Ana Serrano from the Canadian Film Centre's Media Lab is neck deep in the waters of interactive cinema. Yesterday's Immersive Environments and Interactive Cinema presentation examined the same type of media, but Ana's talk had a different focus -- namely how do you make interactive interfaces work without jarring the experience for the viewer?

Serrano shared clips from several interactive video projects with us including:

Each of these interactive video pieces have their own way of allowing the audience to experience the story. Serrano stressed that you need to develop a contextually relevant, simplistic interfaces so that people get lost in the complexities in your story, not in your navigation.

Serrano also claimed that audiences have certain expectations when it comes to film and that interactive projects should integrate those expectations whenever possible. For that reason, Serrano believes that innovation in the interactive filmmaking space will come in baby steps and not in leaps and bounds where audiences can be aliented.

Ana and her team are now working on a second interactive feature film and by the sounds of it, they'll be releasing the next one on Blu-ray, thanks to the capabilities it has over the DVD format. Is interactive cinema a good enough reason for you to upgrade?