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"Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video

video.bobdylan.com

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Re: "Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video

#11

Post by xargs »

I was beyond skeptical when I saw this link earlier, but this is outstanding.

The commenters on RollingStone and other sites, seem to have wanted some magical rose-colored nostalgia trip to 1965, but the whole point of contemporary Dylan is that you can't have 1965 back (and even if you could, you don't want to).

The lyrics to this song are like the anthem of Holden Caufield... a wry, disillusioned, antisocial, anticonsumption, post-war love song. Anyone who ever thought otherwise, is a turd who only loved this song because it was Top 40 and reminiscent of some lost High School dance, despite the fact that the song itself is completely anti-pop.

There are so many little easter egg mashups you can find as you click through: the CNBC styled wall-street guy ("threw the bums a dime, in your prime, didn't you?"), the QVC home-shopping girl's deadpan delivery ("take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe"), reality TV girls desperate for attention ("how does it feel / how does it feel/ to be without a home/ like a complete unknown").

I think this is really the only video this song could ever have :)

and Danny Brown shows up

Re: "Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video

#12

Post by atwebb »

HyprMusic wrote: post #5
braum wrote: post #2

Is there a blog that explains how this works? I'm assuming they either have a ton of video that is instantly available and use the closest match or some magical CG...

As pure speculation, I'd expect they recorded each channel singing the full song and then switch stream and sync the times when you change channel. It would be really interesting to see how they dealt with the buffering on slower connections, since presumably the video can't prefetch too much ahead as the channel is likely to change regularly.

I can help answer that:

They didn't, changing channels or even leaving it playing is awfully slow, though the site's probably getting hammered by Reddit/HN. Great concept though.

EDIT: Or apparently they did and my connection is still too slow to catch up.

Re: "Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video

#13

Post by diggum »

jere wrote: post #10
diggum wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a brief delay between pressing a key, the channel banner changing, and then the video stream changing, but it definitely responds.

Ok. I was getting confused by the delay and the initial lack of control. I couldn't tell the difference between a delayed change and an automatic change. Thanks.... point still stands that it's simply a bunch of fake tv clips, probably all the exact length of the song.

No doubt. It seems each "channel" is a complete music video in and of itself, and the channel buttons switch between synchronized streams. And, like my TV, it feels like it takes too long to switch channels. ;)

Re: "Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video

#14

Post by evan_ »

It looks like there are many 1-second long .flv (Flash Video) files for each channel.

This is second 37 on channel 3: http://content.interlude.fm/video/dylanLive/rc2/ch3/c3s37.fl...

Here's second 125 on channel 6: http://content.interlude.fm/video/dylanLive/rc2/ch6/c6s125.f...

and so forth.

You can run this in your terminal to download all of the files for a given channel:

  curl -O http://content.interlude.fm/video/dylanLive/rc2/ch6/c6s[0-284].flv
FFMPEG should be able to join FLV files but I haven't tried it yet.

Interestingly enough it seems to pre-cache the channel immediately above and below the channel you're on, so if you're on channel 11 it will download the next couple seconds of channel 10 and 12, so you can switch channels without having to re-fill your buffer.

Re: "Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video

#16

Post by bookwormAT »

Dylan released the official music video of the song on November 19, 2013. The video is interactive, allowing viewers to use their keyboards or cursors to flip through 16 channels that mimic TV formats such as games shows, shopping networks and reality series. People on each channel, no matter what TV trope they represent, are seen lip-syncing the lyrics. The video's director Vania Heymann stated, "I'm using the medium of television to look back right at us — you're flipping yourself to death with switching channels [in real life]."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Rolling_Stone#Music_vide...

Re: "Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video

#17

Post by llimllib »

xargs wrote: post #11

I was beyond skeptical when I saw this link earlier, but this is outstanding. The commenters on RollingStone and other sites, seem to have wanted some magical rose-colored nostalgia trip to 1965, but the whole point of contemporary Dylan is that you can't have 1965 back (and even if you could, you don't want to). The lyrics to this song are like the anthem of Holden Caufield... a wry, disillusioned, antisocial, antic…

The shot at the end with Danny Brown's fro sidelit to look like the Dylan's Greatest Hits picture is pretty hilarious.

edit: http://i.imgur.com/BkQaAIt.png

Re: "Like A Rolling Stone" – Interactive Video

#19

Post by frogpelt »

jere wrote: post #3
braum wrote: post #2

Is there a blog that explains how this works? I'm assuming they either have a ton of video that is instantly available and use the closest match or some magical CG...

Seriously?? It's just a few fake TV show clips they recorded specifically for this video. And for me, the channel buttons do nothing but bring up a description of the current "channel." [edit: the channels do change after a delay] Aside: I'm sure I've heard it all throughout my life, but it was only a few days ago that I looked up the lyrics and backstory behind this song. For a song written just shy of 50 years ago,…

The ESPN set is real with Steve Levy anchoring and obviously "The Price is Right" and Drew Carey are the real deal.
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