Open Call for Creative Professionals

1. Context

Preservation and protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) are directly linked to major threats to the marine environment, including pollution, ghost gears, fisheries, unsustainable yachting/boating etc. The UNESCO Ocean Decade, the EU Green Deal and other international initiatives underscore the growing need for cooperation of all the possible stakeholders, from different disciplines and sectors, to conserve UCH and address related threats. The Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) can effectively contribute to raising people’s awareness of the need to learn about and protect their underwater natural and cultural heritage by setting up a strong transnational cooperation among themselves and with cultural institutions working in the field of UCH conservation and communication.

This cooperation strategy should be based on innovative co-production approaches that facilitate the actors involved to combine their efforts, implement participatory design methods, deal transparently with Intellectual Property (IP) and copyright issues, thus achieving their common goal of producing cultural products designed to improve communication, promotion and awareness of UCH. The overall aim of CREAMARE project is to create a trans-national and cross-sectorial cooperation framework in which cultural institutions, scientific/research bodies, creative professionals and technology experts co-produce CCI applications and media contents to communicate, disseminate and promote maritime and underwater cultural heritage and, simultaneously, raise the awareness about relevant social problems like pollution and other environmental threats that affects the oceans.

2. About CREAMARE project

The overall goal of the CREAMARE project is to create a transnational cooperation framework in which cultural institutions, scientific/research organizations, creative professionals, and technology experts will co-produce CCI applications and media content to communicate, disseminate and promote maritime and underwater cultural heritage and, at the same time, raise awareness of relevant social issues, such as pollution and other environmental threats affecting the oceans. As part of this cross-collaboration model, CREAMARE will involve marine archaeologists, ocean scientists and creative industry experts (graphic designers, 3D artists, level designers, sound designers, etc.) to co-produce a Serious Game focused on the UCH and Ocean Literacy. The Game will allow the player to visit highly realistic 3D digital models of 8 underwater cultural sites. 6 of them will be selected through this call for proposals. As the player visits these sites, he or she will have to solve riddles and challenges related to both cultural heritage and environmental threats (e.g.: oil spills from shipwrecks, ghost nets that kill fishes and marine animals, illegal fishing, and unsustainable boating practices, etc.). In this way the serious game simultaneously aims to raise people’s awareness of the importance and beauty of our UCH and the importance of preserving the Ocean’s health for future generations. The Serious Game’s plot consists of a dystopian future, in which scientists, while working to solve marine pollution, generated a mutated creature that haunts the deep sea and its hidden treasures. In the present, the player must fight the source of pollution (e.g. ecological issues to be solved in the present) and then bring back some artefacts to the site in order to restore and protect the Underwater Cultural Heritage. The detailed plot and storyboard of the CREAMARE Serious Game will be shared with the selected creative professionals after the evaluation process and signing of a cooperation agreement. For more information about the project, visit: https://www.creamare.eu/

3. To whom this call is addressed

This call is aimed to select 6 creative professionals:
– 3D artists – 2 persons
– Unity level designers – 3 persons
– Sound designer – 1 person
involved to support the CREAMARE project by joining the partners in the co-production of a Serious Game.

4. Required skills

General skills:

Attributes
High English level (at least working level)
Interest in the development of products linked to underwater cultural heritage. Along to underwater cultural heritage, here should be added Serious Game if this is our gal objective for hiring creative experts.
Previous works and co-works Experience in working with other disciplines
Experience in the development of products linked to underwater cultural heritage and/or underwater natural heritage.
Motivation
Willingness/ability to travel

Specific skills:

3D ARTIST – Attributes
Experience in 3D production at least 2 years
Blender
Character design: human characters
Character design: non-human characters
Animation skills
Rigging skills
Low-poly modelling
Hard-surface modelling
Optimization techniques from high-res to low-res
PBR Texturing
Unity integration
Sculpting
3D photogrammetry

LEVEL DESIGNER – Attributes
At least 3 years of experience in UNITY
Environment design
Level and performance optimization techniques
Unity Render Pipelines – Built-in – URP – HDRP
Light management in Unity (incl. Lightmaps and optimization)
Post processing and VFX management in Unity
Animations management in Unity
In-game cinematic (cut scenes) design and management
Unity Cinemachine

SOUND DESIGNER – Attributes
At least 3 years of experience in music production
At least 3 years of experience in sound design production
Previous experience in music/sound for video games, multimedia applications, etc

5. Benefits offered by the CREAMARE Project to the selected Professionals

The main benefits offered by the cooperation with the CREAMARE project are:
– Training about cooperation work in digital technologies;
– Cooperation with experts and researchers;
– Participating in interesting international project of development of a Serious Game.

CREAMARE offers a unique opportunity for the selected creative professionals to acquire experience working in Serious Game development within a framework of an international cooperation. Participation in a one-week physical Residency program in Italy, with the support of the Municipality of Cosenza.
Honorarium: 5000 EUR (Gross amount)
Travel and accommodation for the residency programme in Italy is covered by the CREAMARE consortium.

