Interactive documentary is a rapidly developing new documentary genre
formed under the influence of changing socio-economic realities and as a result of the development of digital media. Today, the genre comes in a variety of forms, ranging from Web-based interactive documentaries to documentary projects based on mobile platforms, local media, and DVD-ROMs.
Among these forms, the most developed is the interactive documentary on the Internet, often referred to as a web documentary (i.e. Web-based film). The interactive multimedia capabilities of the Internet provide documentarians with a unique environment for creating non-linear forms of non-fictional storytelling. The combination of diverse media (video, animation, 2D/3D graphics, sound and text) in documentary multimedia content enriches the expressive means of web documentary projects. Combining multimedia virtues with web technologies allows documentarians to display real life in a more complete and multifaceted way.
Compared to a linear narrative, completely determined by the director, a web documentary provides the viewer-user with the opportunity not only to perceive and interpret the media text, but also to physically interact with the digital artifact, to choose the trajectory of the project (from the options proposed by the film author). In open web documentaries, the viewer-user can even participate in the creation of multimedia content by becoming a co-author of an interactive documentary project.
These projects demonstrate a variety of approaches in the use of expressive means of new media by filmmakers, journalists and media artists in documenting reality.
In recent years, various innovative solutions and new technologies have been actively used to expand the expressive means of interactive documentaries. Among them: 360° video (panoramic video), interactive infographics, 360° immersive collages and others. Technological innovations affect both the non-fictional narrative itself and the nature of the viewer-user interaction in different ways. Demonstrating a new qualitative synthesis, multimedia significantly expands the aesthetic and artistic possibilities of the new documentary genre.
A fairly large array of works in the field of interactive non-fictional narration that has appeared in recent years allows us to turn to the study of multimedia means of screen expressiveness of an interactive documentary film, which have not yet been the subject of special study.
The relevance of the dissertation work is due to the contradiction that needs to be resolved between the active development of interactive documentaries using various combinations of media data and the lack of research into the expressive possibilities of documentary multimedia content. Comprehensive analysis of multimedia expressive means.
One of the important problems posed to the dissertation student, who has his own experience in documentary filmmaking, is to determine the specifics of the director’s activity in creating interactive documentaries. This will improve the system of professional training of artistic and creative personnel for the digital media industry.
The object of the study is interactive documentaries presented on the Internet (web documentaries), using a variety of multimedia means of screen expression.