University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2014 What Killed Interactive TV? An Exploration Of Why Interactive Television Has Not Been Successful Reuben Rogak University of Central Florida Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons, and the Television Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Rogak, Reuben, "What Killed Interactive TV? An Exploration Of Why Interactive Television Has Not Been Successful" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4705. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4705 WHAT KILLED INTERACTIVE TV? AN INVESTIGATION OF INTERACTION MECHANICS AND THEIR RELATION TO USER IMMERSION by REUBEN J. ROGAK B.A. Northern Illinois University, 2003 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the School of Visual Arts and Design in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2014 © 2014 Reuben J. Rogak ii The objective of this thesis is to investigate the history of interactive videos and examine some possible reasons as to why they have never been successful. Because the method of interactivity is often disrupting to the narrative, I wanted to make something that was much more fluid. To this end, I produced Man Alone Interactive, a branching story that allows users to choose their path without stopping the narrative. The purpose for creating it was to see if a different interactive mechanic would aid in the user immersion. In order to fully test this, two versions of the movie were created. One with the relatively standard interactive technique of stopping the story to display the choices and another that had the choices onscreen as the video progressed. The two versions were then used in a study to determine which was more engaging to users. This paper examines the research that led to the design, the process by which the story and different versions were created and the results of the study. iii I would like to thank the following people for their assistance in various capacities on the project and my education as a whole. I would also like to thank all the people that helped create the story through the many odd conditions we had to go through Academia: Phil Peters, Dr. Jun Kim, Dr. Robb Lindgren, Dr. Rudy McDaniel, Jon Friskics. Production: Brian Tortorelli, Dayana Rincon, Anthony Benante, Michael Rogak, Noah Nunez Post Production: Tyler Billingsley, Jeff M. Shapiro, Lordes Crosby, Rashaad Rosalle Finally and most importantly, I would like to thank my fiancé Carina Viegas without whose support I would have never been able to finish LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................................ v CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 Project Overview.................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................ 3 Definition of Terms................................................................................................................................ 3 Television ................................................................................................................................................ 5 Video Games ........................................................................................................................................ 12 Interactive Video .................................................................................................................................. 17 CHAPTER THREE: DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT ............................................................................ 25 Design Concepts .................................................................................................................................. 25 Story Synopsis ...................................................................................................................................... 29 Production Timeline ............................................................................................................................ 34 Website Development ......................................................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ........................................................................... 44 Study Design ........................................................................................................................................ 44 Data Analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................... 55 Lessons Learned ................................................................................................................................... 55 Future Applications ............................................................................................................................. 58 APPENDIX A: SURVEY QUESTIONS ................................................................................................. 62 APPENDIX B: MAN ALONE STORY MAP ....................................................................................... 66 APPENDIX C: MAN ALONE SCRIPTS .............................................................................................. 70 Script A .................................................................................................................................................. 71 Script B .................................................................................................................................................. 77 Script C .................................................................................................................................................. 78 Script D .................................................................................................................................................. 79 Script E .................................................................................................................................................. 81 Script F ................................................................................................................................................... 84 Script G .................................................................................................................................................. 85 Script H ................................................................................................................................................. 88 Script I ................................................................................................................................................... 89 Script J ................................................................................................................................................... 90 Script K .................................................................................................................................................. 91 Script L .................................................................................................................................................. 93 Script M ................................................................................................................................................. 94 APPENDIX D: PRODUCTION STILLS ............................................................................................... 95 APPENDIX E: PRODUCTION CREDITS .......................................................................................... 101 APPENDIX F: STUDY FLYER ............................................................................................................. 103 APPENDIX G: IRB APPROVAL ......................................................................................................... 105 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................... 107 iii Figure 1: Title screen from Man Alone Interactive website ................................................ 96 Figure 2: MAN meets GUY 1 and Clown Buddha ............................................................... 96 Figure 3: Still from glow version showing glowing objects. In this image, they are just starting to glow........................................................................................................................... 97 Figure 4: This image shows the glow as it moves. Note the can to the right and the left side of