Interactive film

Abstract

In today’s world, where our attention span is decreasing like the average shot length of a blockbuster movie, a growing tendency of media multitasking by the audience is pushing content producers to find new strategies to engage them and retain their attention. One way is to engage the viewer in the development of the story itself, in particular in the decision making of the protagonist as explored in early examples such as Radúz Činčera’s Kinoautomat. Different to his approach with a moderator on stage in the 1960’s, we have a wide range of possibilities today to interact with time-based media. This project is the joint effort of three Final Year Project (FYP) students. The project covers the development of an engaging narrative multi-threaded structure, acquisition of compelling footage and the exploration for the best method to link the individual sequences for audience interaction. We are looking into different forms of viewer engagement that offers an immersive experience for the audience; particularly the potential of voice recognition, sound detection and task fulfillment. My contribution to the project includes the building of interactive scenes in the Unity environment which aims to bring the audience through a seamless transition from film to decision making and again, back to the film. The audience will be kept engaged with their continual albeit sporadic involvement throughout the film, where impactful decisions made by the audience through the completion of the chosen task will ultimately influence the outcome and resulting ending of the film. Tasks has taken the form of a drag and drop motion meant to simulate the movement of hand gestures in the same direction (similar to the real world). The deliberate choice of a murder mystery feeds on the audience’s curiosity and at the same time allow for multiple endings derived from the inter-active scenes. The final product is an interactive film.