Public Funding for Animal Vegetable Mineral Limited

AVM are producing a set of world-class virtual production tools to support the UK's leading global position in the market for fine art, antiques and cultural heritage. These tools will enable galleries, auction houses and museums to produce and publish video content for sales and exhibition purposes at a fraction of the cost of the current state of the art and in a fraction of the time. Development has progressed and target market feedback has indicated a strong need for further development to meet user requirements. User wish to have people within their 3D environments and current 3DVR tech is not good enough to meet user quality demands. The development will deliver ground breaking augmented virtual reality features that will enable customers to create photo-realistic video content featuring people as well as 3D art works in photo-realistic environments without ever having to leave their desks. The tools will deliver both short -term economic benefits for the Covid 19 impacted art and cultural heritage market, as well as significant long-term economic, environmental and educational benefits for UK plc. AVM estimate savings in time and the cost of production of around 75% compared with the current state of the art in production processes. Environmental benefits could be even more significant with potential savings coming from both increases in efficiency and customer behavior, as online only viewings and sales become more and more business as usual. The project is designed as a short development at relatively low cost in terms of potential benefits, leveraging existing AVM technology, market position and team strengths. Sustainability issues are addressed and some are measurable within the study, in particular those related to improved productivity. Other benefits in this area will take longer to materialise, such as reduced travel and freight costs (low-carbon benefits). AVM will deploy a user-centered design and project management approach to ensure outputs deliver maximum benefits to target users. The grant will enable AVM to establish a position as a world leader in the field of video production and marketing tools for the art market. This service will in turn support and enhance the UK existing status as a global leader in the market for fine art and exhibitions by ensuring that the UK's leading galleries and auction houses have first mover access to the technology that will enable them to manage their costs and carbon footprints at a time of great change and economic disruption. Opportunities exist to extend the use of the outputs into adjacent sectors, such as museums and exhibitions, with largely social benefits since the sector is not well resourced financially. Access to such tools will promote culture/heritage and education via low cost in-house usage but will not, in itself, create a sustainable free standing business model within the sector. As an extension to primary target it is a significant,and global, opportunity which will be evaluated, extending prior AVM work in this area.

The virtual publisher platform is a simple-to-use, low cost 3D exhibition publishing and marketing tool for the arts and culture sector. It is designed for individual artists, galleries and museums to create, publish and market art and cultural content, online. Unlike other virtual exhibition solutions currently on the market the virtual publisher enables bespoke and off the shelf spaces. It accommodates both 2D and 3D content at high quality and has built in marketing and sales tools designed to deliver a clear demonstrable ROI. The application has two key components, a set of virtual production tools and an exhibition showcase application that is browser-based, platform agnostic, low-cost, flexible, secure and easy-to-use. The team have made excellent progress and are currently testing the production tools in the market with target customers. Feedback has been extremely positive and we have identified a number of additional work packages which will have enable us to increase the impact of the innovation and the speed to market . Expanding quickly into international markets is a key part of the next phase of the commercial strategy. Tracking the positive ROI and environmental impact of the tools with new customers will be be a key part of the marketing strategy.

Live mixed reality (MR) media is the term used for the end results of a process by which live video and live game content are integrated to produce a single visual image which blends the real and the virtual, allowing physical contributors (live action audiences and presenters) to interact in realtime with virtual game elements. To date this technology has been extremely specialised and its application has been limited to a few ground breaking interactive formats. Device convergence, the evolution of the virtual reality headset and the increasing demands / expectations of the audience for interactive TV content is set to change all of this. Mixed reality media has the potential to bring real and virtual elements together in convergent formats that allow audiences to watch and interact and play along as never before. AVM are a specialist 360 degree technology company formed by the core team who produced the hit mixed reality children's show BAMZOOKI for the BBC. One of the very few expressions of live mixed reality content broadcast to date.? In spite of worldwide acclaim, critical recognition and significant commercial interest, the BBC were unable to export the Bamzooki format or replicate the production outside of the UK. Prohibitive costs, reliance upon highly specialized teams, the highly bespoke nature of the production set up and the unreliability of the technology were all significant contributing factors.? Distilling all their learnings and experience from producing four series of this ground breaking mixed reality show, a POM and POC study the AVM team are now embarking on the development of a proprietary technology platform designed to revolutionise the delivery and production of mixed reality media, significantly reducing the production costs, halving the amount of studio hardware, improving the production reliability and set up times and opening up the market for mixed reality TV formats to a mainstream audience .

DES1GN3R is a truly converged cross platform format, that puts user generated creative content at the heart of everything it does. By providing the simple portable creative design tools it opens opportunities for enthusiasts to be come creators (just as instagram has made it possible for people with phones to publish and share their photographs) placing the emphasis on creative inspiration not technical accomplishment. This creative expression then becomes the focus of a social community, encouraging collaboration and stimulating further creativity by rewarding successful ideas with approval ratings (witness the success of pre-buying on the crowd funding website kickstarter) and encouraging them to extend their skills and take part in televised design competitions. These televised showcases will in turn market their ideas and talents and inspire other enthusiasts to get involved , creating a virtuous circle of engagement.