High
School is a prison, the only difference is you have weekends and
evenings off. No matter how bad things are, even if the bleakness is
bone crushing and out of your control, know this. High school does come to an end. When it does, things change for all of us overnight. That is when lives are truly lived, and more on our own terms. The
rich possibilities of life are endless, you just have to stay on that
train.
Made
up of brick and glass with separate cells, each with over a dozen
cell mates. Routine sets in. You may become institutionalized to
accept the bad, to let it get worse, it’s hard not to. We inmates
all deal with it in our own way. But you must never resort to
excessive violence, the kind that anyone may not return from. Life
is far too important to ever feel you can hold it in your hands, even
if that life is your own.
Me,
I’ve been to prison and I came out the other side. I know how it
feels to fight, to cry, to feel love unanswered, to be used,
discarded or ignored. To feel pain everlasting, to believe you
cannot trust those close to you, to not want to let anyone in. To
lose control in the face of anger, to become lost in the void. To be
heavy with guilt, or sorrow, and to take it, to feel weightless, if
only for one night. To feel shapeless among the contrived geometry
of the world. To socialize through media or fall victim to media
that is far from social. But you can’t let it, them or those ruin
you...... because.......
Perspective
changes with each passing year, setting sun or rising action. I am
now a 38 year old man. Never better. Never healthier. Emboldened
and fully alive. The offenders, the allies, the worst of best
friends, what those of my past will never know, because they are
excised from my life, is that I’m just fine and thank you very
much. Because what I believed then and know to be true now, High
School is a prison. Just wait until you get released.
We
all remember those choose your own adventure books and when the Sega
Saturn gave us interactive narrative games in the 90’s, but 2019
may be remembered as the year interactive media took a bold step
forward. I am referring of course to Bandersnatch, the latest
installment of the Black Mirror franchise on Netflix. Why was this a
milestone? How does producing this new media differ from
conventional movies? What could the future hold? (Continue) - (Stop
Reading).....
You
chose to continue, let’s begin. The team behind Bandersnatch said
this project took 18 months of planning and production. It all
starts with the script. For interactive content such as this, the
first thing that is made is a flowchart. This document looks like an
upside down tree, with descriptions for each story path which
branches off based on the choices the viewer makes.
This is one of the many fan made flowcharts which went viral.
Just
a flowchart seems like a daunting task. It should be mentioned that
at first the producers of Bandersnatch were not interested in taking
this challenge on. In May, 2017 when they were approached by Netflix
they said no at first. Executive Producer/Writer Charlie Brooker
said “I thought, well, they’re often really clunky and I can’t
see how that’s going to translate into Black Mirror.”
Thankfully, weeks later they came up with an idea of a video game
programmer in the 80’s and began a journey into development.
In
this video you can hear two actors from the movie, Will Poulter
(Colin) describe the Bandersnatch script as a cumbersome one foot
tall document and Fionn Whitehead (Stefan) say he was told to “just
wait for the Twine.”
Source: IGN - Youtube
“What
the hell is a Twine?” That is what I was asking when I first heard
the interview above. I was happy to go down that Reddit hole.... and
surprised with what I found. Twine is a software that lets you
pregame interactive fiction. This was primarily used to make
interactive web based prose, but for this project it became the
perfect way to present the screenplay. Thanks to doing a final
output through Twine, the reader of the Bandersnatch script are given
clickable choices that take them down a different narrative path like
the final movie itself does. Brooker says this interactive script
was made through a combination of Twine, Scrivener and Final Draft. This makes sense to me, given that Final Draft is great for
screenplay formatting, while Scrivener is known for being an ideal
non-linear way to edit text. After all this work the project had a
green light and then the real challenge lied ahead.
Production
was described as shooting a Black Mirror episode only taking three
times as long. When you take into account all the scenes that had to
be shot to connect the dots on that sprawling flowchart, it is like
making three movies in one. I was thrilled to learn that
Bandersnatch was directed by David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of
Night) he also directed the “Metalhead” episode of Black Mirror,
which is why you see posters for a metal head video game in the
movie. They have said one session of watching Bandersnatch is meant
to last anywhere from 60 to 120 minutes. That is for the first time
you watch it, which brings us to our next topic, analysis and what is
the future of this medium.
Netflix
knew what they were doing here, and they did it right. Many people
did not know that Netflix made several interactive programs before
this Black Mirror hopeful hit the scene. It was under the radar
because it was content for kids. Why start with that audience? Here
is what Netflix Head of Production Todd Yellin had to say about it:
“We
felt that if it didn’t succeed in the kids space, it wouldn’t
succeed with grownups.” He added: “Kids don’t know how
something’s supposed to be, they just know how it is.”
That’s
sound logic, children are also more open to new experiences.... and
less critical. These early entries were a way to put this new
technology to the test, it is safe to say it passed. Because this
was a new format, Bandersnatch starts with two innocuous choices to
ease the audience into the concept. These low stakes choices, what
cereal to eat for breakfast and what music to listen to, are called
back later in the story, but do not affect the path you are on. I
see this being a common way to start Interactive media as we move
forward. Another thing they did very effectively was to let the
audience go back to a pivotal crossroad, after a chose they made led
down one of the stories multiple endings. This way the viewer does
not feel let down by the experience, think of it as a save state in a
video game. This of course, also encourages the viewer to keep
going. For that same reason I believe Interactive movies like
Bandersnatch are here to stay. These days steaming services are in
strong competition with each other, and Interactive content is
another draw at their disposal. They will be happy to add titles
like this to their service because it will prompt multiple viewings
and word of mouth.
I
strongly believe the real tonal shift will happen once a John Wick
style movie gets made with this technology. Or it could be a Horror
or a Thriller with high production value and A-list actors.
Bandersnatch was a mixed genre experience, one section felt like a
haulucenagenic nightmare, other moments delivered action or scares,
in that way Bandersnatch was a solid base hit, meant to appeal to a
broad adult audience. A straightforward genre movie with high
production value is the next step here, and that is right around the
corner. The thumbnail image for Bandersnatch has a starburst looking
symbol in the top right corner, this indicates that it is interactive
media. Here is a quote from Todd Yellin that gives a tease at what
Netflix plans to do with I.M.
“We're
just beginning to scratch the surface of the kinds of stories that
can be told this way.”
We
will certainly see more of these, Netflix developed what they call a
branch manager, a technology that saves data like past choices and
distributes interactive media in a standardized way. Bandersnatch
already has broke new ground, they included an Easter egg, a secret
path if you select to “pick up the family photo” twice. They
also included an audio cue that can be transcribed into a QR code
that led to this Bandersnatch themed website:
One
final observation, these interactive movies can be fun to see as a
group. Couples will enjoy it (as long as they do not fight over
choices made). It is fun to have gone through a session or two and
then watch someone else panic over making these choices for the first
time. Believe me, I put this to the test at the end of a date and
had a great time. These are all just my opinions, I encourage you to
make up your own mind and see Bandersnatch if you have not yet. One
thing is for sure, while we cannot predict the future, it looks
bright for Interactive media.
