Storytelling and technology are both nothing new. What’s new is today’s digital revolution, bringing with it cutting-edge connectivity, media convergence and interactive techniques that promise to better than ever represent reality.

Considering the wealth of devices and platforms to tell stories that blend forms, styles and technologies, it is overwhelming to choose the cream of the crop in terms of the most accessible, collaborative, and engaging.

In this edition of the Top 5 Storytelling Apps, we’ve sought out the best mix of computer and mobile apps that capture today’s storytelling landscape. From discovering pictures and audio recordings in your city to collectively documenting the history of the world, what unites these digital forms of expression is an explosion of public participation.

1. Broadcastr

Whether traveling to new cities or walking about our own, we’re inseparable from our nearest and dearest — our mobile phone. Now a location-based app modernizes audio-based storytelling and turns our phone into a collaborative multimedia guide full of trivia recordings.

The central concept behind Broadcastr is “your movement through the world becomes your search query”. Go ahead and discover the history of your neighborhood, listen to chef recommendations for a particular restaurant or hear someone’s very intimate memory of a place. You can also contribute and record your very own story that’s pinned to a place. Just open up the map interface, and look for stories already around you or from locations that mean something to you.

Broadcastr is like a new-age, participatory, museum audio-guide except this once guides you with citizens’ recordings around the entire world. And it’s on a sleeker-looking device.

2. HistoryPin

Today we’re crowdsourcing information not just about all the places we go to but also a history of these places in the past. An all-in-one digital map/history textbook/photo album that we can contribute to becomes handy in a society that places an increasing importance on geographic location.

Using HistoryPin, people from all over the world can share their glimpses of the past to ‘build up the huge story of human history’.  Developed by a non-profit in partnership with Google, the website features special collections of content surrounding a topic and tours that lead you through a story via pieces of content pinned to a map. HistoryPin is also collaborating with tons of archives and museums so people can explore and interact with history in new ways and make comparisons across time, submit memories about a place, and piece it all together to improve what we know.

Not sure where to begin? Dive into the collections, narrow down by date or subject, or start locally and follow a route to discover what’s right around the corner in your neighborhood.

3. Cowbird

A deeper and more personal kind of storytelling has arrived on the web. “Cowbird is a simple tool for telling stories, and a public library of human experience” and it seeks to “pioneer a new form of participatory journalism, grounded in the simple human stories behind major news events”.

This digital adventure is just the latest in a string of unique storytelling projects by artist and storyteller Jonathan Harris, who also brought us We Feel Fine, the visualization that harvests the emotional web. Described as a participatory audio-visual diary project with stories from everywhere, Cowbird’s look and feel corresponds. It’s all about bits of personal expression, so what you’ll come across are pictures, words, and simple sorting options for the overwhelming amount of daily contributions.

Browse by stories, people, places, special collections, timelines, and sagas – your pick. Still a staggering amount of choices? Hit serendipity and there’s no telling where you’ll end up.

4. Storify

With more and more online conversations distributed across social media platforms, a new environment for piecing together social media content has materialized. By now Storify is best known for enabling anyone to drag-and-drop tweets, photos, videos, and quotes posted by others to create a multimedia social story that gives a snapshot of what people are actually saying about a specific topic or event.

Whether used as a web or an iPad app, this type of social media curation becomes especially useful for showcasing a point-of-view that represents reactions from Youtube, Facebook and Twitter streams. Poised to change the way reporting is done, Storify is just latest in digital storytelling tools that puts the story front and center, and right at our fingertips.

Search for a story or go and create your own. Easy peasy.

5. Storybird

Short visually-infused stories are central to Storybird, a digital storytelling platform that makes use of drag-and-drop to quickly create storyboards. Whether inspired by a theme, artist, or beautiful image, story-makers are presented with a collaborative storytelling environment where they can seamlessly organize a story together with family, kids and friends.

Creating a story on the computer or iPad app is as simple as pulling illustrations from the side of the interface onto the canvas, writing bits of text, adding pages to the story, and if desired, inviting others to contribute parts of your story where the story becomes like a board game of taking turns. Once you’re finished with content, Storybird will automatically generate a cover for you, you can publish your story in the form of a book, and voila.

Not ready to pen your own story? Just make a reading list of what’s already out there (lots of kid-friendly books) and be inspired.

The post Storytelling Apps appeared first on Submarine Channel.

Documentaries seem especially well-suited for this platform. Supporting the promise of documentaries to raise awareness and visually represent factual data, the physical characteristics of the iPad lend themselves to a closer and more intimate experience with media, which in turn prompts a more engaged audience. New exploratory and interactive features are further infused into the overall experience when documentary stories take to the iPad, a shift that is undoubtedly changing the future of filmmaking forever.

Increasingly, it appears, the iPad is also blurring the lines between what constitutes a documentary. What was once dubbed a multimedia portrait or photojournalism in a magazine has become a documentary experience on the iPad — one where audiences are placed up close and personal with heart-wrenching images on a screen that they are in control of.

In this edition of Top 5 iPad Documentaries we honor the best mix of documentary apps that are pushing the boundaries of digital media and telling beautiful personal stories and struggles in a way that only an iPad can.

1. Rape in Congo: Peace Violated

Powerful images, sound and video come together to paint a vivid picture of a tragic phenomenon: women have become the most vulnerable members of society and rape has become a weapon of war. Produced as the first interactive documentary made exclusively for the iPad, the striking multimedia report by journalists Zoé Lamazou and Sarah Leduc exposes the stories of women fighting rape on a daily basis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The iPad format helps draw audiences in a variety of enriched ways through alarming photos and voice recordings of women and children who’ve been raped both by soldiers in uniform and rebel militants. The interactive portrait launched by France 24 helps break the silence and the impunity that surrounds sexual violence and is a sad and moving story that must be seen.

Get it here.

2. Money & Speed: Inside the Black Box

On May 6, 2010 a brief and unprecedented financial tsunami rocked the stock market. Reconstructing the financial flash crash was no easy task, but this iPad application — produced by Dutch broadcaster VPRO together with CatalogTree — exposes the dynamics of a rapidly changing financial world with a strong story, interviews, and a host of visual tools.

Sophisticated interactive visualizations attempt to reconstruct the order of events on that fateful day and allow audiences to see the drops in prices being discussed to better understand the speed of the fluctuations. By incorporating several time series, multi-layered interactive maps, infographics, and a world map with live stock updates, this iPad documentary demonstrates the complexity of the crash that took place and the lack of human control in the downfall.

Watch the trailer and download the app.

3. Manaus: The Great Move

Eleven videos, and many more devastating photos and voice recordings take you to the desperate lives of people living in Manaus, the jungle capital of Amazonas in Brazil. A place where the revitalization of urban planning is urgent due to a river that rises more than 12 meters each year and displaces hundreds of thousands of residents. Developed by Ecorce Atelier Créatif together with photographer Hubert Hayaud and journalist Jacques Denis, this interactive and immersive photojournalistic documentary is replete with interviews of residents, a history of the area, and maps of the region.

Zooming in on Igarape, a municipality in Manaus and home to more than 500,000 living in dire conditions, audiences face a place where only 4% of the entire sewage system is functional. With the city experiencing exceptional growth in recent years and with a projected 2.5 million inhabitants by 2020, the urgency of housing can no longer be ignored as families are being forced to resettle to unsanitary zones in the outskirts.

Already difficult lives in Manaus have now been ripped apart and you can’t help but feel their pain in this riveting close-up portrait. Watch the trailer and download the app.

4. Keep on Steppin’

We can’t help but include Keep on Steppin’ — our very own iPad documentary which premiered earlier this week in Amsterdam. Dutch photographer and filmmaker Marjoleine Boonstra makes her new media debut with a cinematic reflection on human dignity. Five beautiful poetic films tell the stories of people who, through circumstances beyond their control, have been displaced and forced to start from scratch.

From hurricane-destroyed New Orleans to the aftermath of a horrendous civil war in Serbia/Croatia, incredible macro photographs and video all appearing in slow-motion float across the screen as the voice-over narrative progresses. Though the documentary doesn’t particularly make use of interactivity that the iPad presents (except for sliding between stories by swiping with the finger), the aspect of audiences coming so close to the striking images in this one-on-one experience truly brings people deeper into the story, where it’s hard to withhold an emotional response.

