Interactive film & policy game, 2019
Balance of Power
It started asAn abstract argument about trading flexibility in when people use electricity.
I foundA live-action game: help an ambitious minister become president, then live with the future your choices create.
Conceived, written and directed by Antony Butts
- Energy Institute Awards 2019: Public Engagement winner
- Commissioned by USEF from RANJ, who hired me to conceive, write and direct it
The commission began as a web game about an abstract proposal: trading flexibility in when people run power-hungry appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers and car chargers.
I turned it into a live-action political game. You play a documentary filmmaker following an ambitious minister who wants to become president, as she navigates arguments from self-interested advisers. Every adviser has an agenda; you decide whose advice she takes.
As the years advance, a distant threat becomes a problem nobody can ignore. Get the policy wrong, or fail to act, and you see what happens, and why the issue mattered. The knock-on effects that matter to policymakers, from lobbying to protests, play out on screen.
It plays out the consequences of 25 decisions about how the future energy market is designed. I conceived, wrote and directed it.
Commission a playable future.
What is the story
inside your subject?
Bring the issue or the programme. I’ll find the way in.