What do you do when you have a final studio album from the late, great Johnny Cash, but no way to have the legendary man in black appear in the music video? Crowdsource it. This is what director Chris Milk has done with Cash's song "Ain't No Grave," setting up a Flash-powered website that allows visitors to hand-draw individual frames of the video. The video is then dynamically pieced together from these frames, based on ratings by viewers -- in this way, it is an always-changing work of art.
In my opinion, the fan-generated, always-changing video brilliantly complements the lyrics of the song, driving home the fact that Cash's presence lives on beyond the grave -- through his fans. What did you think of the video?
Director Chris Milk's work has appeared here before, most recently with his HTML5 music "video" for Arcade Fire, but also for his short Last Day Dream. His recent works, along with other music video/game hybrids, are changing the defintion of what a "music video" is today. If you're a Johnny Cash fan, or if you otherwise feel like flexing your digital penmanship, head on over to the site to contribute a frame or two. And be sure to watch the video on the site itself, as it has an interactive timeline that accompanies the crowdsourced video.
Link: The Johnny Cash Project
[via Mashable]
