Last fall I was captivated by the Google Chrome/HTML5 personalized movie making that was The Arcade Fire’s video for their track “The Wilderness Downtown“. Using a childhood street address and footage pulled from Google maps, the project draws on images from the viewer’s own history and, if you’re sensitive to such visual cues, taps in to a very intense personal nostalgia that suits the song perfectly. It was still in the experimental stage, but I was excited to see what new things in music videos would come next.
Today I was equally impressed as I wandered about inside this video for Craig Wedren’s “Are We.” [link via Mashable] I’m not sure if it was just the literal 360 of the presentation or something below the surface, but I found this to be a completely immersive experience. It was as if I had actually left my desk for a few minutes, blinked and found myself on a strange beach. Creepy. You can visit for yourself here.
Though other interactive video releases are out there, I haven’t felt personally engaged by controlling a bird or a line on the screen (even when that line was quite lovely), coloring in the band, or choosing what kind of adventure the lead singer will have.
Messing with the mix can be amusing, but messing with the fourth wall in ways that deeply compliment the music? That’s an undeniably deep hook.