Or watch it on the dedicated website keeponsteppin.submarinechannel.com

5. Condition One

Though not a traditional documentary we also must include Condition One, an application that is reinventing interactive and immersive video on the iPad. Developed by photojournalist Danfung Dennis (director of the 2011 Oscar-nominated documentary, Hell and Back Again), a custom camera, filmmaking techniques, and virtual reality come together to create this app which enables a 180 degree field of view experience for audiences.

By tilting the iPad up, down, or to the side, or swiping fingers across the iPad, users are in control of the images they’re looking at. Whether down at the protests of Occupy Wall Street or on a ride through the Tokyo metro, video shot using the Condition One system helps put users in the center of the action to get a full picture of any situation. Since the app launched in late 2011, a host of new content by filmmakers has been produced and videos now span the of categories news, sports, travel and fashion. The Guardian has even toyed around with the app and you can watch their commissioned immersive videos directly on your iPad, or in this preview.

It’s just the beginning but we’re psyched to see more!

The post iPad Documentaries appeared first on Submarine Channel.

The last time we did a roundup of book trailers it was 2010. Exciting times were ahead: book trailers were the shiny new thing on the horizon (although they made their initial debut sometime around 2002) and full of promise, offering readers a new vehicle for experiencing a story. Curiously enough, we learned, it was also the first year of the Moby Awards for Book Trailers, which celebrates the best and worst amongst book trailers.

For marketers, authors and publishers it was an equally galvanizing time — here was a potentially book-boosting resource and they could finally tap into aspects of the digital world to promote awareness and sales of books that most people would be reading in their off-line time. That is until the ubiquity of the iPad arrived, and with it triggered the mindset that book trailers could become as fundamental to the publishing industry as movie trailers are to the film industry. Many questioned (and still do!) whether book trailers were simply a fashionable fad or the future. We’re here to report back that while the jury’s still out, it’s leaning towards the future.

Once creativity was thrown into the mix book trailers got their ‘oomph’ and really took off, in some cases emerging as solid short films. Though they oscillate between a mix of high and low budget, author interviews, funny videos, stellar animations, poetic journeys, and a whole lot of hideous promos that hint at a straight-off-the-shelf packaged trailer, we’ve managed to discover an electrifying assortment of seriously eye-popping and innovative treats we’d watch even if they had nothing to do with a book. So much so that we’ve decided to split this up into two separate posts and dedicate this Top 5 entirely to stop-motion animated book trailers!  Not only because we have a weakness for top-notch stop-motion work, but because lest we not forget, book trailers can turn into potent pieces with animation thrown in the mix.

1. Going West

Animated by Andersen M Studio and produced by BBDO for the New Zealand Book Council, this is a trailer you need to watch twice; the first time to fully appreciate the dramatic narration and the second to grasp all the visually-stunning work. The intricate papercraft stop-motion animation reigns supreme and truly brings the book’s story about two friends to life. No wonder this high-budget trailer for one of New Zealand’s most distinguished novelists, Maurice Gee, won a Moby Award for best big house trailer two years ago.

2. The Beaufort Diaries

The tagline: “when you’re a dying breed in Hollywood, it’s tough to go with the flow.”

An official 2011 selection of The Tribeca Film Festival and SXSW, author T Cooper wrote and produced this highly entertaining short trailer based on his graphic novel of the same name. Directed by Alex Petrowsky and animated by Drew Jordan, the crafty stop-motion animation mixed with live action is only matched by the superb voiceover lent to the polar bear caught up in Hollywood’s scene by Hollywood’s very own David Duchovny. Perfect.

3. Payback

This stop-motion animation for Frank Schirrmacher’s book is in German, but don’t let that stop you – it’s all about the visuals in this trailer. What caught our eye here is all the exceptional handmade paper props Bat Raik created before animating every single frame analog. The behind the scenes photos should make you appreciate this piece even more.

4. How Did You Get This Number?

Milk Products Media put together this whimsical stop-motion animation for Sloane Crosley’s new collection of essays, giving life to her musings on twentysomething life in New York City with paper puppets and a host of other crafty tricks. If the trippy trailer is any indication, you know it’s going to be a funny, globe-trotting journey of sharp wit and sophistication. Favorite clip comes in at :22, where the top pin of a soda can is cleverly transformed into a telephone!

