Project manager/advice-giver extraordinaire: Tony Porteous
I first came across Fire Hazard while doing research into possible competitors for Race for Science way back in December 2017. I found their original Codebreakers event, where players solved puzzles in several University of Cambridge museums, I thought it was uncanny how many similarities there were between the games they were putting on and what we were going for with Race for Science. Our events team actually did one of their Raiders games at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and we were even more hooked! I got in touch just to see if we could get their advice and discuss the possibility of collaboration, and from there we ended up hiring Fire Hazard as consultants and game designers! I asked the team to introduce themselves and explain why they’re excited about Race for Science:
Fire Hazard Games is a team of game designers with diverse backgrounds – from video games, to museum studies, theatre, literature and dance – who create immersive location-based games that blend digital and physical gameplay in real-world locations. We believe in immersive games and storytelling that puts the player at the centre of the adventure. Our experiences are like playing a videogame within the real-world. The players are guided by their phones, but the puzzles require them to pay attention to their surroundings and acquire knowledge from their environment with face-to-face interaction with other players and actors: The phone shapes the gameplay, but they don’t spend their time looking at a phone screen. We are excited to collaborate with Prostate Cancer Research Centre on Race for Science as we are passionate believers in using games to engage people with science and research. Learning (and research!) should be fun, social and engaging. We hope to get people excited about learning new knowledge and take them on a memorable adventure that they will be talking about long after the game ends!
Comments Off on Do you have what it takes to start your own escape room company?
When I was doing research for Race for Science way back in December 2017, I came across an escape room company in Cambridge called Lockhouse. It even had a science-themed room! We rang Lockhouse and got in touch with Paul Chapman, a physicist-turned-escape room owner (how perfect is that?!), who has been so generous with his time, resources, and infectious energy.
Lockhouse is going to be a venue on the Race for Science route. We filmed the amazing teaser trailer in his Armageddon room, and Lockhouse will feature heavily during Race for Science. Here’s my interview with the legendary Paul:
What inspired you to get involved with escape rooms?
I played my first Escape Game in Amsterdam in September 2015 and got hooked instantly. We spent the rest of the trip talking about how to open one in Cambridge.
How did Lockhouse get started? When was it founded?
We took the 70 Regent St premises on 20th March 2017 and just knocked down all the walls and built them up again! We managed to get everything built and ready for opening on the 25th May 2017. Well, almost ready – we still had to do bits of painting after we opened because we ran out of time!
Why do you think escape rooms are so popular? What do you love about them?
We think it might be all about having a shared task. You get so involved in the game that you forget about the whole rest of the world, and as the time pressure increases you get completely lost in your adventure. Most entertainment is fairly passive, and we reckon that the active nature of an escape game gives a very different experience. What we do see is that players tend to talk about their game for at least an hour after finishing – sometimes with recriminations!
Which is your favourite Lockhouse room and why is it great?
Everyone here has a different favourite. My own preference would be for the Egyptian Tomb though because it’s so thematic and immersive. You’re in partial darkness and there are lots of challenges that are a bit more physical than normal – we’re talking tunnels, heavy blocks and sliding doors. Plus, that one is my favourite to act in – I play Annubis, Egyptian Lord of the dead.
Do you have any funny stories or quotes from people playing the room?
What happens in LockHouse stays in LockHouse!
Our funniest story from our own Games Master side was when we thought we’d forgotten to lock one of the doors inside the Secret Agent(!). Several of us watched horrified as the players accessed parts of the game that shouldn’t have been available to them yet. We called up the person who’d reset the room to ask how this could have happened and to give them a stern telling-off. Only after the game finished did we find out that the players were in a lock-picking society! Phew.
Why are you choosing to help the Prostate Cancer Research Centre with this brand new fundraising event?
Several of our team have been affected by cancer and we’re glad of the chance to help.
Why do you think Cambridge is the perfect city to hold Race for Science?
Because it’s the Science Capital of the UK! I’m a former scientist and I can’t think of a more scientifically aware city. I’ve been asked scientifically challenging questions by people in pubs here – that doesn’t really happen anywhere else.
Check out Lockhouse and sign yourself up for one of their incredible escape rooms today!
Comments Off on How Immersive Events are Taking Over the World
Secret Cinema is famous for its “live cinema” experiences. They released tickets for Secret Cinema Presents Blade Runner – The Final Cut at 12 on February 1st. Just a few hours later, their ticket provider’s entire website crashed due to “overwhelming demand”.
Fire Hazard’s Codebreakers – where people solve codebreaking puzzles across multiple museums in Cambridge – sold out in just a few weeks.
Booking for the Cambridge Science Festival opened on February 12th at 11 AM, and the physics escape room Escape the Lab sold out at 11:05.
What is going on here?! Passive entertainment is easy to get your hands on these days, so there’s a huge demand for events where people can fully immerse themselves a story.
