One Frame Of Fame shows us how a band can use viral culture and crowdsourcing to grab some publicity and make a couple of thousand people “stars” of a music video. But what could you achieve if you already have a surfeit of fans? For a couple of years, Trent Reznor and the Nine Inch Nails’ crew have been exploring new ways of releasing music and interacting with fans: Getting them to create visuals for their Ghosts release, having art director Rob Sheridan shoot video on stage with his DSLR, creating innovative, interactive concert visuals, and sharing insights on how less established artists can use technology to support their careers. The next level of the band’s relationship with their fans was revealed recently, with the release of Another Version Of The Truth: The Gift, a fan-edited, 2 hour long concert video produced from footage released by the NIN team. Like most of Nine Inch Nails’ work, this really is next-level stuff. Even if you’re not a fan, the Lights In The Sky setup is required viewing for visualists.
The show combined lighting, visuals, interactivity, set design, and show direction into the most epic, futuristic, cohesive works of live performance ever (for some more details, check our previous post on Moment Factory‘s “Show Environment” for the tour). With so much creativity and money put in to the show, it’s gratifying that they’re not only comfortable to let a project like this happen, but are actively supporting its dissemination
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Our 2008 Lights In The Sky tour was an ambitious multimedia production on a scale well beyond anything we’d ever attempted before. Everyone involved was extremely proud of how it came together, and we were devastated when, for a variety of reasons, we were unable to capture it professionally for a theatrical or commercial release. As a “plan B” of sorts, early last year we released a massive 405gb free download of raw HD footage captured at three different shows during the tour. The idea was to get the footage out in the wild and see what our notoriously enterprising fans could do with it. There were no rules. No strings attached. This was a gift, and an experiment, and for the past year we’ve watched it come to life in more ways than we could have ever imagined. … This is yet another example of a devoted fanbase and a policy of openness combining to fill in blanks left by old media barriers. The entire NIN camp is absolutely thrilled that treating our fans with respect and nurturing their creativity has led to such an overwhelming outpour of incredible content, and that we now have such a high quality souvenir from our most ambitious tour ever. Or, as Trent simply put it, “Nine Inch Nails fans kick ass.”
And there’s still more to come. An “Extras” disc containing “behind the scenes footage, alternative visuals, interviews and a lot more” is scheduled for release on January 25th.
Another Version Of The Truth: The Gift download page from This One Is On Us.