Once Upon an Interactive Music Video Album
INTERACTIVITY
Interactivity in media, as we refer to it, means the opportunity for collaboration between the viewer and the final product, the existence of multiple choices for the user that turn passive consumption into active experience. We believe that this bigger engagement of the public creates a whole new universe of possibilities for innovative storytelling, merging of audio-visual formats, and creative scriptwriting.
The interactive method is actually easy to describe. You imagine all actions from a timeline placed on a tree where every possible choice is another branch. In our case, it wasn’t the choices that we made interactive, but rather the character perspectives, as shown in the example above with Episode 3’s decision tree.
Written in a joint effort by five writers and directed by four directors, with a script long enough for two feature films, our interactive episodes were born out of three years of pre-production, challenging filming and difficult post-production. After trying out different platforms for interactive media, we chose to work with Eko, a platform that enables the web distribution of selectable, interactive multimedia videos. We focused on it because of its preservation of the music playback and quality. Eko prioritizes music buffering which ensures no audio lagging when users make choices on how to continue the story. For a music video album like ours, that seemed like a perfect match.
hug or handshake’s music inspired us to push our artistic limits. Even before its premiere, this project already ties together the work of more than 50 people - musicians, producers, directors, screen writers, and extremely devoted cast and crew, resulting in one of a kind art miniseries. But it wouldn’t be possible without the contribution of the truly devoted fans of the band, who supported our crowdfunding campaign, and the financial support of the Bulgarian National Culture Fund.
PRE-PRODUCTION
The interactive format, which involves five completely different viewpoints, had us live through the longest pre-production we’ve ever done for music videos. It required two years of script development; castings for actors and children who’d look like the corresponding grown up actors; costume and set design planning that would allow for subtle changes and different vibes according to each character’s perspective. We had to make sure we’d find actors whose facial expressions and eyes would speak more than words, since we didn’t have any dialogue, only the songs’ lyrics. Costumes and props, everything needed to speak distinctly for each character and the subjective way they’d experience reality. Not to mention the location scouting, which led us to mountain lakes, city parks, bars, restaurants, apartments, meadows, and car services in remote villages.
PRODUCTION
Then, while filming enough material for a feature length movie in a record time span of under 14 days at more than 10 locations, we weren’t sure if this was a recipe for disaster or a great personal challenge. Having 30 people cast and crew (including two kids and a hypothermic actress) live for four days in mountain huts in October in order to film three episodes with two separate crew units shooting simultaneously with a non-stop pouring rain over their heads seems now like a child’s play. That is, of course, compared to having to shoot 80 shots in less than 10 hours in a business office amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Or to a night shooting in a god-forgotten auto service on the coldest day of winter. Or a night shoot with scuba divers in a swimming pool pretending to be a lake.
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO
Episode 1 – NATURAL PHENOMENA
dir. Ivan Botev, DOP Aleksandar Kartsov
The story
We meet Petar and Kristina – a couple who seem to have communication issues, caused by his paranoid behavior and her lack of understanding.
The choices
Character Perspectives: Petar | Kristina
Decision Tree Branches: 4
The format
The interactive format allows us to follow the two characters and analyze their actions, based on whose perspective we see. The realities separately don’t show us the full picture and it’s only when we start switching the viewpoints that we are able to get the puzzle pieces together. This switch of perspectives is made possible at all three key moments in the story, which allows the narrative to be seen in multiple ways, revealing the events in different order to each viewer.
The visuals used for Petar and Kristina both in production and post – lighting, editing, color grading – enhance the differences between the similar/identical scenes to create contrasting vibes for the two perspectives. Moreover, the interactive format required our actors to build two versions of their characters with different actions and emotions based on whose perspective we were filming.
Episode 2 – ONCE UPON A PINK SEDAN
dir. Victor Ivanov, DOP Dimitar Tenev
The story
We are thrown back into the past where we meet Petar’s younger self and his two friends – Toto and Anton, and their shared love interest – Irra.
The choices
Character Perspectives: Petar | Anton | Toto
Decision Tree Branches: 5
Fun fact: Оne of the characters passes out in this episode and you have to pick another perspective to continue.