5. A Kiss from Tokyo

Directed by Kevin Dart and Stéphane Coëdel, there’s no doubt from the very first frame that you’re in for a seductive tale set in the vintage style of old James Bond spy movies. The trailer fits like a glove and every part is extremely tastefully done — from the great direction (including film editing techniques of the 60s) to the authentic illustration style of the era to the perfectly matching music composed by Cyrille Marchesseau. This one’s a winner.

Order the book here.

The post Stop-Motion Book Trailers appeared first on Submarine Channel.

Welcome to Part Two of our book trailers roundup, where we present the Top 5 wildly funny book trailers we’ve come across to date (here’s Part One in case you missed it). The competition was stiff, but these trailers — oscillating between self-parodies to purely odd ball humor, and many of which are completely unrelated to the book in question  — made our cut.

1. Super Sad True Love Story

Though this trailer does nothing to visualize the dark dystopian future Gary Shteyngart depicts in his latest bestseller, it’s definitely a standout for its handling of self-parody (which the Moby Awards for Book Trailers recognized in 2011). Created and produced by the book’s publisher, Random House, Shteyngart’s literary friends – including authors Jeffrey Eugenides, Ian McInerney, James Franco, and others – take center stage in this trailer and offer up a blurb on behalf of Shteyngart’s new novel. Though all of them misread the book’s title and mock themselves or Shteyngart in some absurd way, don’t let the trailer dissuade you from picking up this laugh-out-loud book.

Get the book.

2. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

For Mary Roach’s amusing new book comes an equally funny retro trailer depicting the surreal universe of preparing for space travel and life without gravity. Directed by Jamieson Fry and produced by Rival Pictures, this live-action piece was a winner of the Best Big House Book Trailer Moby Award in 2011. Three key words to keep in mind here: Minimal Personal Hygiene. For four weeks. Imagine that. We’d go on but we refuse to give away any more about this one. Just sit back and preview life in space without ever leaving Earth!

Get the book.

3. Worst-Case Scenario Pocket Guide: Breakups

Get over it! Okay…but if you’ve still got the blues, then perhaps David Borgenicht and Victoria De Silverio’s pocket guide may do the trick. In Chronicle Books’ trailer – or what appears more like an instructional video – smart motion graphics augment the tongue-in-cheek narration on how to maximize the potential of your breakup. Look at it as the ultimate how-to guide on chasing the ex-blues away. Apparently it’s all about tricking out your online dating profile. In short: keep it positive, use euphemisms, and seem interesting and cultured. Easy peasy.

Get the book.

4. Head Case: How I Almost Lost My Mind Trying to Understand My Brain

You’ve just published a book – hurray! But that’s only the beginning of your journey, because in today’s world top priorities include an array of promotional activities. And here’s where the funny trailer (which has little to do with the book’s narrative on brain research) steps in.

In what is essentially a series of YouTube clips stitched together, author Dennis Cass is on the phone with his publisher, who puts into perspective the dizzying array of next-steps for promoting his newly published book. For the author, it’s a dreadful conversation. Between YouTube-ing and Facebook-ing, building his avatar and meeting friends, and updating his website and conducting a writing workshop, there’s just oh so much to do…you can forget about actually writing!

Get the book.

5. Darth Vader and Son

For his adorable new graphic novel (which is already a hit on best-seller lists), author Jeffrey Brown, a life-long Star Wars fan, reimagines a goofy Star Wars world, one complete with the trials and joys of parenting. Produced by the book’s publisher, Chronicle Books, the trailer, in turn, delivers a fun animation. In this light-hearted edition, Darth Vader is a ‘regular dad’, and life lessons include the usual: lightsaber battling practice, using the Force to raid the cookie jar, and of course, father and son eating ice cream cones together (because what activity could possibly be less normal?). It’s the family edition of Star Wars you’ve always dreamed of!

Get the book.

The post Hilarious Book Trailers appeared first on Submarine Channel.

