areas of development in the process of creation. One of these responsibilities being the overseeing timelines and production, alongside Lauren, we made sure that we were keeping on track and that resources that could be needed would be obtainable and that risks that could happen between stages were able to be managed.

When it comes to the actual development of the collaboration I alongside the design team, Lauren and Jonghwan, were in charge of the style of the dreamscapes and setting it up. This involved small details, such as writing war-time letters (based on real world WW2 letters), layout and projection mapping videos. Furthermore, developing the concept art for the major design elements of the project was a huge part of my responsibilities throughout the making of this project.

Another aspect I was also responsible for was communication both between the group and the clients. This helped establish timelines, who needed to complete what aspect and who needed help or even at one point a switch in roles.

What we produced:

The Museum Western Approaches, a World War 2 Bunker, we found that even with its deep history lacked depth and engagement. After we evaluated this from our visits we created our original ideas on how to engage an audience, we then delved into further research for particular areas of the idea to be able to create the final production showcase of prototypes.

We were able to create complete audioscapes, a functional projected war game, a few Convai recruiters, 2 dreamscapes and a projection mapped typist room with a range of blender animations of silhouettes of people who potentially worked within the bunker.

General & Individual Evaluation & Reflection:

The overall project we followed the brief given by creating a range of immersive installations to meet the clients needs. Doing this we created effective immersive environments and pieces using videos, Blender, mood lighting, soundscapes and Unreal.

I think that throughout the process as a group with the timeframe we could have come up and created a bigger showcase with more immersive products or just done more in general, however despite this I think that we managed to pull off several innovative collections of immersive products that enhance the themes of the museum.

We did not manage to go forward with some of our concepts due to the lack of information gained the clients for instance gaining war stories from their collection, this situation was something we ended up struggling to solve due to our clients lack of communication with us as we constantly tried to keep up communication channels open with the clients and after trying to continuously to keep the contact up, after multiple attempts it then became outside of our control due to their lack of communication. Also our creativity was our strong point but we were realistic with timeframes and expectations.

Group Evaluation & Reflection:

As a group we had very limited to no conflict, often the conflicts that did take place were solved quickly and were due to clashing ideas. We managed to successfully hit deadlines and communicated effectively throughout the process to get the results we need.

Although we managed the project to a good ability there were still some communication errors, such as some tasks divulged onto a particular team member and then going uncompleted despite having access to support, however this was quickly diverted once noted by giving them a different task that would play more to their strengths. We all took moments of constructive criticism and then improved upon the areas as soon as we could.

We occasionally did stray from tasks slightly in different aspects and some areas definitely had some of us a bit lost due to us not managing to know what was needed in particular areas. However, it all came together officially during the final installations of the project.

Client Evaluation & Reflection:

After presenting the showcase to the clients they gave us feedback on each installation, this allowed us to know that we met the clients requirements and how they would want to develop each of these installations. We took them round each aspect and gave them both the research we did and how it relates to the museum, along with how the sections worked.

Due to knowing how aspects such as projection mapping works in live events such as Marshmallow Laser Feast (2023) we wanted to accomplish our own use of projection mapping in our appliances. This led to further discussions with the client on their thoughts of the experience and how we could add to it even further if we completely perished the installations within their museum, such as taking the Paper Dreamscape and making a full installation using letters that the museum has alongside their own artefacts.

After the showcase was complete we made sure that the client was happy with the outcome of all the prototypes and went on to discuss how they could be used moving forward such as continuing on to setting up a permanent installation with the company in the future.

References:

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Big Heritage (1993). Western Approaches. [online] Western Approaches. Available at: https://liverpoolwarmuseum.co.uk/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2024].

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MadMapper — The projection Mapping software (2014). MadMapper - the Projection Mapping software on MAC & WINDOWS. create 3d projection mapping and LED Light Mapping. [online] MadMapper — The projection Mapping software. Available at: https://madmapper.com/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2024].

Marshmallow Laser Feast (2023). Features. [online] Marshmallow Laser Feast. Available at: https://marshmallowlaserfeast.com/.

Miro (2019). Team collaboration software & online whiteboard for teams | Miro. [online] https://miro.com/. Available at: https://miro.com/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2024].

Mukherjee, P. (2023). Convai - Conversational AI for Virtual Worlds. [online] www.convai.com. Available at: https://www.convai.com/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2024].

Notion Labs (2018). Notion – The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases. [online] Notion. Available at: https://www.notion.so/desktop [Accessed 23 Apr. 2024].

Savage Interactive (2011). Procreate® – Sketch, Paint, Create. [online] Procreate. Available at: https://procreate.com/.

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www.jstor.org. (1943). | JSTOR. [online] Available at: https://www.jstor.org/site/albright/worldwar2letters/?so=item_title_str_asc [Accessed 23 Apr. 2024].

Index:

Other Teams Contact:

Lauren:

Linked In

Jo:

Konrad:

Kieran: