AVATAR_AR: Co-Creation Project & Innovation in Documentary Media Course
Overview
A digital storytelling project utilizing co-creation methodologies and a design-justice lens to create short web-first documentary stories made collaboratively with people in recovery from addiction, working to mitigate stigma on individual, institutional, and societal levels.
The Course
Innovation Studio in Documentary Media is an interdisciplinary course co-developed and taught by Anna Henson, Assistant Professor of Emerging Media Arts, and Dr. Dennis McChargue, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The course brought together clinical psychology, documentary storytelling, design justice and co-creation frameworks, and hands-on technical training in motion capture, avatar animation, and game engine production in Unreal Engine. The documentary project produced through the course is called AVATAR_AR (Addiction Recovery).
Documentary Strategy & Process
AVATAR_AR developed an original approach to documentary ethics and representation: using Epic Games MetaHuman avatars, built and rendered in Unreal Engine, to protect interview subjects’ anonymity while preserving the emotional truth of their stories. Rather than obscuring or abstracting the subject, this method brought subjects directly into the creation of their own avatar — working alongside filmmakers to shape how they appeared on screen. The result is a form of non-mimetic documentary in which reconstruction is guided not by factual likeness but by the personal, subjective experience of the interviewee themselves.
Featured · SIGGRAPH Educators Day 2025
SIGGRAPH Educators Day 2025 · click to enlarge
Recovery Stories
Co-Creation Process
Our co-creation process values lived experience as equal to technical or other expertise, building from non-hierarchical, community-focused processes. Participants are involved in every step — from moodboards to storyboards to avatar creation, worldbuilding, motion capture, and editing. Their voices drive the work.
We are very grateful to Ashley and Ryan for sharing and co-creating their stories with us.
Documentary Videos
RYAN'S STORY:
ARMY VETERAN, FATHER, AND PHD STUDENT IN RECOVERY
The following videos were co-created by our participant, an Army veteran and PhD student in recovery, as well as the Project AVATAR-AR research leads, and team of student research assistants in a semester-long course at UNL in Fall 2022. The videos were originally shared via social media, utilizing the vertical format.
Ryan's Story: Part 1
Ryan's Story: Part 2
ASHLEY'S STORY:
FULL TIME NURSE AND MOTHER IN RECOVERY
Part 1 of Ashley's Story of addiction and recovery. Co-created with Ashley (our documentary subject) and students in my Innovation Studio course at the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, as well as Dr. Dennis McChargue, Professor of Clinical Psychology at UNL. Video created using original interview audio from Ashley and Dr. McChargue, motion capture with Ashley's movements, MetaHumans, and worldbuilding in Unreal Engine.
Ashley's Story
A short video showing some of the behind-the-scenes process from our work on Project Avatar_AR as a class