December 2, 2003

Sheridan learners visited the Toronto Immersion Studios for a tour with Tasha Aulls and a talk with Rodney Hoinks, co-founder and architect. Immersive Studios provides multiplayer immersive experiences in a theatre environment and for desktop. Several features were experienced including voting on energy and marine life concerns.

http://imm-studios.com

Learners then took a tour of the Sheridan Immersion Studio and played InnerSpace a space feature to catch a space virus that has affected a space traveller. It is an exploration of the body with great sound and three panel theatre screen right upstairs above the labs.

We perhaps are witnessing the future of movies where audiences vote on the direction the movie takes like in Fahrenheit 451. Or better yet, audiences control characters individually or collectively. Collectively controlling game players is an area of personal research by Professor Dan Zen and will be explored by learners as we study the Flash Communication Server in the second term.

Immersion Studios use Flash and Director for the game elements of their features which was encouraging to see for the students as they look out for exiting places to apply their skills.

Learners prepared McLuhan Tetrads for Multiplayer Immersive Theatre based on the tours and on in-class research and presentations. The Tetrads are available at: http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca/tetrads/immersion.html. Learners analyzed what the technology enhances, makes obsolete, retrieves and flips into. The lecture / lab experience is part of the Sheridan Multimedia Pioneering course where a new technologies with respect to Interactive Multimedia are examined and working samples are explored. The technologies are: