Methodological questions in ‘interactive film studies’

PERRON, Bernard, Dominic Arsenault, Martin Picard and Carl Therrien (2008). « Methodological Questions in Interactive Film Studies », New Review of Film and Television Studies, (W. Buckland, ed.), Vol. 6, No. 3, Routledge New York, December, p.233-252. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17400300802418552

This paper focuses on the phenomenon of interactive movies. As a genre that has almost totally vanished, defined mostly by the abundant use of filmed video sequences (called Full-Motion Video or FMV) on which the player/gamer can intervene, the interactive cinema has left an impressive corpus seemingly forgotten. In this research, we call attention to the significant historical heritage of this collection which we call early interactive cinema. Beside its cinematographic appeal (which had obviously led to its name, and probably also to its demise), our interest lies on its ergodic dimension, mainly what we are calling figures of interactivity and actional modalities.