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OCR
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
