Projection Room: Interactive movies- the future or a fad

 

And now for a little review/Projection Room hybrid- quite a while back, through one of the many event cinema strands that’s offered through my local non-descript multiplex, I was made aware of a groundbreaking film called Late Shift. Even though I missed out on it on the big screen (they couldn’t secure it), when it became available as an Xbox experience, I had to give it a look.

They have issued a synopsis of sorts: ‘Matt, a smart student, has to prove his innocence after being forced to take part in a bold heist at a famous London auction house. The consequences take him on a journey across London to escape the twisted web he finds himself caught in, discover the truth and gain his retribution. How will the audience decide to act when everything is turning against him?’.

If you grew up with ‘choose your own adventure’ books as a kid, Late Shift is one of those, but in film form. 7 endings, 180 decision points and countless ways to take the plot down a completely different route. While Tobias Weber is the man in charge directing it, it’s ultimately you- yes, you- who has the final say in how your experience of the film plays out. I’ve played it a few times, and I still haven’t seen every ending yet. And sure, some of the dialogue and performances aren’t up to the cinematic standard I’d like, but it’s difficult to treat this as a film- it’s more of a unique experience. But it has kickstarted an interesting debate: can interactive films save cinema? It’s a very difficult question to answer.

Some distributors are experimenting with this sort of thing for events- YouTuber DanDTM will be putting a one-night-only event into screens around the world next month that he calls The Contest. I don’t know much about this guy, but Simon Brew of the fantastic Film Stories magazine explained this well- ‘it’s described as an ‘interactive gaming experience’, that will split the audience up into tribes. You’ll be encouraged to dress up in the colours of your tribe, and will see backstories as part of the event. Audience members will be allowed to use their phones in the cinema too: in fact, if they want to play along with the games on screen, they’ll have to’. Quite a bold concept, especially the whole audience participation in games element of it. But personally, I don’t see that sort of concept working, not here at least, and definitely not in cinemas that have the big booming voice of Mr Mark Strong telling people that it’s time to enjoy the big screen experience play before it even kicks off.

Something like Late Shift is more suited to the interactive concept, especially from a narrative viewpoint, literally winning a BAFTA (well, BAFTA Wales) award for its innovation in the video game genre. But it has actually played in cinemas, and based on what I’ve seen, the app is designed to ensure everyone’s focus is on the film, and not the actual UI. This is something the industry are actively experimenting with, as Amblin are making a horror film using this technology and the creative minds of Mike Flanagan (the man behind Netflix’s Haunting series and the upcoming Doctor Sleep) and Alexandre Aja (who has just hit cinemas with his directorial work on Crawl), but whether this tech will attract mainstream customers is still yet to be seen.

Either way, I’m all for innovation when it comes to cinema tech. As long as this doesn’t become a stupid gimmick like ScreenX, then I’ll consider this experiment a success.

Want to experience Late Shift for yourself? It’s available on Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in full-motion video gaming form.