A Review Of The New Frontiers In Digital Media Entertainment
These are interesting times, as we see media companies exploring new forms to entertain us. Digital media is becoming easily available, thanks to the Internet, to distribute content. The progress in hardware and software is allowing more creative ways to create the content and networks are able to distribute it to a larger audience. What we are seeing now is interactive, immersive and engaging forms of entertainment.
Interactive
It may sound like none of this is new, but its implementation is. While game developers have released interactive games for consoles and the PC in the past, it has now come to OTT streaming platform services like that offered by Netflix which label it as “Interactive Film”. The first such offering of that media is the Black Mirror: Bandersnatch movie, which is probably going to remind some people of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” book series. It requires a smart TV connection with fast Internet, as I realized I could not watch the movie on an older iPad device. That means you will need more up to date hardware in order to watch the movie. The reason is that this movie requires interaction between the user and the Netflix app, a clever use of half-duplex communication in a media format.
Before you can watch Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Netflix needs to verify that your device is compatible. If your device is compatible, you will see a “star” symbol on the right corner of the title (I screenshot how it looks like below).
Depending on which device you are using, the way to interact requires your mouse or other pointing device. On Smart TV sets, you will use your remote control while on a smartphone you simply use your touchscreen. The plot begins with a storyline and from there you can choose how you want the movie to develop by choosing the scenarios on screen. Because of the many possibilities this movie can take, there are so many different ways to end the story. You choose how you want the movie to end, and there many endings possible.
This really engages your attention, but is that what everybody wants? Rather than being the passive couch potato who lazily watches a movie, this time around you need to do some work. Not everyone will probably like these type of interactive movies, but I see how it can be applied to other types of content. For example, documentaries and even edutainment shows. There are cases where the viewer will probably want to interact with the content e.g. math tutorial, makeup lesson, etc.
How other media companies plan to take this, remains to be seen. Netflix actually got good responses from the audience with a 7.3 star rating on IMDB. With this positive response, Netflix now plans to produce more interactive films. With more interactive movies available, then surely there should be more options to watch that should make it more mainstream. What we probably could see are ways to make the interaction more seamless and ubiquitous, so that it doesn’t spoil the viewers experience.
These types of movies are not easy to make, which has been stated by its own creators. According to Black Mirror Executive Producer Annabel Jones:
“If we’d have known how difficult it was going to be, we might not have done it.” (Source Vulture)
This type of format, since it is not common, does have technical challenges to face. One thing that is important with interactive movies is the interface with the viewer. What complicates this is that in the Digital Age, there are so many different devices people use for streaming content. Netflix is definitely aware of this which is why they have to take that into account. If you can only stream this on a Smart TV, for example, that will mean other viewers will not be able to watch on their other devices. Some people also don’t have a Smart TV.
To create Bandersnatch, Netflix developed its own software for it. While I don’t have the exact details of how Netflix developed their software, I can only assume that it follows a new type of workflow. There is a lot of complexity in making it interactive. Any further discussion about this is another story because of the many details involved. This is best stated by Carla Engelbrecht, Netflix’s director of Product Innovation:
“There are millions of permutations of how you can play this story. But because of the complexity of the map and the way it hovers in on itself, it’s actually hard for us to calculate how many choices there actually are.”
Games are the best form of interactive entertainment, and what better announcement to hear than from Google during GDC (Game Developers Conference) 2019. They are launching their service called Stadia, to provide a cloud based gaming platform. This allows gamers to play from anywhere, using any device. It really doesn’t require any additional hardware other than your existing device. All hardware processing is done on Google’s cloud network while your device is functioning as the display. To provide the additional processing power needed, Google has partnered up with AMD to use their GPUs. Google also developed a game controller to use with their platform as well as support for existing game controllers.
What impact will Google’s cloud gaming service have on the retail industry as a whole becomes the question. Will brick and mortar stores go the way of Sears and JC Penny in the long run? Google is going to make streaming games available as a service, so it will become less likely for gamers to go to a store. This is like how Amazon can sell you a crepe maker online, making the trip to the store pointless. Google will not be alone in providing this service since there are other platforms that have been around even before Google made this announcement. There are gaming platforms that are using a blockchain, but none of them have seen immediate success or adoption. Google’s closest competitor would be Microsoft, who are also planning on providing a game streaming service of their own.
Games are also becoming more mobile, allowing anyone to play on their smartphone and tablet. This is a large market that translates to better revenues for developers and advertisers. Putting a game on a CD and DVD is obsolete. Distribution over the network is the best way to get the content out for consumers and this translates to faster ways to generate revenue at lower costs of production. The Internet is the way to the gamer.
Immersive
When was the last time you heard of AR and VR content in movies or games? The last few months? More likely every day at least, if you follow the world of interactive media and electronic gaming. This industry has always had huge potential, but the results have been less than satisfactory. Gaming companies struggled to produce enough titles and the hardware costs did not exactly justify its purchase. Things have been progressing though, and we are now seeing more affordable and user friendly products.
