Further pushing the boundaries of the "music video" concept, Indie band Arcade Fire released a vid for the song “We Used to Wait” (directed by Chris Milk) off of their album, The Suburbs, and it’s basically one big ball of HTML5/Google Maps/musical goodness. The project utilizes Google Street View, multiple browser windows and 3D canvas rendering, which really shows off the capabilities offered by HTML5.
“The Wilderness Downtown” video is a new kind of musical experience, reminiscent of — but much more advanced than — hypertext storytelling of old. Basically, you surf over to “The Wilderness Downtown” page using Google Chrome (don’t use Safari the program will murder your browser), and type in the address of your childhood home when prompted. If Google Maps has enough footage of home sweet home, you’ll be pulled into a multi-browser movie of your own making. The experience of watching this highly personalized video is not easily described, but basically the story of childhood ending as time rapidly slips away becomes your own as trees shoot up out of nowhere on your old street, culminating in an opportunity to write a letter to a younger you. Check it out when you have a moment to really watch the whole thing. Just press play on Arcade Fire’s new web music video, “The Wilderness Downtown” and you'll know that you're seeing a glimpse of the future of entertainment.
The project follows up equally innovative online clips for the band's 2007 sophomore album "Neon Bible" - the video for the title track used point-and-click technology, while “Black Mirror” let viewers trigger different instruments during the song. Check out the links to these two as well… SO COOL!
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