Ever want to leap into the rabbit hole and just free fall into the unknown? The November edition of Reinventing Storytelling is just your ticket. Join us for a wild deep dive into alternate worlds – from augmented reality, virtual reality, immersive audio and location-based VR experiences.

Legendary game and experience designers Nicole Lazzaro and David Fox will each present their work and deeply informed observations on this fascinating, fast-emerging space. Participants will see, hear and learn about constructing narrative in mediums where the audience is immersed in an authored environment, experiencing a sense of presence, free to follow their own path through worlds full of ambient conflict, wonder, delight, and more.

You won’t want to miss this month’s Reinventing Storytelling, a collaboration of Schoolab San Francisco and Headcanon.com, the experience design studio founded by series creator, Ron Martinez, along with Schoolab’s Sascha Blank, and Schoolab Entrepreneur in Residence and event producer Susanna Camp.

This event is free.

About Nicole Lazzaro

Nicole Lazzaro’s work serves to unlock human potential through technology and play.

A world-renowned game developer and designer who pioneered measuring emotions on players’ faces as they play, Nicole helps clients put the 4 Keys to Fun into everything they do. In her current work as an XR (VR/AR/MR) developer, Nicole is building an emotion model, Narrative AI, and an Empathy Engine for her company XEODesign’s game, Follow the White Rabbit.

Voted by Gamasutra as one of the Top 20 women working in video games, and Fast Company as one of the 100 most influential women in technology, Nicole is frequently cited by Wired, Fast Company, ABC News, CNET, The Hollywood Reporter, and Red Herring, XEODesign's clients include Sony, EA, Ubisoft, Sega, PlayFirst, Disney, Kabam, Leap Frog, Nexon, IBM, and The White House. She has an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Stanford University where she also studied filmmaking and computer programming.

About David Fox

David Fox has been at the forefront of using computers in entertainment and education since 1977. The overarching theme in all he’s done is finding ways to use technology to enrich people's personal lives, and to use humor and entertainment to empower change.

David was the designer, project leader, and one of the programmers for numerous, beloved Lucasarts Games including Rescue on Fractalus!, Labyrinth, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure. He also worked on Maniac Mansion as the primary script programmer.

In recent work, he’s built (with Nicole Lazzaro) immersive audio experiences for Bose and has new XR projects now getting underway, David recently collaborated with Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick on the hit retro/classic graphic adventure, Thimbleweed Park. His Rube Works: The Official Rube Goldberg Invention Game, is the first (and only) official Rube Goldberg game, and his company with Annie Fox, Electric Eggplant, developed the popular Middle School Confidential™ Series.

About Headcanon:

Headcanon.com is a voice app design studio founded by Ron Martinez, an expert in postlinear storytelling, media inventor, and pioneering narrative game and simulation designer, producer, and developer. Ron, former VP Intellectual Property for Yahoo! and creator of book retailing platform, Aer.io, also brings a continuing focus on novel commerce and distribution models to his work in narrative systems design.

About Schoolab SF:

Schoolab SF is the local hub of the Paris-headquartered global consultancy, home to international startups, corporations, immersion programs and joint educational programs with UC Berkeley and European universities. Schoolab’s Community & Innovation Manager Sascha Blank and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Susanna Camp are also collaborating on this series.

Check out our video from the first event in the Reinventing Storytelling series!