Interactive examples

Behind the Scenes of Las Vegas Sun’s “Thirst in the Mojave”

Multimedia producer Zach Wise wrote a great “behind the scenes” post about his “Quenching Las Vegas’ Thirst” package that recently launched. I was floored when I realized how much data, media and extra functionality was built to enhance an otherwise basic video player. Wise takes storytelling to a completely new level with the introduction of interactive videos.

First, read his comments, then check out the site. I did the opposite and had to go back once I learned about all of the additional functionality.

Users are provided with great narration, powerful visuals, geo-coded maps, side-bar information, links, and additional footage … all synched together to form a seamless storytelling unit.

I have never before seen subtitles done in Flash, allowing the user to click to read the person’s bio. This was something I had not noticed initially. I wonder if others missed this easter egg as well …

According to Zach’s site, he shot 20 hours of footage to eventually narrow it down to 20 minutes of video, cut into five different parts.

He also utilizes the functionality to detect the end of one video to start the next, which I gave sample code for in a previous post.

This video player functionality reminds me of another one of his projects, “Choosing a President.”

I wrote about the interactivity features of this piece in a previous post , which garnered great interest. This leads me to believe that people are excited and enthusiastic about this new functionality for video players.

I, for one, am a huge fan. If the time spent on a sit-back-and-watch video is on the decline, this type of interactive experience is it’s lifeline.

Secondly, the residential water use map is a highly innovative resource for homeowners. He combined Microsoft Virtual Earth with Flash to create a database of information, similar to MSNBC’s bridge tracker.

Last but not least, the design is downright beautiful. Look how the header of the package is seamlessly integrated into the newspaper’s main navigation. I preached about the importance of design earlier, and this is a prime example of how to do it right.

Job well done.

Other posts that might interest you:

• Post’s onBeing 2.0 and Times’ [LENS] blog launched
• Organizing multimedia navigations by media type versus story type
• Inspiration from NYTimes leads to my best interactive yet!

© 5 January 2009 Innovative Interactivity.