The web is at treasure trove of inspiration, and we’d like to think we contribute in some way. Over the years we’ve been producing an ongoing series of short portraits about creative innovators who are breaking new ground in contemporary visual culture, spanning design, architecture, film, fashion, street art, and more. Kicking off our series back in 2007 with Pretty Cool People Interviews, we sought to capture creatives in their natural environments -be it the streets of Barcelona, the confines of a darkened special effects studio, or the lofty heights of a skate park – with an in-depth interview style that moved beyond a simple “talking heads” format, and offered a day-in-the-life type of insight into their creative process. Immensely popular, we kept the format and moved on to interviewing creators of title sequences for our title design project Forget the Film, Watch the Titles. Following in the footsteps of these successful profiles, for the last few years we’ve been commissioned to create profiles for Dutch DFA, an organization dedicated to promoting Dutch design, fashion and architecture. An on-going partnership, it gives us the chance to interview an incredible amount of talent, and keeps us on the forefront of innovation.

Though the profile series name kept evolving, the concept stayed the same, and today you can find a compilation of all the profiles we’ve produced (and continue to) in Submarine Channel Profiles. What makes profiles of creatives unique is their ability to bestow invaluable and diverse insights to the masses – ones that would otherwise be relegated to a select few, if that. And as our pick of Top 5 makes it clear, there’s now an explosion of sites offering a peek into how cutting-edge creativity happens.

Wherever your creative spirit lies, we hope you enjoy!

1. Gestalten TV

What is the line between truth and beauty? How do we create things that are beautiful and compelling? How do you make entertaining experiences?

From the good people at Gestalten, who are best known for publishing hundreds of beautifully designed books, comes the wonderful Gestalten TV. Serving international audiences since 2007, Gestlaten TV produces beautifully-shot portraits on visionaries exploring today’s visual culture. In recent years they’ve even covered some prominent design and visualization conferences. Spanning categories of architecture, art, design, illustration, photography and typography, these interviews are very much up our alley (and you’ll find a bit of overlap too). Conveniently, you can not only watch these on their site, but you can download for free on iTunes and stream on the iDevice of your choosing.

2. The Creator’s Project

We’d like to think of The Creator´s Project as a sister from another mister, and we regularly turn here for daily inspiration. As a super international network with funds to spare (this is partnership between Vice and Intel, afterall), they’ve got the globe covered where all things spanning the intersection of art and technology are concerned. In their Creators section, similar to our Profiles, you’ll find access to a whole slew of video and text interviews with creatives ranging the disciplines of music, film, art, design, gaming and fashion.

3. Prote.in

One of our favorite go-to platforms for staying up-to-date with the latest global trends, digital tools and events, Prote.in also produces their very own collection of profiles. From cutting-edge visual artists to digital entrepreneurs, these Profiles offer visitors cool video interview with the some of world’s most inspiring minds who are changing the way we think, work, and live. Think supper clubs, digital art, and rad data visualizations.

4. Cool Hunting

Dabbling in all matters across innovation in art, design , culture, technology, food, and travel, Cool Hunting delivers every time. If you visit their video section, you’ll also learn they go onsite to meet artists, designers and innovators to get an inside look at their inspiration and process – something we’re all curious about. Some recent treasures include LA’s most interesting pinball arcade, an international banana museum (!), denim masters, Bentley makers, and oh so much more. We only wish we could sort these dynamite videos with a filter or two.

5. Think-Work-Play

If there was ever a website that also doubles as a magazine dedicated ONLY to documenting the creative process, Think-Work-Play is it. At least as far as London talent is concerned, and who can say London’s not one of the creative hubs of Europe? An initiative by London-based agency Unity, these in-depth video and text interviews are a relative newcomer. Spanning the fields of art, design, architecture, fashion and music, they explore an individual’s process, ultimately showing what gets their inspiration going in the first place.

P.S.

Before bidding you adieu, we must pay tribute to Hillman Curtis, whose artist profile series was not only the first on the web, but also played a role in inspiring our very own profiles. An American new media designer, author, and filmmaker, Curtis also ran hillmancurtis.com, a digital design and film production firm in New York City. Though he only produced about 15 profiles between 2005 and 2009, they are top-notch, with a high production value. Covering mostly those in the design world, including firms, visual artists, graphic designers, these poignant videos still resonate with us today.

