Interactive TV Production

Streaming platforms are increasingly looking to interactive content as a way of engaging their viewers and get ahead of the competition. The ease of streaming interactivity has opened up new possibilities for creators to play with gamification, multiple perspectives and interactive storytelling.

But until now, interactive production has been way too complicated and geeky. Stornaway has solved that problem – cited as an industry leader by the regulator OFCOM for creating tools, platform and interoperability with best in class tools like Adobe and Unity that make the whole process of creating gamified, personalised, multi-perspective experiences simpler and more affordable for producers, platform technology and broadcasters.

The first interactive feature film created in Stornaway had its world cinema premiere in September at the Dinard Film Festival – simultaneously releasing on Playstation, Xbox, Switch, iOS, Android and Steam.

Paul Raschid’s “The Gallery”, produced by Aviary Studios was edited in Stornaway. Writer-Director of “The Gallery”, leading interactive filmmaker Paul Raschid (The Complex, Five Dates), who is already working on his next interactive feature, said of the software :

“Stornaway has completely revolutionised our way of working, saving time and money and allowing me to put more budget onscreen”

With a founding team with unique expertise in Broadcast technology and workflows, Stornaway is the only end-to-end solution on the market, and the only system that is compatible with professional production workflows.

Read TVB’s feature on Stornaway

Drag & Drop Web Editor

See how easy it is

Stornaway is an interactive video story maker designed for non-coders. Our browser-based editor lets you map out your story visually and play it instantly.

Watch our short Getting Started video with founder Ru Howe.

For Producers

The key to interactive TV and film production is in collaboration across creative and technology teams as well as interoperability with existing tools.

Stornaway’s self-service Pro, Premium and Enterprise licenses are designed for teams to collaborate and work together from pitch through production to delivery.

Read how Stornaway has transformed the process for interactive feature film director, Paul Rashid.

How can Stornaway help in the production of interactive films?

When interactive filmmakers and FMV game producers come to Stornaway.io expecting a regular interactive video tool, they quickly realise that’s only the start of what the platform has to offer:

Simplifying the process of setting up choices and branching storylines
Providing real-time testing and control in interactive writing and editing
Innovating the way that you use interactivity in your story

Interactivity works for any genre – not just choose-your-own-ending drama. Linear TV is already full of multi-perspective, multi-layered, multi-timeline stories and Stornaway Connecting up sequences in non-linear ways allows you to give your viewers more personal agency to follow their interest deeper – or skip on.

There are some key secrets to crafting satisfying and resonant stories – we’re here to help!

For Broadcasters

The UK government’s media industry regulator Ofcom featured Stornaway.io in an important report – the first of its kind – about the emerging era of Object Based Media.

The report introduces industry readers to Object Based Media (OBM), with illustrations of state of the art content and production tools, notably highlighting Stornaway as a leader.

Learn more here.

Before Stornaway, interactive TV Productions would require huge budgets to create custom code using workflows that were very hard for creatives to visualise, thus creating experiences were expensive and creatively problematic. They also could only be delivered on certain platforms.

Stornaway’s authoring tool and player, provided via our license, will save your interactive production potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars and remove the creative and technical uncertainty of delivering an interactive TV production.

Stornaway provides both the best editing and interactive authoring tools for TV production as well as providing a seamless Netflix style player, at unbeatable value for money and a workflow and support that will hugely benefit and de-risk your production. We are also developing the features with significant funding and have new workflows and partnerships on the way that will benefit customers as they are released.

We understand that every production has different needs and requirements, so why get in touch with our team here to discuss your project further.

Drama

The value of interactive drama productions is already clear. Netflix’s Emmy-winning Black Mirror movie, Bandersnatch, gained audience and critical acclaim and Netflix have followed this up with interactive stories of all kinds : childrens, natural history, factual.

Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt interactive film and Bear Grylls: Man vs Wild are other great examples of how drama is beginning to integrate audience interaction into their shows.

But even with Netflix’s resources, Bandersnatch producers Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones said it was “like doing a Rubix’s Cube in your brain. Everyone went a bit bananas at some point”. This is because there were no production tools for creatives used to delivering linear films. Until now.

