I don’t really like interactive videos, I know that this is the thing of the moment, people like video games and similar stuff that I totally ignore, but I don’t think it has any place in music videos… if you pretend to be an artist and make art, well your videos should not be interactive! The art an artist make should be his or her vision, unique vision, but if anyone can change the vision at any moment, and modify it at any minute, how is it still the artist’s vision?
But may be I am reading too much into this, because I am only talking about a music video by Coldplay! The band has indeed shared an animated interactive video for ‘Ink’, off their 2014 album ‘Ghost Stories’, and there are 300 possible outcomes in the story, depending on what you click and when. I tried once, but it was rather dull, I am not a video-adventure-game person, but this guy running after his lost love wasn’t the most exciting thing I have seen, it was cute like a Disney cartoon can be cute, and may be I am too old for this?
At first you are offered to choose between a pocket knife, a compass or a paintbrush, so I picked the paintbrush because the video is called ‘Ink’ and it seemed to be the least relevant thing to have for an adventure, then I am not sure how it was used later on… I was asked to choose between several other paths later on, but I wasn’t interested enough to try the 300 ways! After doing it twice, it was too much of the same anyway.
I know that a few bands have tried interactive videos, with more or less success, Bob Dylan’s was pretty creative and it didn’t bother me too much because it wasn’t really a game type of thing, Arcade Fire also released a few of them and everyone loved it… I didn’t bother as they looked too technical for me, you had to use your webcam, then Google maps, was it worth the effort?… I know that artists want to renew the experience of a good old music video, but this can get too close to a video game to my liking, and could it be a proof that artists are trying to please the young generation too much, as if the song was not enough? Anyway, try Coldplay’s ‘Ink’ below:
