Molleindustria

Democratizing Interactive Filmmaking: A No-Code Solution for Arts Students

This paper, by Conor McKeown of the University of Stirling, addresses a practical barrier in teaching interactive filmmaking: the scarcity of free, accessible software that lets arts students build branching film experiences without programming skills.

• Arts students learning interactive filmmaking face a shortage of free, accessible authoring tools, forcing them to learn intermediate coding, use workarounds, or pay for costly software, a problem worsened by tight university budgets and coding anxiety among arts and humanities students.
• The paper proposes TwineForge, a modified version of the open-source Twine storytelling tool with a largely drag-and-drop interface for uploading video, adding choices, setting variables, previewing, and viewing a story map, with output exported as code or compiled into a playable Twine story via Tweego.
• The revival of interactive and full-motion-video (FMV) films and games has been hampered by the disappearance of dedicated authoring tools and by remaining platforms shifting to costly enterprise or subscription models.