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，一个小规模的旅游公司，具有既定的业绩记录，并致力于研究包容性的综合通信为年轻观众（重点是聋人观众）和跨学科团队的研究人员在艺术和计算机科学在诺丁汉大学之间的现有合作。Red Earth既定的“全面沟通”方法旨在将沟通模式-包括隐喻，符号，服装，布景，灯光，听觉，符号，口头，书面和音乐-融入表演的戏剧美学中。通过演员的熟练工作，英国手语和/或手语支持英语已成功嵌入到动作中，但在舞台动作中实现集成嵌入字幕以实现身临其境的挑战，而不是因放置字幕而引起的注意力分散。无论是在一边，在手机屏幕上方或通过手机屏幕（如Talking Birds的"The Difference Engine“）或智能眼镜（国家剧院）观看电影对于中小型剧院公司来说是昂贵和苛刻的。通过与聋人社区的主要利益相关者和组成艺术理事会资助的月球坡道网络的七家戏剧公司的一系列迭代研讨会和活动，由AHRC/EPSRC的2018研究和合作伙伴关系发展呼吁资助-下一代沉浸式体验，我们的团队致力于探索使用廉价或免费提供的沉浸式技术的潜力-使用虚拟现实跟踪和投影，支持在小规模巡回演出中进一步发展对聋人观众的综合包容性。在成功地开发、试用和分享了简短的表演片段中的原型方法之后，我们现在寻求将我们建议的解决方案嵌入到完整的巡回演出中。这将使我们的沉浸式字幕从设计过程的一开始就成为表演和制作的完整元素，而不是在制作过程结束时添加字幕并位于舞台上方或侧面的现有做法。2019年秋季，Red Earth将在Soonchild巡回演出，根据罗素霍班的书，并纳入特别委托的音乐，从民间合奏线程。Soonchild以寒冷的北方为背景，讲述了萨满Sixteen Face John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，直到歌曲被找到，他才能出生。这部作品针对8岁以上的儿童及其家人，将使我们能够展示实际应用的技术，创造性地嵌入我们以前的研究，目的是：- 与观众分享这项创新技术的潜力。Red Earth计划在2019年秋季进行至少15场演出的巡回演出，预计观众将达到1000名儿童和家庭成员（该节目将在2020年重新启动，计划至少在20个中型场馆进行巡回演出）。观众的反馈将为未来的营销和系统信息提供信息，以支持场馆寻求与D/聋人社区中通常难以接触的观众进行互动，确保我们的集成沉浸式包容性技术对剧院观众产生最大影响。证明了系统的稳定性和鲁棒性，这将通过一个实践技术研讨会展示给剧院场地和制作公司的新社区，并通过专门创建的视频教程和如何指南提供支持。在Soonchild巡回演出结束后，所使用的设备将可供其他希望试用这些技术的公司使用，确保有效和支持的途径，以影响我们集成沉浸式技术的潜在新用户。

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.