Bringing Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ Black Mirror: Bandersnatch to life was a complex task that required much more than a simple dialogue tree. To show how the flowchart was made, Netflix has released not one, but two featurettes taking fans behind the scenes of crafting the streaming network’s first-ever interactive film for adults. And yes, you have the choice of whether or not to watch.
Netflix has released two behind-the-scenes videos centering around the making of Bandersnatch. The first one focuses on the technological challenges—crafting a story from script to screen where multiple choices needed to not only be presented, but also changed to create variety. In short: It was a lot to handle. In the video, Brooker also details why he ultimately decided to come onboard Netflix’s idea for a Black Mirror interactive film, only to (at first) severely underestimate exactly what that would entail.
“When I started out I thought, ‘Well, this will be fairly straightforward. I’m sure I’ll have to draw a flowchart at one point,’” Brooker said. “Cut to several months later, it kind of exponentially started to balloon.”
The other video, called the “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Consumer Featurette,” is more focused on giving new and curious viewers a chance to see what Bandersnatch is all about, and take a look at how the actors themselves took on the challenge of telling a story that was constantly changing.
“It is really hard to get your head around which scenes you’re doing because there are just so many,” Fionn Whitehead, who played Stefan, said.
“Sometimes I’d be delivering what I thought was Version 3 of the dialogue, and I could see the actor opposite me giving me the eyes as if to say ‘That’s Version 4, mate,’” Will Poulter, who played Colin, added.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is currently playing on Netflix.
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