What would happen if we could control real-life with a mouse cursor? This thought must have triggered artist Olivier Otten, when he created Selfcontrolfreak. On his website there are several movies in which he is the actor… but he doesn’t play the main role, because that role is preserved for you. In every movie you can influence his actions by interacting with him in a different way.

I was suprised at how easily it could entertain me. Normally I’ll stay just 1-2 minutes on a website I like, but this time I played around with every movie. The thing that makes these movies good, is that it isn’t exactly clear what you can and can’t do. Within seconds you find out that the movies are interactive, but where this interactivity starts and ends is a surprise every time. Really simple, but effective.

The rawness of the movies also appeals to me. It really feels like an experiment, and not like a finished product. This makes it likeable.

During my academic years I once created an interactive movie with a couple of friends. This movie was called Snapped and told the story of an unsecure guy. He had to make some choices in life and you could help him… if you didn’t do this on time he would automatically go for the easiest way. At that time we created this movie with a lot of sweat, blood and cursing in Macromedia Director. Those days are over, the internet and Flash have finally taken over.

A few months ago Youtube launched a new feature, the possibility to add annotations to movies. This created a whole new level of interactivity to movies, enabling creators to add links in movies on specific places and times. It was to be expected that interactive movies would be build, and Time Machine is one of them:

This way of interactivity isn’t exactly new in itself. Interactive movies have been around for ages, but never in an online social environment. It has to be sad that it still doesn’t look really sexy, embedding these giant buttons… but we can be sure that better possibilities will soon arise. I’m really curious what creative possibilities people will come up with when using annotations. Wouldn’t it be great to pick a famous story, split it in small parts, let people film 1 part and then connect these all together. This would be the first co-created movie.

Another good interactive movie on Youtube is Follow Your Instinct, which is actually an interactive Samsung ad: