Workshops / Talks / Lectures / Courses — Mark Ashmore FRSA
Workshops in Social Media Marketing, Funding ideas, Understanding and reaching your audience, XR Producing, Design sprint and ideation leader + mentorship and consultancy
Contact : Markashmorefrsa@gmail.com (Available UK and Global + Metaverse)
With a career spanning nearly 20 years, starting at the BBC, and with a First Class Honours Degree in Theatre Arts, along with numerous awards for both film and theatre, a producer of over 200+ events, 3 VR Production’s and a video game + Director of 1 feature film and a web series for Dailymotion, and not to mention currently completing a PhD in how Generation Z are consuming media differently in an age of XR — I would like to say, I have a lot of experience!
But, I find that to unpack all that I have done, sharing this knowledge is key to actually learning more! — and so, I wanted to share a series of workshops, talks, lectures and courses that I have previously done, so that I could share what I know with your organisation. I am also open to offers to produce bespoke educational work for you — From the summer of 2024–2025 I am having what I call a fallow year, post PhD I am figuring out, what it is I want to achieve next — so I am hoping to do lots of workshops to help me be reflective and figure out my next step.
My current producing and research is around XR technology and its application in the arts for entertainment and industry, to this end I have been running the Future Artists Immersive Arts lab for 7 years over 12 + Labs — these 1,2,3 day design sprints bring together a mixed co-ort of creatives and computer science peeps to create something new, and share with the immediate network — we now have 1300+ members who are part of this lab. (Video all about this, further down the page)
I am also launching the AI Social Club with several University's and industry partners, a space for AI creators and builders in both the arts and computer science world to meet, in a facilitated networking environment, a concept I have created to create diversity, inclusivity and rapid knowledge transfer, and to be ‘more human’ in the age of AI — more on this soon. (Get in touch to be involved)
An overview of my work and my peer review can be found on my LinkedIn — https://uk.linkedin.com/in/markashmore
My theatre producing is here, I am a member of the Independent Theatre Council — https://www.itc-arts.org/member/mark-ashmore/
And my film and TV credits are here on IMDB — https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2033084/
Workshops (part day, full day or residency) — Rates vary depending on pre-production, travel and time.
Social Media Marketing —
Objective — Participants will have a full understanding of how social media technology works and the cost and process to reach a target audience for any project — spoiler alert, its not the number of likes you have!
Using my own case studies, I will take you through the most up to date social media technology and walk you through how to maximise a return on investment. Looking at algorithms on all platforms, the users, the markets and demonstrate the power of copy, image, video and audio across various platforms, and more importantly, how much you need to spend to make that return*.
- Social media marketing is 70% of how I produce revenue between 2021 and 2023 this generated over £250,000.
- www.futureartists.net
Funding
Objective — Participants will understand a full range of funding that they can tap into for an idea — this workshop will focus on crowdfunding, debt equity and alternative funding streams in the digital space.
Using my own case studies of 3 successful Kickstarter projects, I will walk the room through how a successful Crowdfunder should work, and also the 2 I did that did not work and why! — I also never got an equity investor until my 5th year, and so I will demonstrate how I built the company and what getting investment enabled me to do, and why, moving forward I have discovered alternative investment in the digital space, which enables me to own 100% of an idea.
- Note here — day to day, Future Artists are now self financed and 100% independent with no debt — meaning we can focus on projects and art!
Understanding Your Audience
Objective — You have an idea, but who might your audience be — identifying this audience and where they are is key to success. you will need this pre crowd fund and also when seeking investment — the audience / customer is a key part to your success, by the end of this session, you will have the skills to know how to find them.
Starting my PhD in computer science, meant that data became a key part of my daily life, previously as a creative, it wasn't on the radar. Data in the digital space is key to understanding your audience, and tools that are freely available via Google, Meta, Tik Tok and Government reports are full of information you need, and that's just the tip of the iceberg!
Data is cool! :)
XR Producing
Objective — What does a producer do! and what does an XR Producer do! — by the end of this session, you will understand the processes of which XR producers work by, the creative and technical pipelines and also how to schedule a project — Producing for XR requires skills in film, theatre, events and of course XR.
I created the Immersive Arts Lab in 2016 to become a resource for myself and my Future Artists community to understand the skills needed to produce in XR, but back then, it was just Virtual Reality. I actually went back to theatre producing in 2019, to make myself a better XR producer, whilst learning the technical aspects via my PhD study — so in this workshop, I aim to bring together my process for producing work in this space, based on my BBC Arts production ‘Lookout’, the immersive arts labs and ‘Virtual Horizons’ a theatre / VR hybrid show in 2023 with Hull Truck Theatre and Jack Chamberlin creative.
Recent published peer reviewed paper on this subject that I co-authored — https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357697768_From_video_streaming_to_virtual_reality_worlds_an_academic_reflective_and_creative_study_on_live_theatre_and_performance_in_the_metaverse
Design Sprint Ideation leader
Objective — How do you solve a problem in your business, how do you work through a creative idea and how do you do this as a team — and why is it the loudest most confident person in the room get’s listened to and their idea might not be the best — Using rapid design sprints as a methodology for the creative process over 1–2 days or 1 week will make your idea the best it can be with your team, be on the way to prototype and ready for market. ( Great overview here at Google https://www.gv.com/sprint/ )
So, I use this method of work on all my creative projects and in my labs, and I try and use it when I am working with other creative teams — as I think collaboration is key to success. I have 10 years of working this way and have now designed my own methods, especially for XR producing.
Mentorship and Consultancy
Get in touch — Markashmorefrsa@gmail.com
