Spatial Considerations: Hybridizing Production Modes for an Immersive Adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

This paper discusses the creation of an immersive adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. We present the approach to narrative, character, and visual style taken during the development of a fulldome film that allows viewers to experience Venice through the eyes of the Jewish character Shylock, and the technical considerations required to facilitate these approaches. Fulldome film refers to a dome-based video projection technique in which audiences are collectively placed within an immersive audial and visual environment, creating a sense of environmental immersion reminiscent of real-world sensory encounters. It is argued that the specific qualities of the source play-including the visually rich nature of Renaissance Venice, and the thematic centrality of issues relating to empathy and alienation- make it particularly appropriate for reinterpretation in a contemporary context through the use of immersive media forms. We posit that while immersive media in a broad sense offers the opportunity to revisit the challenges surrounding the play, there are certain aspects of our adaptation that would benefit from further development to fully immersive VR. Particular emphasis is placed on the potential of VR to expand notions of interactivity, and we present how we plan to approach this shift in production mode in terms of a preliminary discussion of content and technical design.