P.S.S.

It was a grueling search for artist profiles on the web, and we thought we´d share the all the treasures we found with you!  Even though these didn’t make our cut for Top 5, we certainly applaud their work. (note: some links here curate profiles from multiple sources, while others no longer produce new content)

Why Design

MAKERSANDFOUNDERS

MakerMusic

DMovies.net

Art Patrol TV

Crane.tv

The post Artist Profile Series appeared first on Submarine Channel.

Here is our pick of five super awesome ones, taking you all the way from New York City to Sydney, with Europe squeezed in between.

1. Maritime Hotel, NYC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znr7WsglQg

On June 28th, NYC’s landmark Maritime Hotel became the canvas for a massive projection mapping art installation celebrating the legacy of global art icon and activist, Keith Haring. The four-hour show – commissioned by the Keith Haring Foundation to Pearl Media, and produced by Go2Productions – paid tribute to Haring’s widely regarded graffiti-like visual language. Fusing 3D projection, animation and effects with Haring’s distinct style, the artwork completely took over the hotel’s facade and its unique porthole windows.

2. Buckingham Palace, London

[editor’s note: sadly due to BBC’s strict copyright laws, nearly all videos of the projection were taken down. But we found one, though we couldn’t embed it. Click on the image above to watch it.]

London’s legendary Buckingham palace got a much-needed – albeit short-lived – facelift when it became the grandiose backdrop of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert back in June.  This patriotic video projection re-imagined the palace as shabby public houses and east London row houses, showcasing Brits from various walks of life, while the ska band Madness performed ‘Our House. Originally approached by the BBC, Sam Pattison at Treatment Studios was commissioned to create this top-secret large scale projection, for which he put together an incredibly talented team of designers and animators, including the BAFTA award-winning company, Trunk Animation. Incredible how they pulled it all off – it was definitely one of the highlights of the night, and oddly enough the only 15 minutes I tuned in to the concert on TV.

3. “Enter The Human Age”, Gashouder, Amsterdam

Those who gathered at Amsterdam’s historic Westerpark on April 1st, 2012 were privy to an impressive 3D projection that told an abstract story of The Human Age, where human talent is key. Directed and produced by Dutch-based studio PostPanic for Experis Nederland, a recruitment brand, the visually striking and imaginative showcase was a feat for its 360 degree projection onto the iconic cylindrical shaped steel tank that extends to a height of 40 meters.

4. “Ode á la vie” (Ode to Life), Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Barcelona is without a doubt Gaudi’s city, and one of its most beloved sights – the as-yet-unfinished Sagrada Familia – was treated to a brilliant 15-minute projection-mapping spectacle.  Evoking a “living fresco made of color, light, and sound”, the facade of the church was bejeweled with visual effects that played with its statues, stones, stained-glass windows, and the spires of the basilica, to tell the story of birth and re-birth. We imagine this was no easy task, taking into account the extraordinarily complex geometry of this structure.

5. Sydney Opera House, Sydney

Back in May, architect Jørn Utzon paid homage to the architecture of the iconic shell roof of the Sydney Opera House by reimagining it as a massive piece of fabric. Mapped by German art collective Urban Screen, the roof began to pulse, rip, fold, and rupture, revealing its rich interiors for the 2012 Vivid Sydney Festival. Though not as glitzy as some other projections we’ve come across, we love the poetic feel of this one.

The post Projection Mappings 2012 appeared first on Submarine Channel.

We’ve come to appreciate the space of Chrome Experiments. After all who could forget one of the first Chrome experiments that started it all – the interactive music video Arcade Fire did for Wilderness Downtown (featured on 2Pause), becoming a viral sensation and redefining what interactive could mean for music vids.

In a day and age when the browser is more than just a browser, it is playing a role in redefining the extent of what interactive storytelling and film experiences can be on the web. This month, we sifted through a range Chrome experiments and present you with our pick of Top 5 film and video-related ones.

