Interactive Film Game Auditions: Assessing Branch Adaptation by Changing Prior Events

When designing actor auditions for an interactive film game, you can ask actors to perform the same dialogue and pursue the same task twice, changing only one event that happened before they enter the scene. The director’s focus is how the actor changes their approach to the request in light of that event, and whether they continue pursuing the original objective. A louder voice or a more pronounced expression is not, on its own, evidence that the actor has responded to the change.

Below is a reusable audition card for changing a branch’s prior events. The scenario in which a staff member on duty asks to borrow a key, the director’s instructions, and the behavioral examples are all fictional teaching materials. They are not real user cases, tested findings, firsthand audition records, or DramaFork product features. Nor is the card intended to rank actors’ abilities.

This exercise examines just one question: can the actor adjust how they seek cooperation from a colleague who previously helped or refused them? The character still needs to borrow the key. The exercise does not assess whether the actor can invent a new plot on the spot.

Keep the dialogue, the purpose of borrowing the key, the urgency, the characters’ relative workplace rank, their positions in the room, the scene partner’s response, and the stopping point fixed. If the second take also turns the colleague into a supervisor and an ordinary request into an emergency rescue, even a substantial change in performance will be difficult to attribute to a particular piece of information.

Write the changed material as an event that has already happened, rather than an instruction such as “This time, you’re furious.” An event gives the actor room to interpret; an emotion label can turn the audition into a display of prescribed expressions. Keep success possible in both versions. Do not turn “They refused before” into “They will never agree,” leaving the actor with no reason to keep trying in the scene.

Fixed conditions limit some freedom to improvise, but help the director identify what an adjustment is based on. If you also want to observe improvisational ability, set a separate exercise instead of folding it into this comparison.

Here is a completed card. To reuse it, replace the characters and task first, then check that the two versions change only the same portion of the prior events.

Fixed material

• Characters: Lin Zhou, a staff member on duty, and Chen He, a colleague of equal rank. There are no other known conflicts between them.
• Task: Lin Zhou needs to borrow the records room key, which Chen He keeps, to retrieve the current shift’s handover log. Lin Zhou will return the key immediately afterward. The handover has not yet been delayed.
• Setting: Chen He stands in the doorway, with the key on a table beside them. Lin Zhou begins at a marked position inside the room. There is no snatching the key or physical contact.
• Dialogue: Lin Zhou says, “Let me borrow the key for a moment. I’m going to get the handover log.” Chen He says, “You need it right now?” Lin Zhou says, “Yes. I’ll bring it straight back once I’ve got the log. Wait here for me.”
• Scene partner’s action: After speaking, Chen He looks at Lin Zhou. Add no instructions for facial expressions or improvised dialogue. End immediately after Lin Zhou’s final line; do not act out whether the key is handed over.

Alternative prior events

Version A: Yesterday, Lin Zhou also asked to borrow this key to retrieve the handover log. Chen He agreed, and Lin Zhou returned it as promised. Neither has mentioned it today.

Version B: Yesterday, Lin Zhou made the same request. Chen He refused without explaining why. Lin Zhou later completed the handover another way. Neither has mentioned it today.

Director’s instructions

First take: “Start with Version A. Your objective is to make them willing to lend you the key. You don’t need to explain yesterday to the audience.” Change of brief: “Now use Version B. Everything else stays the same. Don’t add dialogue. Decide again how you’ll open the request and how you’ll respond to their question.”

What to observe

Record how the actor checks the other person’s attention before speaking, whether they change their approach after the question, whom the promise to return the key is directed toward, and how the final line encourages cooperation. For each item, describe a specific moment before offering a possible interpretation. Do not prefill “relaxed in A, tense in B” as the correct answer.

First, have the actor read the fixed material and confirm the purpose of the key and the facts of the relationship. Then ask whether any ambiguity affects their understanding of what to do. The director should fill gaps in the brief without deciding the psychological reason for Chen He’s refusal. Facts left unspecified in either version must not suddenly be treated as established information.

Give the actor Version A, allow preparation time, and run the first take. Then provide Version B separately and ask the actor to explain in their own words what has changed and what has stayed the same. This checks for misunderstandings of the brief; an eloquent explanation is not evidence of acting ability. Give different actors the same preparation time, and avoid giving anyone extra explanation.

After the second take, finish the observation notes before asking, “Which detail about what happened before affected what you just did?” Compare the answer with the action you observed. If the actor says they feared another refusal but only their volume changed, the evidence remains insufficient. If they cannot explain themselves in full technical terms but changed how they made the promise after the question, that observation should still be retained.

If another prompt is needed, you could say, “Keep your understanding of yesterday, but make it easier for the other person to agree.” Do not demonstrate pauses or prescribe a particular look. Record any additional take separately, distinguishing adjustments the actor made independently from those made after prompting.

You can structure notes as “prior event—chosen action—observable moment—interpretation to check.” The following entries are hypothetical examples. They do not represent actual observations or standard actions that actors are expected to copy.

Version A note: “Borrowed the key successfully yesterday and returned it as promised—tries to continue that cooperation—faces Chen He directly when opening the request, then moves smoothly into the promise to return the key after the question—may understand the question as checking the timing.” Version B note: “Yesterday’s request was refused—first seeks a clear response, then tries to ease the other person’s concerns—checks whether Chen He is looking at them before speaking, then explicitly directs ‘I’ll bring it straight back once I’ve got the log’ toward them after the question—may be using the promise to try to regain trust.”

The difference between these examples lies in how the actor handles the other person’s response, not which version carries stronger emotion. Version B could also be warmer: the actor might choose to ease the relationship proactively. As long as the choice is grounded in the brief, introduces no unsupported facts, and continues to serve the task of borrowing the key, it warrants further examination.

A counterexample would be suddenly berating the colleague and walking away in Version B, abandoning the objective of borrowing the key. First check whether the actor has mistaken “I was refused yesterday” for “I’m here to settle a score today.” If they understood the objective correctly, examine whether their actions are still seeking cooperation. Intense acting alone does not establish successful adaptation.

If the two takes are almost identical, do not immediately conclude that the actor failed to understand the prior events. They may believe that maintaining an everyday manner offers the best chance of success. Check this against their specific responses and their restatement of the brief. If the takes differ greatly, check whether the actor has added hostility, debt, dereliction of duty, or other relationship details absent from the brief.

If the scene partner independently adds a sneer in the second take, or the director keeps asking the actor to be “a little more guarded,” mark the conditions as changed and run two comparable takes again. Repeated takes also create familiarity. If necessary, reverse the order of the prior events during a follow-up to see whether the adjustments remain grounded, but do not claim that this eliminates every influence.

This card is suited to a short relationship scene before casting decisions, helping directors collect specific evidence of how an actor responds to changed prior events. It cannot establish on its own that an actor is right for the entire work, nor can it determine whether footage can be shared across routes in the actual production. Retain the fixed material, both versions of the prior events, the prompts actually given, and the observed moments. Set separate tasks for whatever needs further examination, rather than turning one request to borrow a key into a conclusion about the actor’s entire range of abilities.