New interactive quiz format pits players against stars

Are you more knowledgeable about music than the Radio 1 DJs? Do you know more about ‘EastEnders’ than the stars of the show themselves? Now you can prove it on I Am Smarter Than… a new interactive video quiz on BBC Taster. Producers Jenny Springett and Aniello De Santi explain the route from pitch to production.

As format producers, part of our day-to-day work involves developing quiz shows. If you spend most of your time online watching YouTube videos and trawling through Instagram, then the chances are you probably aren’t watching these. But we want to make content that appeals to everyone, as being in a studio playing a game is a thrilling experience that everyone comes away from having enjoyed, regardless of age, gender or outcome.

This is an emotional response we wanted everyone to feel from the comfort of their computers. We wanted to recreate the studio experience at home, building a great game that has all the play-along fun of a traditional TV quiz show but with a modern twist; the face-to-face, personal filming style of a YouTube vlog, the shareability of a Buzzfeed quiz and the interactive rather than passive experience of an app, and so we created I Am Smarter Than….

From the start we wanted to create a socially interactive quiz the likes of which has never been seen before. We felt that many interactive videos up until now have pushed the technology to the forefront, often at the expense of the content. For us it was important that first and foremost came the gameplay; playing I Am Smarter Than… you do not have to think about (and hopefully won’t even notice) the tech magic behind the game. You can just relax, enjoy and play at what is a very natural level of interactivity.

Developing the idea

Back in December of last year we took part in BBC Connected Studio’s Future of Content programme, which is based around developing new ideas for digital content. The theme for this session was short-form and interactive video, and during the Planning day we were given the time to grow ideas organically with the input from experts in fields such as YouTube optimisation and interactive filmmaking.

After an initial pitch alongside a multitude of other projects, we were shortlisted and partnered up with external tech company The Connected Set, who we subsequently continued to work with throughout production. Together we built a ‘working’ prototype - okay, it was actually a very elaborate PowerPoint - but it was enough to demonstrate that our project was possible to make.

We began to think a lot more about the importance of personalisation and how audiences online have different expectations to those watching a TV show, and started to build these ideas into the project. Then, following a second pitch at the next event in the process – the Creative Studio - we were officially commissioned by Connected Studio to develop a pilot for BBC Taster, which is where the real fun started.

Moving from pitch to pilot

We developed the project based on the capabilities of a piece of software demonstrated to us by Connected Studio called Interlude, which is a very clever bit of kit. We upload our footage in chunks, and Interlude lets us ‘link’ one of these chunks to several others: which video follows the one that you’re currently watching depends on the answer you pick. It does all this all seamlessly, a bit like those Choose Your Own Adventure books from back in the day.

We ended up creating quite a complex ‘tree’ of links but it gave us the ability to show the celebs reacting in real time to how well you’re doing; if you get an answer wrong you’ll see your celebrity opponent celebrating; answer correctly and they’ll be annoyed and if you draw... well, they’ll humbly point out how great minds think alike.

To make this system work we had to film in a way we have never filmed before, which meant the rule book went out the window. It’s not like filming a studio show or a piece of drama - everything is filmed out of order and back to front, uploaded into Interlude with every possible result (1-nil, 1-1, 2-1 and so on) built into the system before it’s finally played by you. Every quiz is a best of five questions and can be completed in less than five minutes, but behind the scenes consists of over 100 individual chunks of footage.

It’s been a really interesting process; always pushing the boundaries of the technology and trying to find a creative and entertaining way to deal with any compromises it presented. Throughout we were aware of how new the systems we were using are, and so we approached the show with a pioneer’s spirit. As the project continues we hope to film more and more quizzes, as well as collaborate with other BBC shows to transform I Am Smarter Than… into a real asset for BBC online.