The Future of Interactive Documentary
We believe that the future of Interactive Documentary is still somewhat unpredictable as a storytelling platform for everyday common use. However, with the emergence of digital platforms such as: new media, web-docs, docu-games, cross-platform, transmedia, alternative realities, and webnative, these new forms allow for the utilisation of Interactive Documentaries as one of the many ways to present informative and argumentative facts. The user affordances of the medium (being able to choose their own journey and elect a personified perspective), can be translated in the Education sector as a means for students to learn in a conducive, fun, and unscripted environment. We believe that further studies and implementation of Interactive Documentary’s use in this sector in the future will yield outstanding results for education and learning.
Furthermore, Interactive Documentary could benefit with an increase in funding. Of course, Government-funding only allows for plans and innovations that are beneficial to the community as a whole so the Education sector, Museums and Art Galleries, possible areas in Journalism through the use of Social Media and Television are only some of the areas that Interactive Documentary could be utilised in.
As a team, we highly value the use of Interactive Documentary as another form of storytelling and we encourage documentary filmmakers to continue to pursue this medium as a platform for storytelling. However, we would also like to insist on using this platform further than just personal storytelling but instead, enhancing user-experience and immersing more audiences into using it as a fun user-controlled experience of learning. Examples include “True Crime”, History channel revamped through the use of Interactive Documentary online and complemented by Augmented or Virtual Reality or smart TV’s. The possibilities are endless!