Interactive Online Video

[John Bigboote]

Hey Hashers! Sorry if you have already discussed this- I just saw it and immediately thought this forum might want to explore...

 

I was just watching Pepsi and Coke's World Cup Soccer video's... Coke's is a nice and heartwarming video- but Pepsi employs a novel new playback that is interactive without lags and begs for animators like us to explore non-linear storytelling... here are the videos:

 

Pepsi

It’s interactive….

http://www.pepsi.com/en-us/d/content/2559/...HAT-YOU-MAKE-IT

 

Coke

http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/spot...;ttl=1397005967

 

Turns out if you dig at the end of the Pepsi video you will uncover the source: Interlude Treehouse. 1st Q you might have, is it free? Yes, unless you are a commercial user.

 

I have been curious about doing something like this using Youtube's annotations feature, problem being that if I place a hotspot button in a Youtube video that takes you to another video there would be substantial 'lag' while the new page comes-up and the video loads, then you would need to press 'play'... no good. This does it all seemlessly and pre-buffered, which opens doors for video-style gaming and interactivity... should I open door number 1, 2 or 3?

 

This is an online playback source like Youtube or Vimeo but offers an interface for scheming your interactivity flow, as well as giving feedback statistics like retention rate and choice percentages.

 

AS IF writing a story from beginning to end linearly wasn't hard enough... things are now more complicated, but INTERESTING!

 

Here is link to their homepage: http://interlude.fm/en/

[johnl3d]

Interesting

[John Bigboote]

Here's a great simple example... rock-paper-scissors.

http://community.interlude.fm/tutorials/pa..._paper_scissors

[Rodney]

Yes, very interesting.

 

I've been interested in this type of story branching since the first day I picked up one of those books that gave the reader a choice (Go to page 32 if you want to run into the dungeon. Go to page 64 if you want to stay and talk to the dragon) as there was promise (potential) beyond the novelty of it all. With tech being what it is today I'm not surprised to see more interest in the branching of video.

 

I can think of a few story premises and applications that would work pretty well but the key seems to be to find a good way to involve the audience (how to get them to want to watch again and enjoy a new experience.

The downside is that the audience is (by necessity) presented with a limited number of branching opportunities so the creative mind behind the storytelling has to be fully attuned to the variables and how they can logically (and emotionally) play out in time/space.

 

And that leads me to the most likely story premise for this technology (at least from my perspective/interest); time travel, where the audience gets to return to previous events and choose a different path to see if that will effect their reality (answer: it will in both subtle and exaggerated ways).

 

What remains to be seen is how this tech dovetails/merges with game play because basically that is what is happening behind the scenes.

The underlying tech however is still much the same; go right, go left, go forward, stop, do something either random or specific, etc.

 

From a more subtle perspective we are talking about menu driven interfaces (but in this case the menu can be fully integrated...even dissappear into the scene).

In this sense one of the simplest of interactive products might be a interactive portfolio where the experience is closer to clicking through links on a webpage to drill down/into more information.

 

At the end of the day it seems to me that content remains the critical piece of interactivity.

There cannot be a branch that goes to anywhere where there is no content. That content must either already exist or it must be created.

And here is where the randomization comes into play.

As long as you have one content item you can fill the moment.

If there is more than one content item you can alter the experience.

If there is always a loop option then the audience can return to a previous decision point, then take another pathway.

 

This goes back to that 'ol OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

The downside of the Pepsi commercial and the Rock, Paper, Sissors game is that there is a lot going on but the audience is still constrained to what has been created for play.

The element that is missing is interactive creativity where the system accepts new decisions and incorporates those back into the game play.

In short the viewer could (and likely would) create a unique experience every time they played if the story allowed for such interaction.

I realize this last part is not an aspect of Treehouse's approach at the present but I cannot help but note this area of constraints put in place.

The downside being that there is a finite number of variables that limits the experience.

As a storyteller placing these constraints is optimal (you want to tell YOUR story but give the audience some room for personal experience) but as a member of the audience you want to explore beyond the page/screen.

This is why sequels and serials are so popular as they let you return to familiar characters and themes.

 

All of this to say I really enjoyed that... especially the tutorial on creating the Rock, Paper, Sissors video.

 

Thanks Matt! (maybe we can put together something with this thing)

 

Added: The one thing that I thought needed to be augmented in the Pepsi video was a feedback loop to the audience that let them know their input had been recieved and yet nothing had changed (i.e. there was no branching opportunity at the moment the user tried to engage). The current methodology is passive with the audience waiting to see an icon change to suggests where they can interact. If the user clicks on anything outside that window of opportunity there should still be feedback (a simple sound 'Zzzzzzt' and subtle cursor change might do the trick... like your powers to alter the future have temporarily failed... but don't give up... try again!)