We often say that the best place to watch a movie is only a cinema, but the recent “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” is a movie that cannot be shown in the theater because it requires the audience to hold the mouse. Or the touchpad to determine the direction of the story
A film critic called this film “the first test of the global storyline feature”, but it is not the first interactive movie. To some extent, this advantage of fully utilizing network streaming media is difficult to replicate in theaters. As for the addition of interactive elements, is it not an art creation? Or can it be called a game?
“Black Mirror: Panda Sneckey” poster.
is not the first interactive movie, the audience still does not have freedom.
As early as 1967, Czech director Radúz Cincera launched the first interactive movie “Clovek a jeho dum” at the Montreal Expo. The audience can vote for the back through the red and green buttons in their hands. In 1993, a 20-minute short film was shown in a theater with special seats. The audience could choose the story through the rocker on the seat; Soderberg’s American drama “Mosaic” also has An interactive prototype that creates an app called “mosaic” that allows viewers to watch the story in the app, but not in the traditional form of episodes, because the story tells of a child writer being killed So, in the app, you can see short videos of all the friends and relatives around her, and then the audience can judge who is the murderer and choose the story line that belongs to them. Even the world of drama, the immersive drama “Sleepless Night”, which has been in Shanghai for a long time, is such an interactive experience. When viewers walk into different rooms with different characters, they can see different plots
However, due to some technical limitations, this movie or drama forms need to pause the screening whenever they need to select the key nodes, and then the host will take the stage to guide the audience to make a choice and play the corresponding clip according to the audience’s voting result. In the “Pandas Niki”, the technological innovation makes the whole process very smooth. When the user plays, Netflix will pre-cache two possible routes before each choice, to ensure that the user can down the story no matter what the selection. Development of. Moreover, in order to let the audience express empathy for the characters and stories, and to substitute themselves into the characters and follow the story, they become the participants of the story. The interactive film has an unparalleled advantage in this respect, a stronger sense of substitution, and is aroused. Curiosity also drives them to explore more possibilities
Examples of interaction methods, users can make choices during the viewing process.
The idea of an early interactive film comes from the audience’s need to freely decide what they want to see. Although it was widely praised by people in the industry at the time, it was banned by the Czech Republic shortly after the release of “Auto Movie”. Today’s “Pandas Niki”, although there can be more endings for the viewers to choose, can also be reintroduced infinitely to relive the meaning of each story, but the viewer can still vaguely feel that this “communication” “Not in the true sense of “free will” communication, the options are still pre-designed, and it is impossible to generate new scenes and stories according to each person’s imagination
Since Pandas Niki is interactive, there is no consistent plot of the story. The story is about a game designer who makes a game based on a classic science fiction novel. However, through continuous selection, the protagonist found that the situation was always inferior to his own intentions. Under the guidance of his friends, he gradually believed that all of this was not from the free will of the individual, but the power of manipulation in the dark. Behind the scenes guide the development of all the plots. Of course, this power is actually the remote control in the hands of the audience. To a certain extent, the film uses the vision of the people in the drama to see the helplessness of being manipulated, so that you and me in the real world are also a different type of living under the arrangement of unknown forces, just another parallel time and space. Only in the drama. At this moment, a philosophical idea arises. As an audience, do you really think that your so-called choice is free?
“Black Mirror: Panda Sneckey” Stills
“the film is the asymptote of reality.” This principle of authenticity, when only the non-optional game elements are added, will make the viewer feel that he seems to be the spiritual rust on the object. Through the film bridges and endings produced by various choices, you can get a helpless fatal conclusion: sometimes the seemingly good choices in the path selection of life lead to bad results, often no good or bad. Absoluteness, and in the case where the outcome has been established, the good and the bad in the process may be nothing more than a table, and essentially cannot change the outcome of the destiny. The only thing that can make a tragedy redeemable is the need to go back to the initial stage of programming bugs, which are often far from the beginning and need to be returned through a game restart. But can life be like a game, come back again?
Future film development tends to be gamification is an inevitable fact and law.
