Head Holiday: Nature Without Borders

Head Holiday was an experimental immersive video platform produced by Live Cinema UK during lockdown. Like all events producers, we were unable to work as normal at that time, and rose to a challenge set – and funded – by the UK Government to address some of the social issues presented by lockdowns. We worked with an environmental psychologist, app developers and videographers to produce an app that delivered short bursts of digital nature to audiences in lockdown in urban areas, for wellbeing purposes. This could be accessed immersively and accessibly with a cardboard VR viewer – a piece of technology that we think continues to be overlooked as a way to democratise immersive experiences for those without the financial or technical resources to access VR. It had great success with our lockdown audience at the time, allowing them to experience a variety of natural environments organised by type and location, and organise their favourites. Repurposing that platform, we’d like to commission 10 x 2-minute climate positive documentaries that invite people to remotely visit areas of continued successful conservation efforts, across a range of environments, to ease climate anxiety and connect with nature they could never otherwise reach. We will work with local partners in each location to capture content, and will distribute cardboard viewers to those locations so they can view their own and others’ short films at the end of the project.