Escape rooms are one part of this trend, and they have absolutely exploded over the last few decades. The world’s first escape room, “Real Escape Game” was only created in 2007 in Japan. It was modelled after escape room video games, where gamers are stuck inside of a room and must solve puzzles in order to escape the room. They spread to Europe, starting in Hungary and then popping up all over the continent. As of 2015, there were 2,800 permanent escape rooms all across the world.
But why have so many people gotten so hooked? We popped into Cambridge-based escape room company Lockhouse Games on our first visit to Cambridge and had a chat with Lockhouse’s lovely owner Paul Chapman.
Armageddon!
With his help, I think I understand the main reasons people (including me) love escape rooms:
Get Challenged
Have you ever worked on a riddle or a video game or a skill that you just couldn’t figure out – until you finally did? Escape rooms give you that feeling times a thousand.
Adrenaline rush
If you’re looking for a safe way to get a powerful adrenaline rush, escape rooms are the perfect solution.
You’re a part of the story
It’s rare that a piece of entertainment puts you at the centre of the story, but escape rooms do just that. In Lockhouse’s Armageddon, the fate of the world is on YOUR shoulders, and the ticking timer won’t let you forget about that. Paul put it this way: “Most entertainment is fairly passive and we reckon that the active nature of the active of an escape game gives a very different experience.”
Escape the room, escape your problems
You’re stuck in the room, the clock is ticking… there is nothing keeping you from being totally immersed in the experience. You can’t look at your phone or worry about anything outside of those four walls. Paul thinks that escapism is a big part of the escape room thrill: “You get so involved in the game that you forget about the whole rest of the world, and as the time pressure increases you get completely lost in your adventure.”
Lockhouse has three incredible rooms to sink your teeth into. We here at Race for Science are really excited about Armageddon because it is set in a secret laboratory and has a scientific theme, but Paul’s personal favourite is Egyptian Tomb because it’s so thematic and immersive. “You‘re in partial darkness and there are lots of challenges that are a bit more physical than normal – we’re talking tunnels, heavy blocks and sliding doors.” Plus, Egyptian Tomb is Paul’s favourite room to act in – “I play Anubis, Egyptian Lord of the dead!”
Comments Off on Highlights from the Cambridge Science Festival (part 1)
The Road to Race for Science
Getting inspiration for Race for Science has been one of the most fun parts of my role for the last few months. In order to make RFS the spectacular event we know it can be, we need exciting, hands-on scientific activities that have a challenge component. One of the most important places we’ve gotten inspiration so far has been at the Cambridge Science Festival, which took place from the 12th to the 25th of March 2018. I went up for 2 weekends to try out some activities, meet scientists, get a sense of the atmosphere of the festival, and generally act like a kid again.
Without further ado, here’s part 1 of our epic Science Festival adventure.
Comments Off on Filming the Race for Science teaser trailer
Race for Science has never been done before.
On the one hand, this means that there is nothing else out there quite like it. When you enter your team into the race, you’re becoming part of an incredible and unique event right at the beginning.
But… it also means that we don’t have any footage of past races to show you how exciting it will be, and we don’t want to spoil the fun by giving too much away!
This is the central issue we had when setting out to film the amazing Race for Science teaser trailer (which you should watch HERE if you haven’t seen it already). We needed to figure out a way to give people a sense of what the event is all about, but not reveal all of RFS’s secrets.
We worked with the wonderful company Raindown who specialise in making videos for the charity sector. Over several months, we went back and forth discussing the atmosphere we wanted for the trailer. We wanted the trailer to be mysterious, suspenseful, but also tongue-in-cheek. As a player, you’re solving a high-stakes mystery, but you’re also having lots of fun! Also, this was very early days for Race for Science, and we didn’t yet have any scientific activities to showcase.
The amazing Paul Chapman from Lockhouse Games (who I chatted with in our last post) agreed to let us film in the science-themed room Armageddon, gave us access to props and put us in touch with some really lovely actors. We thought it might be fun to let you in on our wacky day of filming in Armageddon and across Cambridge. Let’s begin!
Armageddon room at Lockhouse Games
Ellen and I arrived in Cambridge around 10 AM on the morning of the 21st of March – tired but ready to go. It quickly became obvious that because we only had a few actors available for the whole day, I was going to be acting in the trailer. I put on my lab coat and got ready to work!
Our actors in Armageddon were:
Paul Chapman: owner of Lockhouse and bona fide legend
Mary Emerence: actress and Lockhouse Gamesmaster extraordinaire
and me, Jess, (at the time the) Events Intern at Prostate Cancer Research Centre. I’m now the Events Assistant!
Paul, Mary and I posing in lab coats. I’m taking my role very seriously.
We were able to get loads of great footage of all sorts of scientific paraphernalia: a hand boiler, a virtual reality set, circuits, and more.
Our producer Ben trying to warm up the hand boiler.
Multiple people attempted to warm up the hand boiler for the really cool shot you see at 0:24, but almost everyone had cold hands! we ended up asking one of the other Gamesmasters at Lockhouse, who generously agreed to be in the trailer.
