I
nteractive storytelling is nothing new, but something as
mainstream as Netflix embracing the concept is a big deal.
Bandersnatch, the newest episode of Black Mirror, lets you
make choices that determine the path the story takes. And you
can access it using just Netflix and a TV remote. I talked with writer
Charlie Brooker about the episode, how it was made and what inspired it.How did you pitch the idea of an interactive Black Mirror
story to Netflix?
They actually asked us. We had a meeting at their
headquarters in Los Angeles – which, by the way, has
M&M dispensers on every floor. That’s my overriding
memory. Todd Yellin and Carla Engelbrecht from the tech
division showed us some of their interactive capabilities,
which were quite rudimentary at the time. Then they
asked us if we’d be interested in coming up with a Black
Mirror story using this technology.
And we said no! Well, we said yes, that’s interesting,
we’ll go and think about it. Then, later, we came up with a
story outline that could work. I wanted to do a retro
episode that was actually set in the past. We’d done San
Junipero before, which was set in 1987, but it was really
the future. I also knew that I wanted to do a story about
old, old computer games.And from there we had the idea about a character in the
past and someone in the future controlling him, trying to
make sure he writes this particular computer game
because it’s important in the future. A bit like the plot of
The Terminator, basically. And then I thought, ‘What if the
person giving this character instructions is you, the viewer?
Hang on a minute, that sounds like it could be an
interactive thing. Oh shit, that’s a good idea!’ And so we
went back to Netflix and said, ‘Okay, we can do one now.’Why were you initially reluctant to make an interactive
episode of television?
The first FMV games I can remember playing were
Dragon’s Lair, Mad Dog McCree, Space Ace and some of
those LaserDisc arcade games like Firefox. I was writing for
PC Zone in the ’90s and there were a lot of them released
on PC, too. Stuff like Under A Killing Moon and Night Trap,
which caused a huge deal of controversy at the time and
made the tabloids shit their pants. But the problem with
these kinds of CD-ROM games was that they weren’t as
satisfying to play as something like Sam & Max.
There’s a lot of waiting around and you’re constantly
taken out of the story by cuts to black while it loads in the
next bit of video. Even flicking between scenes on a DVDBrooker has been a
journalist, satirist,
presenter and, more
recently, a TV writer. In
2011 he created Black
Mirror, an anthology
series with a dark edge,
which was recently
purchased by Netflix.PROFILE
RIGHT: Stefan is
played by Fionn
Whitehead, who you
may remember as
Tommy in Dunkirk.INTERVIEW
Charlie Brooker
Charlie Brooker
ThecreatorofdystopiananthologyseriesBlackMirroronBANDERSNATCH, an
interactive episode inspired by games and gaming culture. By Andy Kelly