Interactive videos are a unique form of production. There are many skills someone needs: being a director, being a producer, being a video editor, and being a coder.
As a director and producer making an interactive video, you need to understand what the video will look like ahead of time. It is absolutely necessary to make a storyboard, as everything in the video needs to be planned ahead. You need to know what every outcome of the video will be, and look one step ahead of every scene. You also need to become familiar with the platform of Eko Studio itself, understanding that the way this interactivity works, you will need buffer space at the beginning and end of each scene, as well as designing scenes in a way that makes sense to have options pop up for viewers/users to see and make a decision, creating somewhat of a 'dead space' for the options to take the attention of the moment.
As a video editor, you have to understand how long the video needs to be both at the beginning and the end of each scene, therefore, becoming familiar with the Eko Studio platform and how interactivity works. You also need to understand that each video can only be a certain length of time based on what the platform allows. It is critical to understand the storyline, looking at the storyboard, and understanding how interactivity works so that you can appropriately edit the videos to fit the platform.
As a coder, you need to fully understand Eko Studio platform in order to actually build your interactive video! Being a coder, you will understand how to structure each clip to the video, so by the end, your 'web' of coded videos create a cohesive interactive video!
There are two different forms of interactive videos that you can make. One is a POV video, and one is a Choose Your Own Adventure Video. The POV video allows a viewer to change to different angles of the video throughout the story, providing more depth both in storytelling and in space, providing a viewer with more points-of-view during the story, seen from different characters' eyes, or from different positions within the space of the video. In Choose Your Own Adventure Videos, there are two forms. One form where the video you're watching can have different endings to the story based on what decisions you make during the video, known as a branching structure. The second form is where the viewer/user gets the illusion that they are making an impact on the storyline based on their choices, but actually, the storyline will always arrive to the same ending, known as a string-of-pearls structure.
In each of my projects, there is a 'web' of coded stories, multiple options, and you are able to see both forms of interactive storytelling demonstrated throughout these projects.