The format
This 90s looking episode was one of the most challenging ones, as we had to film all events through three perspectives with all key events being the same, but the details changing for each viewpoint. And as the three characters are always together, there were a lot of crossing points in their perspectives which had to be recaptured three times differently in terms of acting, shots, and scene angles and composition.
Episode 3 – JACUZZI HEART
dir. Angel Ivanov, DOP Nicola Atanasov
The story
We continue meeting new characters in the present. We see Anton’s older self and his colleague Kaya joining Petar on a quest back to the place from their childhood memories.
The choices
Character perspectives: Petar | Anton | Kaya
Decision Tree Branches: 6
The format
This is the episode that played the most with set dressing, lighting, props, and atmosphere while creating the three perspectives for the interactive video. Each character has a corresponding light mood and color palette – in a purple pink, blue, or yellow gamma.
Episode 4 – STAY
dir. Vlady Gerasimov, DOP Nicola Atanasov
The story
We return to the place from their youth and find Toto - the long forgotten friend from their childhood - still living there.
The choices
Character perspectives: Toto | Kaya
Decision Tree Branches: 2
The format
Interactivity here helped us show two different states of human madness – one provoked by rediscovering yourself and reconnecting to the world, the other one caused by childhood trauma and self-doubt of the character. In contrast to Kaya’s spiritual tribalesque dances that we followed with a handheld camera and long takes, we had to convey the unstable emotional and mental condition of Toto with shakier and shorter shots, focusing on his facial expressions rather than his body movement. Interactivity here allowed us to play with dramatic irony - the characters cross paths, but only if you watch both perspectives.
Episode 5 – LOVE ME LIKE YOU DO
dir. Victor Ivanov, DOP Dimitar Tenev
The story
Epilogue. The friends find out what really happened the day Irra disappeared as history starts to repeat itself.
Thank you for the attention!
Full Credits:
Cast: Petar Trifonov, Anton Georgiev, Maria Koleff, Teodora Nikolova, Maria Sotirova, Bozhidar Popov, Martin Dekorte, Boris Vasev, Evtim Todorov, Mario Guyrov, Borislav Mihov, Pavel Dzheliov, Teodora Vezenkova, Yoji Sato, Todor Sheinov
Directors: Ivan Botev, Angel Ivanov, Vlady Gerasimov, Viktor Ivanov
Scriptwriters: Ivan Botev, Angel Ivanov, Vlady Gerasimov, Viktor Ivanov, Todor Bodurov
DOPs: Nicola Atanasov, Aleksander Kartsov, Dimitar Tenev
Production Designers: Ketty Marinova, Vania Ivanova, Tsveta Dimova
Art Department Assistants: Velichka Djambazova, Alexander Vasilev, Hristo Angelov, Evtim Evtimov
Stylist: Mirela Vassileva
Styling Assistant: Katrin Dimitrova
First AD: Bozhidar Peychev
Second AD / Script Supervisor: Leda Dragieva
Camera Assistants: Petar Tuhchiev, Radostin Lazarov
Gaffers: Manol Mitrev, Teodor Yordanov
Drone Operators: Todor Argirov, Kostadin Argirov
Underwater Operator: Dragomir Dimchev
Underwater Assistant Operator: Rosen Savkov
Production Assistants: Yoji Sato, Mario Tomchev, Petar Simeonov, Teodora Vezenkova, Evtim Todorov
Chaperone: Kalina Lipovska
Casting: handplayed
Producers: Virginia Venkova, Angel Ivanov
Editors: Ivan Botev, Viktor Ivanov, Vlady Gerasimov, Angel Ivanov, Nicola Atanasov
Grading: Nicola Atanasov, Alexander Kartsov
Trailer Edit & Grade: Petar Tuhchiev
CGI: Enter Studio
BTS: Svetlozar Apostolov, Yoji Sato, Mihail Mishev
Album Cover & Illustrations: Borislava Madeit
Special thanks to: Bikearea Chatama, Septemvri Hut, Schneider Electric, Skapto
With the financial support of the Bulgarian National Cultural Fund.
