docSHIFT Glossary
This interactive doc requires input from the user in the form of choices. In contrast to the Sort and Search model, the Branching Narrative is a construct of spaces, which the internaut enters to discover content. Each space can lead to more than one other space, which in turn leads to further options. There is no set beginning or end; the internaut is the sole agent of his experience. A “map” or site overview is often provided, but not always.
ex: Out My Window, Montreal en 12 Lieux, 2010 Census, Korsakow projects
This interactive doc grows and shifts at the whim of its users, often using the Sort and Search format to encourage feedback via video uploads, text, photographs or audio submissions.
ex: 102 Minutes That Changed America, History Pin, Mapping Main Street
(Commercial or Non-Profit): As brands and organizations begin the harness the potential of online docs, these interactive docs (though questionably docs) are pioneers on the cusp of a trend – the sites are worth a look for their innovative approaches, but make no mistake, the main intention here is the promotion of their respective products or cause.
Ex: Sydney Crosby, Stanfields A Guy in His Underwear, Love Letters, Stem Cell
Less provocative than the former, these interactive docs seek to improve understanding of certain events, people, and situations. Often used as educational tools, these use the interactive format to offer a variety of opinions. Ex: Storming Juno, Redress Remix,
Entertainment in the largest sense of the word, these interactive documentaries are exercises in storytelling, experimenting with experience, aesthetics, technology with the main intention to inspire, distract, “entertain”.
Ex: We feel fine, Welcome to Pine Point, This Land,
Often embedded in another form of interactive doc, the game distinguishes itself in that it presents internauts with a series of challenges or questions that can normally be completed or solved in a number of different sequences.
Ex: Beethoven’s Hair
This interactive doc embeds stories and information in an actual map, either allowing internauts to browse via a url, or via locational apps triggered by certain GPS points in a realworld space, such as city streets.
Ex: Walking The Edit, City Sonic
digital non-fiction stories that offer the internaut some agency in the way the story is told. Also known as web (or online) documentaries.
The user or audience
These interactive docs have the intention to provoke thought, and encourage change in the way their audience thinks about a variety of social, environmental, and global issues.
Ex: Inside Disaster, Highrise,
An interactive doc created for mobiles or portable devices such as androids, the iPhone, iPad or other app-based technologies.
Also known as “Sort and Search”, this interactive doc has no timeline and instead presents the internaut with an overview of all the options from the get go. These docs often appear as a mosaic of clips which may then be browsed and sorted based on a series of predetermined tags and themes.
Ex: Waterlife, 6 milliards d’autres, The Whale Hunt, Capturing Reality, We feel fine
An interactive doc that exists in many incarnations, in any combination of website, app, installation, event, or other. A Multi-platform doc does not however accompany a linear doc, be it a one-off, a series or a feature-length documentary.
Whether obvious to the internaut or not, these documentaries have been built on a distinct timeline, which, though presenting detours and distractions, guides the internaut from a determined start to a definitive end point.
ex: This Land, Soul Patron, Prison Valley, Welcome To Pine Point,
A form of online journal, this motivation is often similar to experience, but distinguishes itself in that it presents stories and imagery drawn directly from the filmmaker’s experience. Although often hinting at greater issues, the POV has a distinct voice, which says, above all, “I was here”.
Ex:Pine Point, Planet Galata, The Whale Hunt, This Land
An interactive doc in any of the above incarnations that was created as a companion to a pre- or co-existing linear documentary, be it a one-off, a series or a feature-length documentary.
An interactive doc that exists solely at a web address.
