Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1152266
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y S U M M E R 2 0 1 9 35 b y K a r o l U r b a n C A S M P S E Black Mirror: Bandersnatch An Interactive Narrative on Your TV?! Netflix began experimenting with interactive narratives in children's programming with the titles Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale and Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile, which allowed children to make narrative decisions from a regular TV remote. But in 2018, they expanded Black Mirror, their film anthology about strange, dark, and futuristic imaginings, and their interactive programming catalogue with the release of Bandersnatch. The approximately hour-and-a-half journey centers around a young programmer in the '80s who attempts to adapt a sci-fi fantasy novel into a video game and falls into a rabbit hole of realities. At crossroads in the narrative, the viewer guides the storyline through on-screen prompts providing available options. The additional choices to the viewer required roughly five hours of edited timeline. Written by series creator Charlie Brooker and directed by David Slade, this was Netflix's first interactive title aimed at the adult demographic. The narrative-driven story had to be thought provoking and complicated and yet able to follow the viewers' path seamlessly. The logistics of this were made possible by the use of a tool called Branch Manager. This bespoke tool created by Netflix engineers not only keeps track of how the story is progressing, but also records the viewers' choices. The result is an organic experience where one incarnation of the story can develop a main character with strikingly different priorities and motivations compared to the next. Netflix plans to use the Branch Manager tool and associated workflow for future projects.