The hottest act at last month’s Coachella wasn’t one of the young artists who found neon-painted festival fame through the blogosphere, but an iconic rap star resurrected from the grave. Debates about whether the stunt was imaginative or exploitative persist, but so stirring was Hologram Tupac’s performance that rumors of other dead rock star tours have been swirling about in the weeks since. The hologram trend is not limited to concerts, however, as three-dimensional imagery is also illuminating the realms of experiential marketing, customer service, and communication.
Hologram Experience: Epcot’s Mission: SPACE ride continues to thrill the astronaut fantasies of theme park visitors, yet when it comes to the behind-the-scenes mechanizations of air travel, such simulations have remained elusive on the consumer level. As part of NYC’s Creative Week, GE collaborated with BBDO to create Throttle Up, a holographic immersion that afforded anyone the ability to experience the process of building and launching a jet engine. Staged at St. Ann’s Warehouse, the dramatic installation relied on motion-control and projection technologies to blanket the room with seemingly real 3-D engine parts, the assembly of which was gamified by Float Hybrid Entertainment.
The notion that the wristwatch has fallen out of favor among smartphone-reliant youth is apparently a fallacy, as a Kickstarter project to fund a modern timepiece accessory called the Pebble has raised nearly $10 million with a week still to go. (It’s funding goal? $100,000.) Indeed, the booming crowdfunding site has facilitated a wave of indie technology product development leading to several innovative new gadgets, including those below.
Digital Bolex: The ubiquity of the digital video camera has afforded the everyman the ability to test out the director’s chair, but as evidenced by about 90% of the content on YouTube, most people are more interested in capturing images like the antics of their cat than crafting thoughtfully framed narratives. For more serious filmmakers, the appealingly retro Digital Bolex may become a fundamental tool in their aesthetic arsenal. The first consumer-oriented “digital cinema camera” shoots raw images rather than compressed video, meaning that the filmmaker can alter the color and white balance, contrast, and more, without spoiling the quality of the imagery. Aaaand action!
Invented by photographer Jamie Beck and graphic artists Kevin Burg, the cinemagraph has become the darling of the online marketing world, as evidenced by recent promotions for everything from films to fashion. More engaging than a static photo, yet more artful than the animated GIF, the cinemagraph is proving to be more than a passing fad. And, now, thanks to a number of apps, anyone can make one.
Cinemagram: Apps like Viddy and Socialcam are starting to find an audience, but video sharing has yet to attract the numbers of photo sharing. Might it be that people find videos a little too real to share? Cinemagram may be a happy medium between the two genres. The iOS app can convert a brief video clip into an even more fleeting, two-to-three-second cinemagraph, complete with flattering filters, which can be shared within a social stream. It has a long way to go before it catches up to The $1 Billion App, but with one million users after launching just six weeks ago, it seems to be on track.
From South Park to Star Wars, stop motion has been a force behind some of the most culturally important TV shows and movies of all time. The laborious process of adjusting a character’s expression and position manually was one of the only means of animation in the pre-CGI era, but iOS applications are reviving the nostalgic form of entertainment with apps suited even for the most amateur animators.
iStopMotion: DIY stop motion videos have sparked creative interest among Gen Ys, and now iPad app iStopMotion is introducing the technique to younger “Z”s. With the help of a yellow, spike-haired claymation assistant, the app demonstrates how to create simple 12-frame per second animations. To make a video, users simply set the stage, take a shot of the scene, slightly adjust the characters, and take the next picture. Once all the frames have been captured, a movie is rendered instantly. iStopMotion caters to novice animators, flaunting options like Camera Overlay which shows a live image of the previous picture so that changes can be monitored as they’re created.
Every time a gadget company unveils another affordable way to shoot beautiful HD video from your pocket, YouTube receives a fresh upload of snooze-worthy videos. Now more than ever, in the age of validation, mobile videos demand expert editing in order to yield the “likes” and love that their makers so desperately crave. Armed with these video editing tools, smartphone auteurs will be well prepared to bask in retweet glory.
Magisto: For those who have suffered through hours of video editing, any app that claims to do it for you must be an act of magic. Following the lead of other apps using prestidigitatorial technology, Magisto asks for a self-shot video, a snappy title, and a song selection, then – presto! – it conjures up a short and sweet edited version of the footage. The Magisto algorithm recognizes faces and camera movements to ensure the most visually compelling narrative possible. A few cuts and transitions later, the results are downright heartwarming. As with any good app, Magisto’s final chef-d’oeuvre can be shared on the creator’s social networks.