All this has to return to the history of the game to talk about. In the early games, 3D technology still had no more detailed breakthroughs. In order to make more realistic considerations, live-action shooting was enabled as a cut-off movie. In the game mode, in order to discard the development of the monolithic story, the player was added. With multiple choices, under different choices, there will be completely different real-life plots, allowing the player to watch a real movie while the game is going on, but develop different content due to the differences in the choice of each player. It is the era when games are most similar to big screen movies. However, with the dramatic advancement of hardware technology, the 3D computing function is becoming more and more powerful, and the computer animation is almost not far from reality. The “real-life interactive video game” that once flourished in the 1990s is no longer Existence, but the Japanese-style Gal Game (generally a text-image love game) takes a farther approach to different modes of choice
The game “Heartbeat Memories” screenshot, players can choose different branch lines.
In Pandas Niki, the audience has been able to immerse themselves in the interaction of the movie as if it were a game. To some extent, the movie is actually a role-playing (RPG) game or a Gal Game. The interaction between the audience and the protagonist is not only “control” and “controlled.” In the development of the plot, it is also different from the traditional interactive film, so this work can be said to be a combination of film and game, “watching movies” can not accurately summarize the way to experience this work. Similarly, in the game market of the past few years, “interactive movie games” have quietly emerged. Last year’s hot “Detroit: Becoming a Human” is such a masterpiece. You can look at the problem from the perspective of human or robot and unlock different endings..
Similar “interactive movie games” include “Night Class” which was launched on the Steam platform last year, as well as “Superior Twins”, “Rainstorm” and “Until Dawn” on PS4. Similarly, Japan’s Gal Game has also developed this kind of interactive. For example, the upcoming “Fate of the Night – Cup of Heaven” is a theater animation based on the game of the same name. The player plays the hero, the opposite problem, Make your own choices and finally reach the end of different story lines. Only the Japanese have developed this kind of “interactive game” into the theme of love development. The text and choice of such game stories are undoubtedly closer to “Pandas Niki”
“Interactive Games” In order to enhance the player’s sense of participation, there will be more interactions in many small details that do not affect the ending, adding some sense of life and little fun. But the degree is difficult to control, too difficult to affect the progress of the game, too simple and make the process cumbersome and useless. The focus of “interactive movies” is to watch, as long as the audience can choose at the key nodes. This will not bother the audience, but also grasp the plot from the perspective of God
“pandas Niki” and such “interactive movie games” are essentially not very different in nature. When you experience different presets of movies and games, the mentality will be different. When you think of it as a movie, the story line inside is the movie plot. The complete structure of the three-act play of “Range-Confrontation-Solution” is the key to judging a movie. When you think of it as a game, the story line inside is the game story. Many players don’t experience the whole story, and they need to give players more excitement in each chapter. “There is no correct picture, the only picture is correct.” In Netflix, the show has no progress bar, and it consists of countless pieces. Every time the audience makes a choice, an option will appear below the video to promote the next story based on the selection, just like playing a game
Of course, from the parallel cosmic “Cloud Map”, “The Night of Comet”, to the “Top Player” of gameplay content, and the attempts of streaming media giants in VR movies, the future of film development tends to play. Chemistry is an inevitable fact and law. It can be seen from the “Automatic Film” 50 years ago that this change is not brought about by the Internet. The essence of the game is the continuous cycle of “goal – rules – feedback – motivation”, which is also a law of the sustainable development of human civilization. When a movie exists as a “game reality”, it naturally cannot escape the fate of being gamified, but the true sense of participation may require more hobby elements than black and white, right and wrong
Although Pandas Niki is not the first interactive movie, but this kind of game-like interaction is introduced into the movie, Netflix is the first to eat crabs. The protagonist tries to change his destiny through different choices over and over again. This setting is actually being played by Hollywood. More classic movies include “Terror Cruise”, “Butterfly Effect” and “Source Code”, but compared with the fact that we watched these protagonists in the front of the screen, the results of the selection and the screenwriter were set. The story advancement is completely different. But will this interactive form become the trend of future movies? It is still too early to make a conclusion. However, the ultimate form of this interactive film/game has already had a blueprint, and HBO’s “Western World” is such a story