Interactive Film History: The Challenge of Classification

It is widely considered that technology gave birth and continues to play a vital role in film production around the globe. Technological advancements have shaped film language and the audience experience throughout history. With the emergence of interactivity and the proliferation of new digital media and technologies, new opportunities, discourses and challenges have arisen. In this context, this paper discusses that current classification approaches are not appropriate for capturing in a comprehensive manner the multidimensional aspects of interactive film history. It is proposed that a new classification system is needed in order to map the history of interactive filmmaking and cinema, alongside the development and affordances of the different interactive technologies in use, like the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and web technologies, 360o video, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) among others. Other prominent characteristics and practices that are considered include the enablement of either single- and/or collective multi-interaction of the audience with the moving image; the role of complex algorithms and the type of data analysis performed; technologies that make direct use of the audience’s physiology and cognitive state, such as the Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs); as well as the gamification of the film viewing experience. Accordingly, a new approach to identifying a suitable systematic structure is outlined, as opposed to recycling the conventional methods of classification, chronological order and genre categorisation.