Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, ‘making of’ featurettes

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, ‘making of’ featurettes

0 comments 📅06 January 2019, 13:26

So, you’ve given Bandersnatch a go. You’ve scratched your head over whether choosing Frosties or Sugar Puffs really makes a difference. You’ve wondered how the blazes they managed to make this work. You’ve marveled at the underlying themes presented in a way only Charlie Brooker can. You’ve pondered all the possibilities…you’ve read the flowchart and heard that there are apparently a trillion different permutations, well now it turns out, there are even pieces we may never get to see.

According The Hollywood Reporter, Bandersnatch director David Slade shared how, in addition to the several endings and other interesting snippets of footage, there are “golden eggs” that are so hard to find they may never actually be uncovered. During an earlier preview for journalists at Netflix’s headquarters, Slade even joked how there was a scene that was so well hidden, he couldn’t even access it for them.

“There are scenes that some people just will never see and we had to make sure that we were OK with that,” Slade said.

While this might be frustrating, it doesn’t seem surprising. The episode reportedly has about five hours of prepared footage. I played through the entire thing, including all of these endings, to the best of my ability and capped out around four hours.

There are several places where other Easter eggs could come into the picture, like with Stefan’s dad’s locked box, or the phone number used to call the therapist. Plus, some fan sleuths have pointed out behind the scenes footage that could point to other scenes we haven’t even seen yet.

Sadly however, Brooker confirmed to THR that Netflix will not be releasing a linear version of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch – what we see now is all we’re going to get.

In the video below, Brooker explains how Netflix first approached him and co-showrunner Annabel Jones about doing an interactive episode of Black Mirror, and how making Bandersnatch was a puzzle unto itself. Indeed, creating it was so complex that it actually forced them to delay Season 5 a bit while they worked it all out.

In another featurette, the team behind discusses part of the process behind the making of the film, noting that they only wanted to do an interactive story if it added to the experience thematically. “We didn’t really want it to feel like it was just a gimmick,” said Jones.

Netflix has yet to announce a Black Mirror Season 5 release date beyond confirming it’ll be sometime in 2019.

“There’s so much content and not reflected in the content is the craftsmanship, and what you have to take out to make the world exist — or feel as if it does exist in one cohesive world,” said Jones.

“So it did take an enormous amount of time and as a result, then season five sort of gets shifted back a little bit. But this is such a huge, interesting new opportunity for Netflix that we’re a part of. And there is so much fun to be had with it. That’s one thing that I hope people take away from it: I hope that you just enjoy the experience.”

Scott Snowden is MyM’s US Editor. Follow him on Twitter.

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