Captivating Arcade Fire video shows what HTML5 can do

This is a wonderful interactive…a must-see: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

This article titled “Captivating Arcade Fire video shows what HTML5 can do” was written by Jemima Kiss, for theguardian.com on Wednesday 1st September 2010 14.04 UTC

It keeps crashing on me, but I’ve had enough of a blast to be inspired – it’s the heavenly Arcade Fire video built in collaboration with Google and director Chris Milk.

The Wilderness Downtown combines Arcade Fire’s We Used To Wait with some beautiful animation and footage – courtesy of Street View – of your childhood home – made all the more poignant for me because it was bulldozed a few years ago.

Thomas Gayno from Google’s Creative Labs decsribed it on the Chrome Blog: "It features a mash-up of Google Maps and Google Street View with HTML5 canvas, HTML5 audio and video, an interactive drawing tool, and choreographed windows that dance around the screen. These modern web technologies have helped us craft an experience that is personalised and unique for each viewer, as you virtually run through the streets where you grew up."

The Chrome Experiments blog explains each technique, including the flock of birds that respond to the music and mouse movemens, created with the HTML5 Canvas 3D engine, film clips played in windows at custom sizes, thanks to HTML5, and various colour correction, drawing and animation techniques.

I’ve watched thousands of videos thanks to the curse of the viral video chart and nothing has come close to this for originality, imagination and for that inspired piece of personalised storytelling.

There’s plenty more inspiration on the Chrome Experiments blog; Bomomo is pretty slick, and Canopy is hypnotic.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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