Making accessibility accessible: maximising the impact of the integrated immersive inclusiveness project

这一后续资助项目建立在红土剧院与诺丁汉大学艺术和计算机科学研究人员的跨学科团队之间的现有合作基础上。红土剧院是一家小规模巡演公司，有既定的记录，致力于为年轻观众(重点是聋人观众)进行包容性综合传播研究。红地球已确立的“全传播”戏剧制作方法旨在将各种传播模式--包括隐喻、符号、服装、布景、灯光、听觉、手势、口头、书面和音乐--沉浸在表演的戏剧美学中。英国手语和/或手语支持的英语已经通过演员的熟练工作成功地嵌入到动作中，但对于中小型剧院来说，在舞台动作中实现集成的嵌入字幕以实现沉浸感而不是由于字幕放置在旁边、上方或通过手机屏幕(如Talking Birds的Difference Engine)或智能眼镜(国家剧院)而造成的注意力分散的挑战是昂贵和苛刻的。通过与聋人社区和七家剧院公司的关键利益攸关方进行的一系列迭代研讨会和活动，这些公司组成了艺术理事会资助的月球网络坡道，由AHRC/EPSRC的2018年研究和合作伙伴发展呼吁-下一代身临其境的体验提供资金，我们的团队致力于探索使用廉价或免费可用的身临其境技术的潜力-使用虚拟现实跟踪和投影-以支持在小规模巡演制作中进一步发展针对聋人观众的综合包容性。在成功地开发、试验和共享原型方法之后，我们现在寻求将我们建议的解决方案嵌入到完整的巡演生产环境中。这将使我们能够从设计过程开始就将身临其境的字幕整合为表演和制作的完整元素，而不是现有的在制作过程结束时添加字幕的做法，这些字幕位于舞台上方或一侧。2019年秋季，红土将根据罗素·霍班的书进行巡演，并融入特别委托的民间合奏音乐。故事背景设定在寒冷的北方，讲述了萨满十六面约翰的故事，他进行了一次史诗般的旅程，为他未出生的孩子捕捉世界上的歌曲，他的孩子直到找到歌曲才能出生。这部针对8岁以上儿童及其家庭的作品将使我们能够展示这些技术的实际应用，创造性地嵌入我们之前的研究，目的是：-与观众分享这项创新技术的潜力。红土计划在2019年秋季巡演至少15场，预计观众将达到1000名幼儿和家庭成员(该节目将在2020年恢复，计划至少巡演20个中型场馆)。观众的反馈将为未来的营销和有关该系统的信息提供信息，以支持寻求与D/聋人社区的观众接触的场馆，确保我们的综合身临其境的包容性技术对剧院观众产生最大影响。-证明该系统的稳定性和健壮性，该系统将通过实践技术研讨会向新的剧院场馆和制作公司展示，并通过专门创建的视频教程和如何指导得到支持。在SoonChild巡演结束后，所使用的设备将提供给希望试验这些技术的其他公司，以确保我们的集成沉浸式沉浸式技术的潜在新用户能够通过有效和有支持的途径产生影响。

This follow on funding project builds on an existing collaboration between Red Earth Theatre, a small-scale touring company with an established track record and commitment to research in inclusive integrated communication for young audiences (with a focus on deaf audiences) and an interdisciplinary team of researchers across arts and computer sciences at the University of Nottingham. Red Earth's established 'total communication' approach to making theatre aims to integrate modes of communication - including metaphor, symbol, costume, set, lighting, auditory, signed, oral, written, and music - immersively within the theatrical aesthetics of the performance. British Sign Language and/or Sign Supported English has been successfully embedded within the action through the skilled work of their actors, but the challenge of achieving integrated embedded captions within the stage action to achieve immersiveness rather than the attention splitting caused by the placement of captions whether at the side, above or via phone screens (as with Talking Birds' The Difference Engine) or smart glasses (National Theatre) is expensive and demanding for small- and medium-scale theatre companies. Through a series of iterative workshops and events with key stakeholders from the deaf community and the seven theatre companies that make up the Arts Council funded Ramps on the Moon network, funded by the AHRC/EPSRC's 2018 Research and Partnership Development call - Next Generation of Immersive Experiences, our team has worked to explore the potential for the use of cheap or freely available immersive technologies - using virtual reality tracking and projection - to support further development of integrated inclusiveness for deaf audiences in small scale touring productions. Having successfully developed, trialled and shared prototype approaches in short extracts of performance, we now seek to embed our suggested solutions in the context of a full touring production. This will enable the integration of our immersive captions as a full element of the performance and production from the beginning of the design process, in contrast to the existing practice of captioning that is added at the end of the production process and situated above or to the side of the stage.In autumn 2019, Red Earth will tour Soonchild, based on Russell Hoban's book and incorporating specially commissioned music from the folk ensemble Threaded. Set in the frozen North, Soonchild tells the story of the shaman Sixteen Face John as he undertakes an epic journey to capture the world's songs for his unborn child, who cannot be born until the songs have been found. This production, aimed at children aged 8+ and their families, will enable us to showcase the technologies in action, creatively embedding our previous research with the aim of:- sharing the potential of this innovative technology with audiences. Red Earth planned tour of a minimum of 15 performances in the autumn of 2019 will reach an anticipated audience of up to 1000 young children and family members (the show will be revived in 2020 touring to a planned minimum of 20 medium sized-venues). Feedback from audience members will inform future marketing and information on the system to support venues seeking to engage with often hard to reach audiences in the D/deaf community, ensuring that our integrated immersive inclusive technology has maximum impact with theatre audiences.- proving the stability and robustness of the system, which will be showcased to new communities of theatre venues and production companies via a hands-on technical workshop and supported via specially created video tutorials and how to guides. On completion of the Soonchild tour, the equipment used will be made available for loan to other companies who wish to trial the technologies, ensuring effective and supported pathways to impact for prospective new users of our integrated immersive incusive technology.