SA band launches innovative Twitter-driven video

This is pretty cool. It’s the latest video from South African band Die Heuwels Fantasties and, if its makers are to be believed, it’s the world’s first totally randomized music video.

Visitors to diebeloofdeland.co.za “never watch the same video twice”, claim the creators. The site, they say, generates new versions each time someone views it. In addition to this, the site connects with the viewer via Twitter, displays a personalised message directed at their Twitter handle during the video while simultaneously posting this to its Twitter account.

The video was conceptualised by interactive online video agency August in collaboration with the band members. The website’s server-side technology randomly compiles each video choosing from over 800 clips of footage contributed by several South African directors.

According to the creators “an almost indefinite number of possible permutations”, means that “each viewer enjoys their own unique video”. The site then uses Mozilla PopcornJS software to overlay Twitter personalizations and send tweets to the viewer at predetermined points in the video.

August executive producer Francois Botha said the project was a perfect fit for the company:

It’s multifaceted, combining both video and online tech, which is our specialty. Aside from getting footage from individual directors, we shot studio footage of the band in action, then optimized and deployed along with our own software and scripts to a locally hosted server. We opted for our hosting partner Hetzner’s Truserv servers which allowed us the freedom to customize to our requirements along with peace-of-mind as its located in a reliable SA data centre. This is incredibly important for local campaigns due to South African bandwidth constraints.