1) The Peanut Gallery: Silent Movies = Silent No More

Some of Google’s latest work on voice-recognition has been wonderfully integrated into a fun experience called Peanut Gallery, developed by the Creative Lab Data Arts Team in San Francisco. In a matter of a few clicks, anyone can add Intertitles to old black-and-white movies using a simple Web Speech API. Record using your computer’s microphone and Google transforms it into written text embedded into an old movie. We imagine this is just the beginning of voice controlled experiences. Go have a play around. (And if you’re struggling coming up with lines for silent films, this inspiring Tumblr is here to the rescue.)

2) Find Your Way to Oz

Curious on how to get to Oz? What if the Web could help you?

Inspired by the feature film Oz The Great and Powerful, Find Your Way to Oz was developed by Walt Disney & UNIT9 to be an interactive adventure that sets up the feel, characters, and storylines of the film but stops short of being a trailer. Launch the experiment and feel as you’ve time-traveled to a carnival where a long but visually stunning journey awaits. Dig deeper into various narratives of the film, make your own short movie using the browser, and discover a vast universe that blends visual and sound effects with interactive elements, all at your own pace. Experience it.

3) The Hobbit – A Journey Through Middle Earth

With the The Hobbit movie launch still more than six months away, this Chrome experiment looks to be a kind of stepping-stone designed to have audiences experience the journey through middle earth well before the film premiere. It has potential. For now, only a trailer of the Chrome experiment was posted on May 15th, with the launch slated for Fall 2013. Still, the Chrome Hobbit debut is a few months away and we can’t help but think of this experiment as a trailer for the trailer of the real thing. At least it gives us something to do while we wait.

4) Cirque du Soleil’s Movi.Kanti.Revo

The most unusual of collaborations often tend to produce truly eccentric projects. Such is the case with Cirque de Soleil’s latest Chrome experiment that explores a new way for people to journey in a digital world using tones and gestures. An entirely sensory experience that requires audiences to move, sing, even dream, the app is a fun way to discover a hidden world of acrobatics and dance. Get your mic and webcam ready for the full experience.

5) Chrome World Wide Maze

It’s all in the name. The excellent Chrome World Wide Maze experiment, developed by the Google Chrome team in Japan, does just that – transforms any website into a playable 3D maze where you control and navigate a marble ball. The experiment neatly demonstrates the glorious functionality of ‘tab sync’, where by syncing the Chrome browser across your devices on desktop and mobile, your smartphone becomes the game controller. Okay, technically speaking this might appear to be more of a game, but with experimentation and play we can envision this tech applied to innovative storytelling projects on the web. In the meantime, ready to take your browser out for a spin?

The post Film Chrome Experiments appeared first on Submarine Channel.

If the last two years have shown us anything, it’s that the future of music videos is still uncertain – what with the current experimental blend of 360 degree experiences, browser takeovers, motion–controlled cameras, and audiences in control of what they see, who they hear, and for how long, in some form. Whether it’s been a natural evolution of technology propelling new music video experiences or innovative music videos that motivate other artists to tinker further with the medium, the results leave us enthralled with what’s coming next in this uncharted territory.

For this Top 5 we´ve scoured our repository of interactive music vids on 2pause to serve you today’s, of-the-moment trends – all of which are a far cry from yesteryear’s MTV sit back-and-watch music vids.

1) Beck  – Sound and Vision

Welcome to your very own concert where you´ve landed the best seats in the house. Just remember that YOU’RE IN CONTROL of the camera!

In the sphere of interactive music videos, Chris Milk needs no introduction. After all, this is the man who got it all started in terms of innovative music videos (think back to Wilderness Downtown, 3 Dreams of Black, and the brilliant Johnny Cash Project). In ‘Hello, Again‘ Milk teams up with Beck on the stage for a totally transcending 360 degree performance that re-imagines David Bowie’s ‘Sound and Vision’. The result: a more intimate and dynamic live concert, all from the comfort of your computer. Explosive, amazing vocals, and a real musical feat!!! (*best with headphones*)

2) Moones – Better Energy (Drunk in Session)

Just how much can your favorite musicians consume before they start slurring words and unraveling on stage? Apparently 60 to 80 beers will do it. The concept is simple in this amusing interactive music video directed by Ben Falk for Moones‘ Better Energy: move the camera angles around the room and give these guys some bloody beer before relishing their performance while sober, buzzed, and plastered!

