As fans of Friends and Frasier sat glued to their televisions for the recent nail-biting series finales, viewers of a different medium were shaping the destiny of a new set of small screen stars.
Friends followers had no say in the romantic intrigue of Chandler and Monica, but viewers of Running Time, an interactive thriller gaining a cult following on the internet, will this week decide which of the protagonists is to meet a grisly end.
Four episodes of the highly stylised series, billed as the world's first interactive movie, have already been screened and the fifth is about to be posted on the site - www. itsyourmovie.com.
So far, the site has been accessed 1.5m times, and the success may mean the finished product is released in cinemas. "It's giving the power back to the audience," said the producer, Simon Rose, a film critic-turned-screenwriter.
The scriptwriters have no idea about how it will end: at the culmination of each episode, a viewer vote decides how the cliffhanger is resolved from a list of three options. A cast of 11 actors remain on standby, their services dependent on the whim of the audience.
Five-minute instalments are posted at the rate of around one a week. Voting takes place over about two days; the scriptwriters then spend a frantic 24 hours writing the next episode while production staff sort out filming locations and other logistics; shooting takes place over the following day. The schedule is tough. "It is exciting, and also rather scary," Mr Rose said.
The project is a collaboration between Mr Rose, creative director Simon Beaufoy (writer of The Full Monty), and the director Suzy Halewood. They have raised £1m from investors, and plan three more films.
Running Time's cast is relatively unknown: the lead character, KJ, a hip cycle courier who gets caught up in the disappearance of her oddball brother, is played by Anna Bolt. The mysterious Jed, a member of a direct action environmental group, is played by Gareth Miller. KJ is determined to find her brother but gets sucked deeper into the shadowy world of Terra Terror, while Jed is abducted by thugs from a biotech firm which the group had targeted.
Miller said the acting process was different from that employed for conventional films. "It is all off the cuff, which makes it very fresh."
So far, judging by the comments of viewers who can interact with the website in a chatroom, the idea appears to have caught on.
Miller said: "I really think this is the way it's going to go. It won't be long before Hollywood is doing this."