Then it was time to get aerial footage of Cambridge. Paul had to stay and run Lockhouse, so we said goodbye and headed over to Stourbridge Common and met up with Mike Brown, published author, poet, actor and Gamesmaster at Lockhouse. I had never seen a drone in real life before, and it was so exciting seeing the footage!
The drone could only be up in the air for short periods of time to save battery (and money), so each shot needed to be carefully planned.
Screenshot of some drone footage, with special spy graphics!
We had to improvise a lot of gameplay-related dialogue. That you will never hear.
Then we moved on to getting some shots of the three of us dashing around Cambridge, which produced my favourite screenshot of the whole ordeal:
Our director Tom planning his shot.
Honestly, the day was so much fun, and I can’t believe how well the teaser trailer turned out. Every time I show the video to my friends, they all wish they could sign up for Race for Science right now!
Filming the teaser trailer was quite a wild ride. We only had a week to plan the film shoot, including recruiting actors.
Paul Chapman, who owns the escape room company Lockhouse (and who I interviewed in this post) not ONLY let us film in one of his escape rooms, but also put us in touch with two lovely actors: Mary Emerance and Michael Brown. They were both genuinely so lovely to work with; the day was a perfect blend of serious work and giggling together.
Both Mary and Mike work part-time at Lockhouse as Gamesmasters – actors who guide players through escape rooms and add theatricality to the experience – and are also both professional actors.
Without further ado, let’s get to the interviews!
Meet Michael!
Why do you love acting? What made you start acting?
Michael Brown: When I was a teenager I attended a Saturday drama school and ended up in many major productions as a result including Blood brothers, Sweeney Todd and The Manchester Man. I love the challenge of a new character and the high energy on film sets or during a theatre production.
What are some of your favourite projects you’ve been a part of? Why did you enjoy them?
Michael Brown: I was recently in season 4 of The Royals where I play a Royal butler and ring bearer at the royal wedding. We filmed in beautiful locations and got to wear lavish royal costumes. I was also recently in Bait, a British horror movie which filmed in Cornwall including a night scene on a beautiful beach.
What do you like about Lockhouse?
Michael Brown: I have worked at Lockhouse games since we opened and I love how we have created characters to look after you during the escape game. Acting as part of our role is so much fun.
Favourite moment of the filming process for Race for Science?
Michael Brown: We filmed in Stourbridge common which is local to where I live. It was exciting to film in my neighbourhood, especially being chased by a drone camera for the filming.
Michael Brown is a published author and audiobook author – Check out his work via www.poetbrownie.com
Meet Mary!
Why do you love acting? What made you start acting?
Mary Emerance: I love humans. I love real, honest emotions. I love relationships. To me, acting is all about relationships – to others, to ourselves, to our surroundings and situations. Relating, and listening to each other. I’ve never known a time in my life when I’ve not wanted to perform.
I love film work but live theatre will always have my heart. There’s something magical about the fact that its there for a moment – and then it’s gone.
What are some of your favourite projects you’ve been a part of? Why did you enjoy them?
Mary Emerance: One of my favourite projects I’ve been involved with was a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It was a mad, month-long run at such a wonderful, creative festival and I learnt the true value of ensemble teamwork. The show was a collaborative process and I loved devising it with the company.
When I was at East 15 my love of devising continued – creating shows and music projects inspired by theatre, dance and music from all over the world. Part of our music group project was to perform a 15-minute “gig” in a chosen style of world music. My group chose Irish music and we had such a brilliant time learning to Irish dance and play/sing some beautiful Irish music – even learning to sing in Gaelic.
What do you like about Lockhouse?
Mary Emerance: I love working at Lockhouse. It’s hilarious. As an actor, it’s brilliant to be able to observe real human behaviour. Sometimes they do forget they are being watched….!! The people I work with are a splendid bunch, and I always have a fun time working there. It’s lovely to be involved in such a fun, vibrant, creative job and in the beautiful city of Cambridge. Escape rooms are definitely becoming are a more popular attraction and people who come to play (more often than not) are up for a good time. I like being able to give them that.
Favourite moment of the filming process for Race for Science?
Mary Emerance: Filming for the trailer was a lot of fun!! My favourite part was after we’d done the filming in the park using a drone (which was super cool!!!). We went into the city centre and did some filming as if we were walking around the little old streets finding clues as to where the next puzzles were hidden. This part of the city looks untouched. It’s gorgeous. And it was quite moving to be around the college where the great Stephen Hawking attended and see all the beautiful flowers. I’m so excited to see the Race for Science event launch and hope many people participate – as it’s a fantastic event for a good cause, one close to my heart.
Comments Off on Highlights from the Cambridge Science Festival (Part 2)
For our second weekend, our wonderful Events and Fundraising Executive Lauren went up to Cambridge with me, both to keep me company and to talk through all of the exciting events we were doing. We also met up with my childhood friend Elle, a scientist herself who lives in Cambridge.
