Interactive Films

Stop and choose!

Furthermore, interactive films created through database cinema allow the audience to choose different scenes and create their own narrative, which makes the audience interact with the film in the most active way by controlling the film.

Unlike traditional filmmaking, where the filmmakers wrote the script and edit the film based on the narrative, database cinema, or more specifically, interactive films are edited into parts and makes the audience decide the story. Birk Weiberg demonstrates in his journal that the structure of a traditional movie looks like a plain line with a certain amount of little dots representing important events that change the narrative situation; on the contrary, interactive movies can be represented as a tree with forking paths.

Birk also states that “the important decisions in a story are no longer made by its hero but by the viewer himself”(Weiberg, 2). The first interactive film, Kinoautomat, was released in 1967. The film was stopped several times, and a moderator would let the audience vote and decide how the film should continue(Luijerink, 4). Similar to the early reedits, the form of interactive film did not become popular because of the lack of technology.

On the other hand, some filmmakers thought about making interactive films on DVDs. Terrence Malick had an ambitious idea in the release of his film The Tree of Life: different versions of the film would be generated randomly each time the DVD was played. However, the plan was eventually abandoned since the technology required does not exist. Instead, they used previously unused footage and created an entirely new film that was made up of the same basic elements(Weisfogel, “Cinema as Database: An Art Form Between Old and New”).

Kirke, 2020.

In the paper Agency in Contemporary Interactive Film, Annabel illustrates that the film can be considered as a new phase since before fans were not able to co-create. She says, “Fans are triggered by the psychological science-fiction theme to construct maps to give closure to the narrative and create other extensions on the story line to fill in gaps and engage.”(Luijerink, 2). The interactive films, created through database cinema, encourage co-creating and re-enacting by fans and the audiences to give them a more fascinating experience. Creators always want their audience to interact with the films, and they try many different methods to make that come true. Interactive films make it possible for the audience to co-create with the filmmakers using database, and together create a full and exciting narrative.

Moreover, modern interactive films can be watched online on streaming services, which is easier for the audience to interact. Netflix’ Black Mirror launched between their seasons an interactive film named Black Mirror: Bandersnatch in the end of 2018. The film divided the 150-minutes-footage into 250 segments and creates nine main endings for the audience(Luijerink, 4). Each viewer can produce a different narrative process by making decisions differently.