Interacting with fans
The Internet has changed the way in which bands can interact with their fans. Pitchfork reported that the finalists of an online competition to create a video clip for a Radiohead song were announced on the aniBOOM website today. Back on 10 October last year, the ever inventive Radiohead released their album In Rainbows online and allowed listeners to pay whatever they felt the album was worth. The decision to release the album in this fashion was an apparent response to their recently ended contract with EMI.
In the aniBOOM/Radiohead competition, people were required to make an original animated video clip for any song off the In Rainbows album. The competition began on March 17, 2008 with 900 people submitting a range of original storyboards. These were scrutinised and voted upon by viewers and 10 semi-finalists were chosen and given $1000 each to create a video clip based on their storyboards (although even those who didn’t receive funding were still able to compete and a final three were chosen by the aniBOOM editorial committee). The highest ranking five were then handed over to Radiohead who were meant to choose one clip. However, as reported on Pitchfork, a press release stated that Radiohead front man Thom Yorke was “totally blown away” and as a result they chose four. The finalists will each receive $10,000 to complete their music videos.
Last month, Radiohead released a true-to-form eerie video clip for their song ‘House of Cards’, also from the In Rainbows album, which was created entirely using “3D plotting technologies”. No cameras, no lighting. In a further example of interaction, the data used to make the clips was made available on Google code so that users can download and create their own version of the clip and upload it to a Google group.
Radiohead are not the only band to be attempting to use the Internet in imaginative ways to connect with their fans. Earlier this year on March 2, industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I-IV for US$5 a download, and then shocked everyone by releasing their newest album The Slip absolutely free. This move, like Radiohead, followed a break from their record label. After Ghosts was released, Nine Inch Nails posted a video on YouTube of Trent Reznor announcing a new project in which the online community can “create visuals to accompany the album’s music.” The best clips will be chosen by Reznor and crew to be brought together to create an online film festival.
The Radiohead competition appears to have been successful and it will be interesting to see the results of the Nine Inch Nails film festival. What better form of publicity is there than allowing people to use songs they like to express themselves through interactivity with the composers and creators of that music?