3) Au Revoir Simone  – The Knight of Wands

An oldie but a goodie, and might we add that it’s super fun to unwind with?! Brooklyn-based indie band Au Revoir Simone is bringing back your inner kid by turning their song ‘The Knight of Wands‘ into an interactive coloring book play zone.  Get creative with the drawing, watch out for the moving cat, save the image when done, and share with friends!

4) Tanlines – Not the Same

Drag-and-drop it like it’s hot! Also going the artistic route, Tanlines follows up on their first interactive music video for ´Brothers´ and this time introduces a browser-based experience for ‘Not the Same’. Produced by The Creators Project with creative agency OKFocus, you are transported to “an alpha channel video experiment” in the form of a Photoshop environment, complete with a toolbar where switching up the different layers adds or deletes band members and facilitates background choices the likes of the White House, Williamsburg Bridge, Stonehenge, and more!

5) Califone – Stitches

Music videos based on social media sites are nothing new – some pull in images from Instagram hastags while others require your Facebook login. The most recent example is the use of Tumblr by Califone for the new single ‘Stitches’. By tapping filmmaker Braden King and programmer Jeff Garneau for the project, what results is a music video that self-generates on the fly using images and animated GIFS from a curated set of Tumblrs. It genuinely never looks the same twice. Stare at it long enough and experience a slow-motion stream of consciousness with images layered on top of one another. Mouse-over images to pull them to the top “layer”. Or click on the individual images, leave a comment, share a story, and re-blog it to the Califone Stitches dedicated Tumblr.

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Naturally, projects that deal with people impacted by a situation — from economical and geographical to social and political — gravitate to this type of format. The storytelling process becomes both inclusive and collaborative, where the end result is a co-creation between documentary makers and the community at large. Here’s our Top 5 pick of participatory documentaries, some of which are never ending stories that change every day and couldn’t exist without people’s participation, whether local or global.

1) Sandy Storyline

Housed on both the storytelling platform Cowbird, and on its own website, Sandy Storyline serves as an ongoing repository of testimonials about the impact of Hurricane Sandy on neighborhoods, communities and people’s lives. Stories are submitted by calling in, sending a picture or text message, or posting online, and audiences discover content in a multitude of ways. Start with navigating by location, storylines, or type of media, like video or voice recording. Or go by date. A year on since the hurricane, but the stories of loss and rebuilding continue pouring in.

2) Hollow

We took an in-depth look at the power of crowdsourced stories in Hollow in this slideshow interview a couple months back. It’s worth noting how this beautifully designed and compelling interactive narrative about brain drain in rural America was a remarkable feat of participation. The local residents of McDowell County in W.V were given the tools – in how to capture footage, for example – and a platform, built by the makers, to add their own personal stories, photos, and voices that create a visual record and draw a clearer picture of ways the community continues to be impacted by a depleting population.

 3) A Journal of Insomnia

It only seems fitting that a documentary about insomniacs would rely on the involvement of insomniacs to tell that story, and it’s precisely what these sleepless and willing participants did. Though part one of this cutting-edge participatory documentary launched at IDFA last year (where we interviewed the makers for our video Profile), it was the second part we were eagerly anticipating – where audiences could interact with insomniacs and feel their experience. Head over here to enter a sleepless world and discover the thousands of stories and drawings submitted by insomniacs to questions initially posed by the makers.

4) Immigrant Nation

At the heart of this still in-beta ongoing participatory documentary is the sharing of immigration stories — fitting for the US, a country built on immigrants, and one that relies on immigrant communities for many labor and service industry needs. Whether through its short documentary films or the website that features both video and photo and text stories, audiences are prompted to reflect on these heartfelt immigration and family histories and add their own stories, which make up a large portion of the narrative. Browse stories by content, year, and word, or simply go through the timeline visualization featuring stories.

5) Question Bridge

Part documentary, part continuing traveling art project that is still being translated to the web. Question Bridge aims to create a safe and uninhibited platform for a group of black men to join an intimate and difficult conversation about their identity and stereotypes in America. Questions like “Do you really feel free” or “Why is it so difficult for black men to be themselves” “What is common to all of us?”, and many more, come with video responses and prompts that include additional answers, enabling a mediated and honest question and answer exchange. Watch out for this one – many more contributions from audiences to come!

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