Much time has been spent in previous chapters exploring narrative in a range of forms. Digital technologies, specifically the internet, continue to introduce change to the nature and expectation
Introduction
Digital technologies, and specifically the internet, have introduced radical changes to the way we make, distribute and archive film. They have consistently expanded the range of tools, competencies and expectations required of all filmmakers. In response to that ongoing state of flux, this chapter will explore the nature of certain changes, considering the effect on issues raised elsewhere in this book (such as narrative) and suggesting a series of taxonomies for (re)considering and engaging with emerging media technologies. We will explore a range of tac-tics for engaging with the constant evolution of film production, consumption and transmission in the twenty-first century.
of narrative. Linearity is no longer as rigidly demanded and a range of interruptible, interactive and expanded narrative possibilities emerges.
Interruptibility
Once removed from a traditional cinematic space, film falls prey to the unstable lighting, sound and architecture of the environment in which the film is seen. Consider, for a moment, the rad-ical differences between viewing a film on a mobile phone and watching it on the internet or on a television in your own home. In each of those situations, your viewer may be interrupted by a range of environmental intrusions – from the sound of the telephone ringing to the loss of bat-tery power, among many others. Your user may also simply choose to pause the film and return to it later. While much has been written about the seismic changes that video and DVD formats have introduced to film viewing, I wish to focus only on the idea of the interruption as leading to interaction.
Interactivity
Playing and pausing a film, particularly on the computer or the internet, is literally a form of interaction. Interacting with a film in a space where you also create, edit, publish and alter texts introduces some interesting expectations. Writing about film in the early days of the inter-net focused on a kind of interactive cinema where users might choose their own endings.
Such discussions have evolved to include the practices of making and remaking films and responses to them. In addition to the kinds of video essay mentioned earlier, other patterns of remaking films have emerged. It is not uncommon for viewers to produce altered versions of films or re-cut scenes for comedic or artistic value and then post them online. These methods of audience interaction can be expected to increase as the technology required to produce videos continues to become more affordable and accessible. You can expect your audience to employ interactive methods to view your films, often choosing to participate in them in a range of ways.
Through the increase in use of the internet, new models of narrative construction have been introduced and embraced. The term ‘interactive narrative’ is one used to describe a range of these and is worth exploring briefly here. If more traditional models of narrative are linear and contain branching structures of a story told/experienced over time, interactive narrative could be seen to be non-linear and to exhibit a range of structures such as nodal, episodic, recursive or others.
An interactive narrative differs from other forms of narrative in that its plot structure can be described not as a single trajectory or arc but as a series or system of connections that users/
viewers may choose to follow. When planning a project with an interactive narrative, it is useful to visualise/draw out your intended story. Interactive narrative is most commonly illustrated as nodal and is generally illustrated using a star map or similar diagram that places a central episode or idea in the midst of supporting information and/or possibilities. In interactive settings, you may choose to construct an experience that hinges on events, themes or objects. The maps below show two ways of illustrating/planning a narrative about a female war photographer during World War II. In these examples, users might choose to explore any number of paths from a starting point. First, users can choose to explore largely through individual events or via a more traditional timeline (see Figure 13.1). In Figure 13.2, access to information is grouped by type of objects. None of these routes is exclusive and many projects will employ some combination of structures that uses both events and objects to construct narrative experiences. Figure 13.3 shows another way of mapping a more complex interactive narrative.
Mark Stephen Meadows provides two useful systems worth considering when constructing an interactive narrative. He articulates the steps a user will take to interact with a story (or film or website or other project) as observation, exploration, modification and change.2
Figure 13.1 Narrative about a WWII photographer using key events as structure or navigation
Figure 13.2 Narrative about a WWII photographer using key objects as structure or navigation
Expansion
As we move from traditional forms of film creation and distribution, we see changes to the kinds of static documents that remain the same each time the film is delivered in canisters or on DVD.
Digital technologies and the kinds of possibilities afforded by them lead to films that exist in a range of forms. In addition to the film itself – something a viewer may choose to view in a sin-gle sitting or in fragments – there is the range of additional material available online and offline.
While video essays and other reconstructions of films have been mentioned, it is also worth mentioning other materials your viewers may seek out. It has become commonplace for viewers to search the internet for trivia and other data related to a film at the same time as watching it.
Filmmakers would do well to consider what a viewer might find when doing an internet search using the title of a film because many viewers (and producers) will do that very thing.