In a recent press conference Charlie Brooker revealed some of the technical tricks that almost made it into the latest series of Black Mirror.
When asked if there were any innovations he wanted to add into the series he replied that because the series was now on Netflix instead of Channel 4, “You could potentially break the fourth wall or randomise scenes, so that different people would watch what was fundamentally the same episode, but with a different ending or slight plot variations”.
He referred to it as a modern take on old vinyl records which would commentate on a horse race “but with different grooves, so sometimes a different horse would win.” Although he then clarified, “I never saw them, I’m not that old!”
Brooker also mentioned that as one of the episodes is based around video games they toyed with the TV show equivalent of an unlockable ‘hard mode’. You would watch the episode normally, but then “once you watched it, it would unlock nightmare mode for the same episode”. When that didn’t work out Brooker jokingly said “we just went straight nightmare mode.”
Another way of unsettling the audience that didn’t quite make the cut was to localise the audio of specific lines. As Brooker explained: “I did ask if it would be possible to have somebody on the video refer to where you are, wherever you are in the world watching. Just go “I can see you watching this in Sao Paulo” or wherever, just because I thought that would freak people out.”
Black Mirror will return for a third season on Netflix this Friday (October 21). It will run for six episodes in total.
