Dr Joanna Samuel rounds-up a successful Immersive Futures event, which offered students expert insight and advice on future careers in the digital and creative industries.

I had the pleasure of going to the University’s Immersive Futures event a few weeks ago. The event, in partnership with the British Film Institute (BFI), offered some wonderful insights and advice from leading industry experts into the digital world of AI, VR and VFX.

Samantha Kingston, CEO of Virtual Umbrella, a specialist marketing agency with a focus on virtual reality, gave us a fascinating immersive industry guide. It was interesting to hear about the possibilities of deeply impactful storytelling within VR due to the uninterrupted time without distractions that the VR headset allows. Giving the viewer a feeling of actually being within the story means that twenty minutes of VR can potentially produce a similar emotional and psychological effect as a two-hour film.

Samantha had so many valuable recommendations and advice for students on the VR immersive industry; highlighting how fluid the industry is, demonstrating how starting in one role could very well lead to opportunities in different roles. She also explained how the VR industry is all about community and networking, recommending joining immersive communities and finding opportunities to showcase your work as a great first step into the industry.

HaZ Dulull, CEO of Beyond The Pixels, emphasised how telling stories is the most important thing, and with mobile phone cameras being such a good quality these days, there is no excuse not to go out and make what you want. His advice around pitching was that if you believe in your project and show genuine passion for it, people will believe in you and want to support you.

The biggest take out from HaZ’s talk was how he encouraged students to find a way to be subversive. As we are saturated with content, HaZ suggests that you need to find ways to stand out. Playing it safe and staying within convention isn’t enough, you need to find ways to go beyond this.

Kathryn Webb who is the Managing Director of AIMICI, a company that is on a mission to support creatives in the UK with safe and impactful AI solutions. This means helping companies to adopt AI responsibly. Kathryn shared some statistics that showed that 84% of US filmmakers and 57% of UK TV producers are already adopting or plan to adopt the use of AI within the next two years. It was encouraging to hear that companies are starting to have guidelines in place on how generative AI can be used.

The transparency in the use of AI as creatives is very important, and if working with or pitching ideas to any company, it is important to know what their AI policies are.

Kathryn believed the most valuable specialist skills a future creative should have was a proficiency in the languages of AI, and an understanding of data and rights. Her advice was to use AI responsibly; only use it when it is viable and valuable, ensuring that you check for risks and to be transparent in your use of it.

Before the event, Samantha and HaZ very kindly joined me in the podcast studio to chat about how AI is being used in their industries. The episode will be out on Wednesday 13th May. Do look out for it – it’s going to be a great episode. Find out more about the podcast and how to listen here – Home | The Creative Careers and AI Podcast

Dr Joanna Samuel, Senior Lecturer in the School of Sciences, Psychology, Arts and Humanities, Computing, Engineering and Sports.

Dr Samuel also presents and produces The Creative Careers and AI Podcast, aimed at creative students, tutors, parents and academics who are interested in exploring how AI is changing entry level creative careers, and how young creatives can best prepare for a career in this fast-evolving industry.