At the tail end of 2019 East City Films applied to the BFI Audience Fund for a National Lottery award to support a 3-month research project looking into the distribution and exhibition of our VR documentary, Common Ground.

Our CCO Darren Emerson, who wrote, directed and produced Common Ground has always believed it should be available to audiences beyond the industry focused festival circuit. By definition, these audiences are small and often hard to access and our ambitions have always been for Common Ground to speak to people from all walks of life; from council estates like the Aylesbury to the corridors of power in Whitehall. We were grateful to receive funding for the research in March and began in earnest just as COVID-19 gripped the world and put us into lockdown.

With a new world to plan a tour within, our thinking had to consider previously unimagined challenges, but it also served to put a critical spotlight on how virtual reality can not only survive in a pandemic but also thrive.

The team, comprising of Darren Emerson, Dan Tucker and Anthony Comber Badu, has now completed the research, and East City Films are proud to share the comprehensive report with you.

The BFI launched the report on 9th October praising it for being “an invaluable study of the current landscape and the considerations needed to move this sector of our industry forward.”

They go on to say : “By using the proposed UK-wide tour of Common Ground as the basis of the research, the team has provided a case study that shows how the challenges can be approached, and suggests real world routes to reaching diverse audiences with immersive stories. As well as covering the logistics – including technology and staffing – the report considers marketing and press, accessibility and diversity, the impact of COVID-19 on health and safety, and revenue models.”

The BFI announcement is here.

The report can be downloaded here:

⬇️ Taking VR stories to UK audiences: Common Ground, a UK touring report PDF 15mb

Coinciding with the launch of this report, you can watch Common Ground (360 version), as part of BFI London Film Festival 20’s LFF Expanded programme.