The Encyclopedia of Interactive Performance

Game tapes are what sports teams use to analyze their performance after playing a game. It’s a good way to review the details of what happened once players are no longer caught up in the heat of the moment. Game tapes are also valuable tools for inter-actors. Playing in an interactive scene is different from watching one. It’s easier to see things from the outside that you may have missed while you were playing. Reviewing your work from a more objective perspective helps you see what you’re doing well and what can be improved.

How to shoot a game tape

The simplest way to shoot a game tape is to point a camera at the stage and press record. This provides a full-stage view of what happens, but it’s not always easy to see important details such as facial expressions.

It’s preferable to have a videographer who can get in tight on the action. When possible, the spect and inter-actor should both be kept in frame. (When shooting with a smartphone, shoot in landscape mode to get better coverage.) A game tape doesn’t need to be artistic; it just needs to capture the important parts of what happened.

Here are some tips when shooting a game tape:

• Make sure the camera is fully charged. (Have a charger and extension cord, just in case.)
• Make sure the media has enough blank memory. (Have spare media, just in case.)
• Use a tripod to make camera operation easier.
• Remember to start and stop the camera. (It’s easy to forget.)
• Clearly label the media with the date, time, and name of the project.
• If the footage will be shared publicly, get media releases from everyone who appears on camera.

After shooting a game tape, there’s still work to be done. Files need to be uploaded and details need to be added, including the date, time, and title of the performance.

Breaking down a game tape

In sports, the game tape is broken down into clips that focus on specific players, types of plays, and strategies of the other team. The breakdown practice is similar for interactive work.

The simplest form of breakdown is to look for one success and one area for improvement and tag these with a brief observation. If you’re ready to go into more in depth, here’s how.

Start with a first-pass view. Note what stands out in the scene. What worked? What didn’t? What surprises showed up? Tag the video with notes on any of these moments.

In the next step, observation becomes much more granular. Watch the work through a particular “lens.” You might focus exclusively on the spect or on the inter-actor. Isolating your focus helps you spot subtle moments that might otherwise be missed.

Here are other common lenses:

• What points help the spect understand the context?
• What interactive tools are being used and what are the results?
• What resonates for the spect and what doesn’t?
• What spect behaviors does the inter-actor see or miss?
• How are physical contact and physical proximity affecting play?
• How is word usage affecting play?
• How does the inter-actor respond to spect behaviors?
• How deeply invested is the spect, and why?

These are a few examples of ways to view the work, but you can come up with your own. Identify what you want to know about your performance and view the game tape from that perspective.

When viewing the work at this granular level, watch through the same lens all the way through the scene. This gives deeper insights because it isolates the focus and it keeps you from getting caught up in watching the story. Each time you see something relevant, tag it in the timeline and add a relevant comment.

One way to annotate videos is with Timelinely, which adds notes, links, and recordings to specific sections of a YouTube video. Another way is to post notes in the comments about specific parts of a YouTube video and tag each comment with the relevant time code.

Reviewing the breakdown

If viewing your work makes you uncomfortable, practice embracing the discomfort as a way to grow. Remember to look for successes, as well as areas for improvement.

Although you are responsible for breaking down your own work in a show, your work may also be reviewed and annotated by the director, the stage manager, an associate director, or your fellow inter-actors. When others break down your work, keep your ego out of the mix. Others may spot things that you miss.

After reviewing all the tags and comments, there may be many things to consider. This is the point at which you pare everything down to two elements: one success and one thing to improve. Pick the ones that have the biggest impact moving forward. These become the focus when setting your aim before the next performance. The reason to pare back to two elements is to focus on what’s most important and keep yourself out of your head.

It takes work to create and review game tapes, but the performance improvements that come as a result make it well worth the effort.