Cape Town creator Rick Treweek wins Emmy for VR production

A virtual reality production co-created by Cape Town-based immersive media creator Rick Treweek has taken home one of television’s major international honours, placing a South African-developed virtual world on the global stage.

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MyBroadband reports that Uncanny Alley: A New Day won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Emerging Media Program on Saturday, 5 September.

The production is a collaboration between Treweek’s Virtual Worlds Company and Los Angeles-based Ferryman Collective.

For Treweek, who grew up on a farm in Kokstad, KwaZulu-Natal, before eventually settling in Kommetjie, the recognition marks another significant point in a career that has moved from animation and mobile gaming into immersive storytelling.

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‘Growing up in Kokstad and only getting a computer for the first time when I was more of an adult is probably why I do what I do,’ Treweek said.

‘Because it was so alien, I still have so much curiosity. And it’s definitely an industry for the curious right now.’

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Treweek’s route into the industry began at Triggerfish Studios, where he worked in animation and developed his skills in bringing characters to life.

He later moved into digital entertainment and mobile gaming, eventually co-founding Breakdesign in 2004.

The company developed mobile games before the smartphone app economy became a dominant part of the technology landscape. It later moved to Singapore, where it worked on titles including World of Rabbit, which has been credited with more than 16 million downloads.

Treweek spent eight years in Singapore before returning to immersive technology and co-founding Eden in 2018, where he remains chief technology officer.

His work has increasingly centred on virtual and immersive worlds. In 2019, he collaborated with his sister, Ree Treweek, on The Lost Botanist, which Forbes reported was the first VR experience from Africa screened at Annecy.

He went on to establish Virtual Worlds Company in 2020, with Uncanny Alley emerging from a project created during South Africa’s Covid-19 lockdown.

The Emmy-winning production grew from an unusual starting point, a limitation inside the original Uncanny Alley experience.

The project caught the attention of Ferryman Collective founders Stephen Butchko and Deirdre V. Lyons through the international immersive-festival circuit.

The pair first encountered Treweek’s work around the time of the 2021 Venice Biennale.

When Butchko and Lyons experienced Uncanny Alley, one detail stood out. Users entering the world through a Meta Quest headset could appear inside a prison cell but could not progress beyond it.

The finished production blends live theatre with virtual reality, with two actors taking on 15 different characters who interact directly with audience members.

That makes each performance variable, rather than a fixed digital experience watched from a distance.

Treweek said the collaboration added something to his original creation that he could not have produced alone.

‘Ferryman brought something to the Alley I could not have built on my own: live performance,’ said Treweek.

‘The most extraordinary part of this for me has been watching actors step inside characters I had drawn and lived with for years, and give them a voice and a body in real time.’

He added:‘What I brought was the universe. This award belongs to both halves of that, and it would not exist without either.’

At the centre of the story is Gh0st, a hacker character introduced to the Uncanny Alley universe in 2021.

The character breaks a group of protesters out of prison before leading them, together with an increasingly sentient Service-Bot named Atom, through a hacked portal and away from the city towards a new metaverse.

Audience members become part of that journey, having to remain together, avoid capture and ultimately confront a choice over whether to leave Uncanny Alley or remain behind and fight for their freedom and their home.

The project has previously appeared at events including Venice VR Expanded and Raindance Immersive, giving the virtual world an international audience before its latest recognition.

For Treweek, the Emmy also speaks to the value of pursuing unconventional creative ideas.

‘My biggest struggle’s always been my conditioning that my stuff is too weird and no one will like it, so it’s only for me,’ he stated.

‘But eventually I realised it’s my weird moonlighting projects that bring me the most success.’

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