6. What we ask from participants:

• Participation: We expect that selected creatives will participate in all designated CREAMARE events, including an on-site residency (1 week) and online coworking period (remote to co-design and co-production):
  • Participate in a 1-week residency programme in Cosenza (Italy) during the last week of September or first week of October: workshops, brainstorming, design thinking sessions, discussions, etc.
  • Remote co-design and co-production program through web platforms: technological experts, game developers, creative professionals and researchers will cooperate to produce the requested material under the technical and artistic direction of CREAMARE project’s partners (by the end of February 2024).
    NOTE: weekly and on-demand online sessions will be defined through a shared calendar.
• Expected results: For each creative professional:
  1. Sound designer:
     • At least 3 original multiple instruments soundtracks to represent the moods of the different phases of the game. The 3 soundtracks should have some small variations in relation to the underwater sites.
     • Characterization of at least 1 non-human character through sounds (minimum 20 different original sound effects).
     • At least 30 sound effects for terrestrial and underwater scenes.
  2. 3D Artist / Character Artist:
     • Concepts, 3D models and animations of at least 3 different non-human characters (both organic and mechanical) with color/shape variants.
     • Concepts, 3D models and animations of at least 3 human characters (rigged).
  3. 3D Artist / General Artist:
     • 3D models and props of at least 2 environments (e.g. a modern museum, a futuristic lab);
     • 3D models, animations, and props of marine and underwater sites objects (Mediterranean flora and fauna, boats, rocks, reefs, etc.)
     • 3D models, animations and props related to environmental threats (marine litter, platforms, cleaning tools, remoted operated vehicles, etc.)
  4. Level designer / Environment Artist no. 1:
     • Level design of no. 6 underwater sites, integrating underwater (3d model of the shipwrecks/structures) and terrestrial assets (coastal area, boats, etc.), including visual effects, flora and fauna.
       NOTE: Each underwater site will have two different moods.
     • Management of lights, lightmaps, VFX, performance optimization.
  5. Level designer / Environment Artist no. 2:
     • Level design of no. 3 underwater sites, integrating underwater (3d model of the shipwrecks/structures (and terrestrial assets (coastal area, boats, etc.), including visual effects, flora and fauna.
       NOTE: Each underwater site will have two different moods.
     • Level design of the museum scenario.
       NOTE: Some rooms of the museum will have two different moods.
     • Management of lights, lightmaps, VFX, performance optimization.
  6. Level designer / Environment Artist / Animator no. 3:
     • Level design of the futuristic scenario.
     • Management of lights, lightmaps, VFX, performance optimization
     • At least no. 6 cut-scenes, settled in the museum, in the futuristic scenario
       and in the marine/underwater environment.
• Attendance: The selected creatives are expected to attend and engage in online meetings, interviews, webinars, consultancy sessions, and progress reviews and contribute to the project’s reporting.
• Engagement: Creatives must be committed to CREAMARE’s objectives. As success depends on the activation and engagement of European audiences, they are encouraged to support CREAMARE general communication by using their personal and professional communication channels and networks.
• Commitment: A contract with the CREAMARE Consortium, open to the selected creatives’ proposals, will define the terms and conditions for the intellectual property rights of digital works. In any case, any participant will be asked to grant all necessary rights for the dissemination of the work in any activities directly related to this Project.

The Expected Results are only indicative to allow candidates to assess the effort required. They may vary slightly over the course of the project.

7. How to apply

The creative professional candidates need to register on the Project Application Portal with a CV and Portfolio, and then fill in the relevant form (3D artist or level designer or sound designer) ‘Application Form 1 – 3D artist’ or ‘Application Form 2 – level designer’ or ‘Application Form 3 – sound designer’ and upload all the documents in pdf format through the Application Portal.

8. Timeline and application process

The evaluation criteria fall into 3 major categories: skills, motivation and diversity. All the criteria have equal weight and a maximum score of 5 each, thus the total score is 15.

Applicants could be contacted by the Evaluation Committee if some aspect of their applications should be clarified.

The evaluation of the applicants’ proposals will be made by the CREAMARE Evaluation Committee by 30th July 2023. The selected creative professionals will be contacted directly by the CREAMARE Secretariat.

The results of the selection will be available by 5th August 2023 at the following link: https://creamare.eu/news/.

9. Open House

On 6th July 2023, from 15:00 to 16:30 CET time, we will present the project outline at an online Open House event and provide an opportunity for potential applicants to meet with the project team, learn more about the Serious Game, and ask questions. If you can’t attend, we highly recommend viewing a recording of this event on the CREAMARE website. We will announce more details about Open House event on the project website and social media channels.

10. Data management (GDPR)

10.1 Participants

The data will be managed by the Evaluation Committee and the CREAMARE Secretariat (as described in sections 6 and 7), according to the EU Regulation 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 (General Data Protection Regulation).

The data will only be available to members of the Evaluation Committee.

The data will be kept only for the duration of the selection process.

10.2 Selected Institutions/Organizations

The data will be managed by the CREAMARE Secretariat and CREAMARE Project partners, according to the EU Regulation 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 (General Data Protection Regulation).

The data will be available to the CREAMARE Project partners. The data will be kept for 2 years after the duration of the CREAMARE Project (until 31/05/2027).

The data will be used only within the scope of the CREAMARE Project purposes (i.e., for the development of the CREAMARE Serious Game, Communication & Dissemination activities and for reporting to the European Commission).

11. Contact information

For further questions and clarifications please check the Q&A section at the following link: https://platform.creamare.eu/open-call-for-creative-professionals-faq

or contact the CREAMARE Secretariat at: support@creamare.eu.

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CREAMARE is an international cooperation project financed by the Creative Europe Program (Call: CREA-CULT-2021-COOP) that is managed by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).

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ANNEX 1 – List of eligible countries of the applicants European Union member states (EU27)

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Countries associated with the Horizon Europe Programme:
Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom and Ukraine.

The list is based on the official eligibility document for the Horizon Europe:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/list-3rd-country-participation_horizon-euratom_en.pdf

List of North Africa Countries
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara.