Arcade Fire, the Canadian indie rockers, have just released an interactive music video incorporating your personalized data courtesy of Google Earth.
Before launching the video, the site will ask you to input the address of the house you grew up in, any address will suffice but it may not “move you” as intended.
This new concept video for “We Used To Wait” is a collage of choreographed videos that play simultaneously on the screen. The multiple videos depict different visuals, one of the most impressive being a trip down the street you input at the beginning.
Warning: The nostalgic lyrics of the song coupled with panoramic views of your childhood home may get you a bit choked up.
Overall the design is remarkable, animated elements (birds, trees) move from window to window and are even overlaid within the Google Earth scenes, at one point I watched birds fly over my old neighbourhood. It’s kinda mind blowing.
Users can optionally send a postcard with advice to the current residents of the address. Don’t worry it’s not going to send out a card via snail mail.. that would just be creepy. I’m assuming it goes to anyone who inputs the same address at the site.
Postcard
This video is a Chrome experiment and was built in HTML 5, designed specifically for the Chrome browser. It’s hit or miss but it worked fine for me using Firefox. It seems quite a few folks at Google contributed to the project based on the credits found on the video site.
This is an incredibly unique example of how bands could use social media and technology to engage fans and gain exposure. It’s a truly brilliant idea. Go try it for yourself at The Wilderness Downtown. I found it very affecting. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Very cool. I used the address of my Grandmother on my mother’s side, I had more deep memories there, then I did here. Here as a child, it was a lot of yelling, cheep food, & cigarette smoke
. I bought my boyhood home from my parents in 1989, I’m still here, so no real point.
But I like this, it even brings back the smells of Grandma’s house, the stale smell of the basement, the way the bedrooms smelled, the kitchen, always smelling like coffee & detergent, (she was a very clean woman). Very cool this was. Thanks for bringing it to us, I’ll pass this on to friends….. “B”
I guess the places I grew up in haven’t been documented enough to create a good experience. I tried a bunch of places and ended up having to just name a city for it to work! But really cool idea.
Well Phillis, don’t feel to bad, their are countless locals not yet covered by Google Street Views, you’re not alone…… “B”