Online video has been pushing the boundaries of how audiences watch video for years. Websites like YouTube have allowed users to utilise Annotations to create interactive online videos and, recently, this idea of interactive video has moved into the film industry in a big way.
Over the last couple of years there’ have been some great interactive viral films, and with talks about new interactive productions on the horizon we thought we’d take a look at the top 5 interactive films on the web today.
WARNING: Some film examples may contain graphic scenes and strong language, and others may contain Land Rovers and a lovely chap called Henry.
1. The Outbreak
One of the most celebrated film genres in the world is horror, and you’d struggle to find a popular horror film that wasn’t filled with zombies. This brings us to The Outbreak, one of the earliest interactive online films, where a mismatched group of terrified individuals try to survive a zombie invasion.
This early example of interactive film follows the age-old premise of YouTube Annotations where users can click an option onscreen to play the next part of the movie. What’s great about The Outbreak is that it gives the audience big choices to make, for instance, should they kill a member of their group or try to save them? The viewer then makes a decision and watches the impact of their action unfold as the cinematic horror continues.
The Outbreak lacks the high production value of more recent interactive films, but it’s a great example of the interactive genre and how engaging it can be.
Watch The Outbreak here – http://www.survivetheoutbreak.com/
2. Lost Cause
Lost Cause is a unique piece of interactive film. Unlike The Outbreak, Lost Cause isn’t interactive in the sense that it doesn’t gives viewers frequent opportunities to impact the onscreen action, but it does let them choose between three different points of view throughout the film.
First of all the audience selects one of three different viewpoints before the movie begins. From there the movie is composed of three screens, all showing three different points of view. The screens are all streaming at the same time, showing the audience everything that’s happening in all three scenes in real-time. However, what’s clever about this technique is that only one screen is the focal point, which means the user has to move between the three screens to follow the action.
On paper it might sound like a very distracting viewing experience, but because of the thriller nature of the video, the user is frantically trying to watch all three viewpoints to make sure they don’t miss a key event. It’s certainly a new way of composing a film, and for the most part it’s a very successful technique, even if it is a tad exhausting trying to keep up with the action.
Watch Lost Cause here – http://www.motionpieces.com/lostcause/play.html
3. Late Fragment
If you thought Lost Cause was innovative in its use of interactivity wait until you cast your eyes on Late Fragment. Late Fragment is the first online film to give users total control over the film they are about to watch.
The film is shown alongside a timeline of upcoming scenes that are presented below it. The viewer is given the power to choose the journey they want the film to go on, letting them choose which scenes they want to go to next. Now this may sound like a completely customizable production, but there is only a selection of choices for the viewer to choose from.
Late Fragment has similar interactive features to The Outbreak, where the audience has the ability to choose which scene they want to see next. However, what’s different here is that Late Fragment puts the audience in the seat of the editor, as opposed to the viewer, which is a very new idea for interactive films.
Undoubtedly, users will spend hours making sure they haven’t missed a vital piece of the story along their journey, which is what makes this type of interactive movie a great example of engaging video.
Watch the demo for Late Fragment here – http://www.latefragment.com/lf_demo/index.html
To access the full film click here – http://latefragment.com/
4. Being Henry
Have you met Henry? Henry is a rather lovely chap, but unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be very good at making choices, which is why Land Rover are letting you make all his decisions for him.
Land Rover have created one of the first ‘branded’ viral interactive films, and have done so in excellent style. What makes the Being Henry film campaign work so well is that it’s easy to forget that you’re watching an advert at all.
Throughout the film you are tasked with making decisions for Henry. Although, rather than clicking a piece of onscreen text that interrupts your viewing like in The Outbreak, there’s a rather swanky drag animation system which helps to maintain the feel and fluidity of an actual film.
Only at the end of the video do you learn that your choices have actually decided which Land Rover is best for you. Not only that, because of your interactive choices exclusive Land Rover features have now been revealed to you too.
The reveal of these features is what’s supposed to give the film ‘replayability’, but actually the film itself is so entertaining you’ll want to find out all the different results there are to get from your interactions.
Watch Being Henry here – http://www.rangeroverevoquebeinghenry.com/
5. Inside
It’s pretty dicey to go out on a limb and claim that an interactive film that’s yet to be released is going to be the best interactive film of all time, but that’s exactly what we’ve gone and done.
The reason for this confident attitude is down to what the new feature film Inside aims to bring to the interactive film table – the first interactive social horror film experience.
We’ve seen horror films before where the Internet and social media platforms have come into play, but never before has real-time ‘live’ social interaction been able to impact an actual Hollywood blockbuster movie. Inside is going to attempt to allow users to interact with characters, affect the plot, and even have the chance to star in the movie.
Director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) states that users “can play a part through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter”, allowing audiences to keep up with twists and turns in real-time. This is certainly going to be the first film of its kind, but Caruso says it won’t be the last.
We’re very excited to see if Inside delivers on its interactive promises, and we only have to wait until August 14th 2012 to find out.
You can view the trailer for Inside here:
