Interactive Tv And Cinema

By Author: Roy Claus
Total Articles: 9
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Interactive TV and interactive cinema today are becoming more and more of a reality. With the overall development of informational technologies the humanity becomes more and more interested in controlling the information instead of just consuming it. People who are already familiar with video games need a new generation of movies and cinema that will be controlled by their decision.

The main thing are the ways of interacting with the content. Today most of them are still in test stage and it is not clear which one will eventually become the most suitable one.

The main thing that gets twisted by interactivity is the plot. This of course brings up a lot of benefits like the non-linear plots, but also creates problems. For example the need to shoot nearly useless extra hours of footage and make the work on the plot 100 times more problematic. Of course these extra hours can be used for a DVD release to increase the replay value, but still a multi-layered plot is a task too serious for modern filmmakers.

An example of testing an interesting interaction way is the Last Call movie. It is a recently released ...
... thriller, nothing special concerning the plot just a usual group of students lost in some creepy place and chased by a bloodthirsty maniac, except for one little thing - the plot is controlled by the viewers directly from their seats in the theater. When the audience enters the cinema they willingly give their mobile numbers and the numbers are added to a special system. During the movie the protagonist makes calls which are directed to some random phone in the audience and the person answering that phone will have to help the protagonist by guiding her through the key moments of the movie. The fate of the main character and the whole plot of the movie completely depends on the audience members. And it is they who advice either to leave or try to free a trapped friend, or whether to choose the basement of the roof as escape route. Of course this is more of a gadget based solutions and who knows if it will work when the mobile phones will be replaced by something more advanced and futuristic, like some built in communication teeth.

Nevertheless with the last years boom of various TV series interactivity might become just the thing to give this type of entertainment a second start as soon as the audience will get tired of it. The most common thing in TV series is a cliffhanger when the plot is left at a certain moment just minutes before an important event. In interactive TV series the plot might be decided by uses online and the cliffhanger might have some unexpected outcome. Of course this will be hell for writers and the whole series would have to be shot in weekly spans. But eventually when the interactivity will become the ultimate thing in modern entertainment there will be no other way but to go the interactive way.

Interactive TV by the way is already available through various internet en tv packages offered by local providers. But remember when you pick a provider make sure that it offers the best services around!