Learning / virtual reality
Inside UWE’s virtual reality Master’s degree
It has taken 18 months to develop UWE Bristol Master’s degree in Virtual Reality (VR) from idea to fruition, and in that time VR has gone through a full cycle of media hype. From being touted as a ubiquitous gamechanger with almost limitless potential, media attention reached saturation point. Now, innovation is going on quietly but no less determinedly across sectors ranging from documentary filmmaking to healthcare.
“This course has landed at quite a useful time for the industry,” says Verity McIntosh, senior lecturer in virtual and extended realities at UWE and programme lead for the Master’s course. “As a practitioner, you can get your hands on a full range of technology, learn from some of the people that have been experimenting in the early stages, and work out what you want to do that’s different from what’s gone before.
“Now we have this incredible cohort of people who are going to shape the future of the industry, and who don’t have to defend it against the bombast.”
is needed now More than ever
VR Master’s programme lead Verity McIntosh
Now two months into the degree, on this sunny Monday afternoon the first cohort of ten students are busy working on ideas at Bristol VR Lab on Anchor Square. Tasked with coming up with an elevator pitch for a VR experience set in a UK town, they are assisted by workshop leaders and VR specialists Anagram, who talk about their own creative process and projects as well as setting work for the students. Later on in the one-year course, the students will collaborate on projects to showcase themselves as practitioners, based on what they have learned.
Verity first came across VR in 2013 while working as a producer at Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio, a space where technologists and creative practitioners work side by side. While other VR courses draw students from computer science and games design, here VR is considered as a platform for storytelling. The first cohort has interests spanning 360 degree natural history filmmaking, the possibilities of using VR in online education packages, using immersive technologies to improve healthcare, and making museum collections more accessible.
Amy Rose, one half of VR creators Anagram along with May Abdalla, running a workshop for the students
“This industry will only really flourish if we have people from different backgrounds, industries and disciplines coming at it from different angles and learning from one another,” Verity says.
“The VR sector is at risk of inheriting a kind of Silicon Valley ‘bro’ culture. Representation of women and people of colour is not great right now, and and a lot of people have found it challenging to get involved. This course is about creating new pathways into this field, and also creating some critical language around it, so VR isn’t just about cool gadgets.”
The UK VR industry is forecasted to be worth £801m by 2021 according to PWC, so this first cohort will graduate as early-adopter experts in a growing field.
“This course is a broad application of immersive media,” says Harry Willmott, a student who was previously working to develop VR technology at Torbay Hospital. “We’re learning the tools to do it and what we make has broad applications. It’s interesting because it’s so multidisciplinary. The sky is the limit.”
Find out more about UWE Bristol’s VR Master’s by visiting www.uwe.ac.uk/virtualreality
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