blog 2021 3 min read

ITV chooses xR technology to celebrate Mental Health Awareness Week

For Mental Health Awareness Week, ITVCreates commissioned two experts from diverse fields—fine artist June Mineyama-Smithson and neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart—to put their heads together to create art to be shown in idents between programmes.

June Mineyama-Smithson (known as MAMIMU) specialises in geometric visual artworks, while Swart is a mental health thought leader. The motivation behind the collaboration, according to Dr Tara Swart, was “to bring happiness and optimism to the nation via the TV screen.”

The pair devised the concept of generating motion graphics for the ident to enhance feel-good hormones like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins and, in turn, induce a feeling of happiness. They found that the upward motion of the graphics, which rippled and changed colour, made people feel uplifted.

“We combined art and science to create ultimate optimism,” said artist MAMIMU.

To achieve a strong visual effect in a short space of time, the team used a physical object—a mirrored sculpture of the ITV logo—in disguise’s extended reality (xR) environment. Within the virtual space they designed colour combinations, angles and camera movements to create the happy-making moments that would be reflected by the ITV logo.

“June wanted to shoot in xR and wanted it to be on camera with the ITV logo mirror sculpture so it would look real,” said Pod Bluman, of Bluman Associates, the disguise partner brought in to bring the shoot to life.

“The whole thing could have been done in 3D and even 4D but it wouldn’t look real and the reflections on the mirrored surface and the content on the screen would have had a very different feel,” said Bluman. “The desire was to make it as real as possible.”

That’s where disguise’s xR technology came in.

“disguise helped with all of the connectivity—the whole server sat on our local network allowing us to deliver the whole project without anybody leaving their seats apart from the camera man,” said Kyle Reseigh, the xR technician on the shoot.

In addition, disguise’s latest software update, r18, was released during the process. “When updates came along, like the delay management tool or delay calibration tool, that suddenly made things a lot easier. We had a lot of support from disguise,” said Reseigh.

Learn more about disguise’s latest software release

The content was designed in Notch before being sent live into the virtual space. “The hardest part to achieve was the motion of the graphics,” said Reseigh. “June gave us assets that helped, but we had specific timings like the motion of the ripples for when and how they fade out. It had to be done in a very specific way. It had to be soft-edged, but not too soft, so that it still had some form to it.”

“It was quite a challenge but in the end it looked great, everyone was really happy with the result. June and Tara absolutely loved it,” said Reseigh.

The project for ITV was shot at Bluman Associates’ new Milkit xR Lab in London. The idents were shown across the month of May and can be accessed via the ITVCreates archival page.