Make believe made real, with Soap Soup Theatre and Minny Stynker
We’ve been working with Tomasin Cuthbert Menes, Artistic Director of Soap Soup Theatre, to create an augmented reality experience for families caring for kids with long-term illness.
Whilst we’ve got a bigger AR collaboration still in development, we recently made a proto-type app for Tomasin to use in workshops that lets children design and create their own imaginary friend, and then animate and place them in AR.
My hope is to help ease the social isolation for the families who are caring for children with long term illness, and create a magical experience for those who can't access or don't feel comfortable in traditional theatre settings.
Tomasin Cuthbert Menes, Artistic Director of Soap Soup Theatre
My hope is to help ease the social isolation for the families who are caring for children with long term illness, and create a magical experience for those who can't access or don't feel comfortable in traditional theatre settings.
Tomasin Cuthbert Menes, Artistic Director of Soap Soup Theatre
How does it work?
First, the children select a rough outline for their imaginary friend. Next they draw and collage within the template, before snapping a photo of their design with an iPad. We use the resulting photo as a texture for a rigged sprite, and let the children choose from a selection of animations to bring them to life.
The imaginary friends can be ‘placed’ in AR – letting you take a picture with them via the camera feed, or record a short video of them moving around your space using the screen record function.
Any photos or videos can be shared after the workshop as part of an in-person and online exhibition at Bristol’s Knowle West Media Centre later this Spring. This is an opportunity for the children to ‘meet’ the different imaginary friends that have been created during the project.
This project is funded by Arts Council England and partnered by Action for M.E. The workshops kick off in March, and there are several different options to choose depending on your child’s needs, so if you’d like to attend or find out more, please visit Tomasin’s website where you’ll find forms to sign up for sessions and more information about the Minny Stynker project.
Check out our other immersive experiences, specifically made for children: the VR safari experience we made for the Eden Project, the AR theatre careers loan box, and the AR theatre app lead by a ghostly guide!
If you’d like to get in touch about working with us on your own project, drop us a line here.