A Google Chrome Experiment by Director Chris Milk and his Google Partners
I stumbled upon The Wilderness Down Town through The Favourite Website Awards.
This is an interactive video that uses Google Maps to create a personal video experience.
I had no idea at first what I was getting into. I was intrigued when I read on the landing page that it was created in HTML5. Little birds fly around your screen and dodge your curser. This must be a fun site! "Enter the address of the home where you grew up search" said a little navigation bar. I entered my last address of my home town of Clovis; my old stomping grounds and tuned in.
I discovered the site while browsing with Firefox and wondered why I waited an eternity at 97% loading before I noticed the caption "a Google Chrome Experiment". I'm not sure why I was in Firefox because I certainly like Chrome better. The Wild
erness Down Town is an experimental website that only works in Google Chrome. Exploring the site on a friend's laptop later, the website will actually prompt / advise you to download Google Chrome if you do not already have it installed. If you disregard this message, it will ask "try anyways?"- but it didn't work in Internet Explorer at all.
"You do get a little bit of the feeling of, 'Wow, I felt a little bit like I was there again,'" said Andy Berndt, vice president of Google's creative lab.
I can only begin to speculate how it was created. It's a strange HTML5 and Flash hybrid site.
It somehow brings in data from Google Maps to predictively populate the search bar with addresses as you type on the landing page. It uses Flash to open and close new windows to create an ever-changing-collage-esque experience of prerecorded videos incorporated with satellite and ground level map imagery. Its really interesting how the video will use map location video from the address you input on the main page. Even the map images are commanded to rotate and pan. Some map images superimpose the main character running across the landscape or birds flying in an ariel perspective.
The windows open in specific locations at specific times. I would imagine your inputted address alters the scripting of the video during it's lengthy loading time so that it can go stream / pull your customized footage. At first I thought each window was it's own page because some of the pages have page names which give credit to Google and such. But I'm not sure about that, because each window has the same URL. There are 7 windows in all. All seem to be present throughout the video, but they are black and small when unused. The visibility depends on some sort of stacking order. There is also a flash media player that you can mute and play the music which the movie plays to. All of the footage is timed to play at certain parts of the music.
I hope you enjoyed this odd website as much as I did.
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