A common piece of interactivity to find on youtube is videos that
have annotations. Some videos would use this online tool for basic purpose,
such as promoting other youtubers or providing a link to a song. However a
common occurrence on youtube is these choos-your-own adventure videos. Videos
such as Larry has a Spider on his Head
and INSERT OTHER EXAMPLE let the user click on annotations to other videos that
shows the result of their choice. This
kind of annotation video can be quite tiresome due to its basic functionality.
Instead of creating an interactive narrative, they instead create a very basic
game with limited gameplay, however annotation videos can help bring an
interactive experience to YouTube, especially when done right.
Chris Bingham, a young filmmaker based on London used YouTube to
help establish his career and to practice his skills in filmmaking. Last year
he created an annotation experience called B.R.O.X, which was an annotation
video that played out very similar to old adventure games, such as Escape from Monkey Island or Grim Fandango. At first, Bingham
attempted to make the video different from annotation to be different by
uploading it unfinished, allowing subscribers to watch the world and game grow
with new elements of gameplay. These updates can be anything from a new
character to talk to, being able to explore the desk in a room. Though what
made B.R.O.X quite interesting to explore was because it did feel like a game.
By creating B.R.O.X as a game instead
of a choice based video, it grew popular interest and has currently 111,990
views in the past year. (Accessed 27/10/2013)
When we were required to create an annotation experience for
Creative Media Practice, I was quite tempted to create some like B.R.O.X, an interactive mystery
adventure game. However, my group and I wanted to try something different, so
we decided to write a basic comedy about a couple trying to hide something from
one another, with the user being able to choose which perspective to watch. That
is the basis of the name, Him and Her.
Despite being happy with this basic structure, after having a word
with our lecturers, we decided that we could do more to build this world. So we
decided to add little elements of narrative exploration, where the user can
click on an annotation to find out more about this two characters and how their
relationship seems to function. For example, there is a shot where “Her” rushes
into her bedroom to find something to wear and there are four teddy bears
sitting on the floor, one small to the right and one quite big to the left.
Each bear has an annotation. When the user clicks on one of these annotations,
they will be taken to a video that show’s the couple having an argument, with
“Him” usually being in the wrong. This implies that whenever the couple having
an argument, “Him” would buy “Her” a teddy bear, the bigger the argument, the
bigger the bear.
Despite how basic the project was, I enjoyed it the most; it was
fun to see the possibilities that annotations present as a narrative
experience. By allowing interactivity to help explore a narrative, instead of
getting through to the next stage in these “choose your own adventure” videos,
one can create a far more interesting experience for the user, leaving them
feeling satisfied and awarded for clicking on an annotation instead of annoyed
when they choose the one wrong. With work and imagination, YouTube annotations
and other interactive software like Isadora can provide the great combinations of
film and digital games, that experience of interactive cinema.
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