Experimental Productions

Production Lead: Mandy Rose

Mandy Rose is an Associate Professor, Director of UWE Bristol’s Digital Cultures Research Centre and Co-Director of i-Docs. Her research looks at the intersection between documentary and networked culture. She is Co-Investigator of the interdisciplinary EPSRC research project – Virtual Realities: Immersive Documentary Encounters.

A filmmaker and interactive producer who started out in independent film in London in the 1980s; she was co-founder of the feminist film distribution group Cinema of Women (COW Films), and a member of Four Corners Films before directing her first documentary – Hilda at Darjeeling (Channel 4 1989) – about British women in the Raj. During twenty years at the BBC Mandy led innovative participatory projects including the “mass observation” camcorder project – Video Nation (94-2000), the pioneering digital storytelling project – Capture Wales / Cipolwg ar Gymru (2001-2007), and the Webby nominated multiplatform exploration of language, accent and dialect across the UK – Voices (2004).

Production Lead: Kate Pullinger

At Bath Spa University, Kate is the Director of the university-wide strategy research centre, the Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries (CCCI). She is also Co-Director on the South West Creative Technology Network, a three year, £6.5m project (2018-2021) funded by Research England; she is also co-investigator on the Bristol + Bath Creative Research and Development Partnership, a four and a half year, £9m AHRC-funded creative industries cluster project (2018-2023). Within the cluster, Kate leads on the current pathfinder, Amplified Publishing, a year-long R+D about the future of publishing across games, books, online, VR/AR, and audio.

Kate is also a novelist, the academic lead on Bath Spa’s first step into the enterprise and innovation space, The Studio at Palace Yard Mews and was previously the co-investigator on the two-year AHRC- funded research project, Ambient Literature, a collaboration with UWE, the University of Birmingham, and the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol (2016-18).

Production Lead: Daniel Efergan

Daniel Efergan is the Executive Creative Director of Interactive at Aardman Animations. What this actually means is he gets to spend lots of time doing fun things like making games, forming playful communities, and messing around in the murky bits between storytelling and interactivity.

He has been instrumental in the conception and delivery of BAFTA winning interactive projects such as the Tate Movie Project and World of Invention, and lead or supported many others, including the (twice) BAFTA nominated debut console game, 11-11 Memories Retold.

Previously he kept himself entertained as MD of Subsub Skills and Production, technical lead on Light Up Bristol, a part time lecturer and founding and running the Submerge New Media Festival, which gave him a warm and fuzzy feeling by bringing together creative people and seeing what happened.

Production Lead: Rob Hifle

Rob started his career in television at the BBC. In the mid nineties he formed the design and direction agency, Burrell Durrant Hifle (BDH) which would later re-brand and transition into the fully fledged VFX company, Lux Aeterna.

Now twenty years on Rob has amassed a huge catalogue of direction work that extends across TV broadcast, music visuals, film, commercials and events. He has written & directed several self-initiated shorts as well as commissioned films for Sundance Channel and Channel 4 in the UK to name a few. Rob has been instrumental across the media industry picking up numerous awards including BAFTA, D&AD, EMMY, PROMAX and Royal Television Society.