Oldal 54 [54]
Part II. Storytelling in the Information Age [ 53
similar principle, where the audience can make choices at important turning
points in the plot of a book or computer game by means of a dice roll or
conscious choice. In the same way, the viewer becomes a participant in the
interactive film narrative, actively intervening at certain points in the narrative.
The modules of interactive narratives that involve the viewer in the
development of the storyworld must fit organically into the branching
structure, so that episode alternatives are created as a continuation of
turning points, with the choice of certain turning points introducing episode
alternatives and thus providing different endings.
A prerequisite for the active involvement of the viewer is a medium
that allows for the manipulation of the plot. One possible way to achieve
interactivity is for users to add comments to episodically linked posts on
video-sharing sites, which are then taken into account by the scriptwriters
when writing the next episode. Alternatively, the viewer can click on a button
or caption integrated into the video to select a plot branch at a turning point
in the narrative. The creators known as Chad, Matt & Rob have published a
total of five interactive narratives on YouTube in different genres since 2008.
Each film is broken down into episodes of a few minutes, at the end of which
the viewer is presented with an integrated video of the two choices.’
An example of interactive storytelling which also allowed for a change
of point of view was successfully implemented by HBO in the HBO Voyeur
(2007) and HBO Imagine (2009) projects (Bartfai, 2011). The HBO Voyeur
project allowed the viewer to gain insight into the lives of eight families in a
New York apartment building based on viewers’ own choices. Content related
to the narrative was available on fictional blogs, social media posts, as well
as image and video-sharing sites. In the HBO Imagine project, a giant cube
was set up in three major US cities, with four sides of the cube showing the
plot versions of a story from the point of view of different characters.'° The
viewer could stand at the edges of the cube and see the same scene from the
point of view of two characters simultaneously. The full story could only be
reconstructed by viewing all four sides of the cube. On the HBO website, the
viewer could also change the four points of view by navigating with the mouse."
One of the two stories told was The Affair (2014-2019), which was later told
over several episodes, albeit with a different cast and in a more complex way.
The other story told from four points of view on HBO Imagine was called
‘The Heist'*. The same museum heist story was also shown interactively as
a YouTube Original in 2019.’ The episodic, branching narrative follows
the structure introduced by Chad, Matt and Rob: at the end of each scene,
the viewers are presented with a decision and must click on the pop-up of
9 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3lsu-r_xBw&list=PL359371BCEB574A6B
© https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW VeFt3lyol
» https://www.nickgaul.com/hbo-imagine
» https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V gJGIcbSMio&t=37s
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?¢v=9TjfkXmwbTs