The main point of AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) is immersion in a digital cyberworld that mimics reality. In the case of AR, it enhances reality and can change how we interact with the physical world. VR, which has been around much longer, is a totally immersive digital world which requires a headset for use. Both can be combined into MR (Mixed Reality) and some developers are creating games and apps that don’t require using a headset. There are more creative ways this is being done and it can require nothing more than a device you already have … your smartphone.
Although the idea is for total immersion in a make believe world created by bits and pixels, bringing it to a more mainstream format is actually a good idea. We saw this before with games like Pokemon Go and various apps that usually just demonstrate simple AR. Now you still get that immersion, but in the real world. A good example of this I have seen is the MR presentation at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Using Microsoft’s Hololens, people can see an augmentation of reality in a very entertaining and educational way.
There is a need for more entertaining and educational presentation of content using this media format. The only problem is that there is not enough content like this around, and if it were available it is not yet easily available. First of all, a user needs to have the headset device and app. The selling point is clear, but people will buy it if there is a real reason to use it. I think there is a reason to use it other than gaming.
Engaging
Netflix has produced some quite engaging and unique content that make use of advanced CG. Examples are Polar and Love Death + Robots. This introduces high-tech computer imaging with a NSFW sci-fi and action theme presented in vivid color. While Polar was a bloody gush fest, Love Death + Robots goes into a more sci-fi storyline anthology. What makes the content engaging is not so much the storyline, but the presentation.
Netflix has admitted that it is experimenting with random episode order in Love Death + Robots. There were tweets made about it when viewers noticed that their episode order was different from their friends’ Netflix. There were conspiracy theories all of a sudden. Read a more thorough explanation of that here. Netflix has come out to say that the sequence of the episodes has nothing to do with user data preferences. Instead it was generated randomly as part of an experiment. Nonetheless, this got a lot of people’s attention.
Polar was just great if you are into the anti-hero themed shoot-em up blood-fest violence. The lead actor, Mads Mikkelsen, anchored the movie really well with his presence. Otherwise, it was not really the type of classic action flick in the calibre of let’s say John Wick or Die Hard. It will surely have a cult following since it was based on a graphic novel as well. What makes this movie so engaging are the action scenes, thanks to some computer graphics editing and choreography. Imagine how they blocked the scene of Mikkelsen in the sex scene shootout. These ideas are truly not original in idea, but with computer graphics editing presented in a different way to engage the audience.
Love Death + Robots uses even more CG and animations. This was a NSFW adult themed series that has a sci-fi robot theme. We always want to know what the world will be like with robots, and this series presents some scenarios. There is also some adult content, but more artistic in the way it was presented and often involves some CG. Now this shows some intersection with animation and more realistic CG coming together. With new types of imaging algorithms that use AI like GAN (Generative Adversarial Networks), we will begin seeing more “fake” actors. They will look so realistic, viewers may not even notice the difference with a real actor.
An example of this was the episode Beyond the Aquila Rift, which generates life-like characters with the detail and expression of a real human . Maybe not so much the authentic and genuine emotions you see in a real person’s face. It is like watching a scene from a game, but this time it is an episode of a series or movie. This is likely to get better with AI. It can also be ethically disturbing to some people. Others will find it sexist because of the amount of skin shown portraying the female form. I don’t judge work for their agenda or morality, as I would like to judge it more for its entertainment value. These are things some critics will have issues with moving forward with how these new technologies are going to be used.
Another movie that blurs the world of CG and reality is Alita: Battle Angel. The challenge the creators had was to make the main character’s skin appear as human as possible. Visual FX company Weta Digital took care of that. Why not just use a real actress instead of going through the hardships of CG visual effects? It is because of the story itself. You want to portray Alita, who is non-human as such on screen. Though you had a real actress playing the voice part, the character on screen was rendered using CG. You know they did it right when it looks convincing enough to pass for a real character, human or non-human.
Other movies, like Justice League and even Black Panther at times, seem to have failed in their CG rendering of the characters. It is all about finding the right balance of CG and human performance to create the realism of fantasy and sci-fi characters. I think director Robert Rodriguez and producer Jon Landau did quite well with this. With new technologies emerging in AI and digital imaging, expect even more realism in CG.
Final Words
One things is for sure, with all this content streaming to our devices we are going to need faster Internet speeds. A typical 4K stream with HDR and Atmos audio will take up a lot of bandwidth. Gaming at 4K 60 fps will also require a lot of bandwidth because latency will lead to dropped frames and delays. User experience will be an important factor in determining its success. With millions of potential viewers and users, this will also mean ad spends to streamers to target a larger market. This is going to be made possible with 5G and Wi-Fi 6 network technology. What will make these new content usable and available will depend on how fast the network is. 5G, in particular, is going to provide high speed low latency access to support content streaming for 4K UHD and higher resolutions at up to 20 Gbps. If current infrastructure cannot scale to meet those demands, then that will be the hurdle.