Stornaway.io helps throughout the process of production. Letting you write, map out, script and pre-visualise your story and viewer journeys. Interactive drama should be fun to create. With Stornaway.io, it will be.

”You have a seriously impressive piece of software that will clearly save many hours of headaches!
Writer/Director, UK/US drama series

Six expert tips for producing interactive TV

”You’ve created a fantastically straight forwards and intuitive way to put together interactive stories. It’s a brilliant way for kids to consume natural history, and to learn.
Producer/Director, UK/US unscripted series

Children's

The statistics show that kids are increasingly turning to YouTube for content. And the reason might surprise you: because they feel it gives them more “control”. Even though 70% of videos are prompted by the YouTube algorithm.

Kids show Arthur is taking the first steps in interactive kids shows. The show’s producers hosted a live online event where audiences could vote for what happened next in the story. Learn more about that here.

Stornaway.io allows children’s content producers to truly shape their viewer journeys, engaging kids with a clickable experience they enjoy, keeping them engaged with the content they want their viewers to watch whilst giving them the feeling of exploring it for themselves.

With Stornaway’s unique game logic, there is also huge potential for fun educational and ethical content that lets children watch and play, while understanding the power and consequence of the choices they make.

Children's Media Conference

Kids' Interactive Content

Watch Kate talk about how interactive content is shaping engagement for children at the Children’s Media Conference

“My advice would be roll your sleeves up and jump in and have a go at it. Have a play, it feels like playing a game, it’s really fun.”

Matt Brandon, a producer from Plimsoll Productions

”We’ve come back into the office buzzing. We have been worrying about how we’d actually pull these shows off (just developing them has been a headache…) so this couldn’t have been better timed."
Head of Development, international non-scripted production company

Specialist Factual

Interactive stories have the power to help audiences see the result of choices, engage more deeply with their interests and see multiple perspectives on the same subject.

We understand the amazing craft and logistics involved in specialist non-scripted series and the volume of footage and archive in Natural History particularly. We also understand the need to control budgets and schedules while delivering the best storytelling possible.

We see three common types of projects being developed using Stornaway:

Hybrid: make interactive specials to complement your linear series.

Pure interactive: develop interactive-first stories, crafting journeys through different characters and ideas to see multiple perspectives, reveal secrets or explore complex subjects.

Reversioning: cut up existing clips, sequences and episodes into Story Islands and connect them into seamless interactive experiences and exciting viewer journeys.

Animation

Blues Clues & You is a great example of how animation is integrating interactivity into their work. Blue invites viewers into her home for an engaging problem-solving show for children.

Stornaway lets you put more money on screen and keeps your creative team in charge of interactive production.

With our simple drag and drop interface, we make it extremely easy for game and animation companies to explore ideas, pitch to commissioners and play test with their whole team throughout production, without coding.

Simply upload early storyboards, animatics, scenes and rough cuts to Stornaway. Add invisible hotspots over the top of your own buttons and clickable areas.

Our clean minimalist interface is designed to put your content first.

Our customers are also developing new revenue streams using existing IP, re-versioning old series and characters in delightful new ways to increase brand awareness and attract new audiences.

”Working remotely has placed a greater emphasis on innovative and interactive content, so Stornaway could provide us with great opportunities
Producer, interactive animation special for US broadcaster

Get started with Stornaway.io

”Every indie should have Stornaway licenses to develop and pitch interactive ideas to commissioners - and broadcasters should specify Stornaway as the standard for this
Commissioner, international TV network

Try 'Migration Run'

Live/Current affairs

News and current affairs producers are using Stornaway for both live shows and pre-recorded stories.

For pre-recorded stories, interactivity let your viewers access complex stories more easily, follow their interests and see different perspectives on a story. Help them understand the consequences of different choices and scenarios.

For live shows, craft more engaging and satisfying improvisation and interactivity with studio guests and online audiences, by visually mapping out your questions and decision points in Stornaway and connecting sections of non-linear script.

Using our storyboard, you can collaborate with your team right up to the point of broadcast, sharing high levels of understanding about possible outcomes depending on predicted scenarios.

Want to chat through an idea pre-commission?
Have a story idea but not sure how it would work interactively? Are you a commissioner looking to use Stornaway to release interactive content with existing brands?