Project Rebirth

September 8, 2004 8:54 AM

Project Rebirthwent live today. Six time-lapse cameras are shooting one frame of film every five minutes from rooftops near the World Trade Center site. Explore the cameras, or watch the (rather lovely) film trailer.
posted by stonerose (9 comments total)

There are still apparently some kinks to work out - some links function sporadically, and some ask for passwords - so be patient. There's much worth exploring.
posted by stonerose at 8:55 AM on September 8, 2004

Good concept, and I'll be checking it out as the project moves forward. The tagline, however "Chronicling the Rebirth of Ground Zero" isn't quite right. Ground Zero was created by the terrorist attack. Maybe it Chronicles the rebirth of the WTC at Ground Zero, or better, Chonicling the Rebirth of the WTC... but the rebirth of Ground Zero, doesn't sit quite right with me. /nitpick
posted by psmealey at 9:21 AM on September 8, 2004

I'm such a sucker for time-lapse vids. Thanks, stonerose.
posted by shoepal at 9:31 AM on September 8, 2004

I enjoyed the trailer ... but, you don't suppose they could have waited 3 days to officially launch the site, you know, for the symbolic effect?
posted by crunchland at 9:49 AM on September 8, 2004

I don't know why it was launched when it was, but we (the web design firm) had it all set and coded up at least a few weeks ago; I tweaked some Netscape layout issues for them last week and I believe that was the last thing needed before they went live.

Kinda wish I'd had the chance to look around the rest of the code more, it was an interestingly designed site, compared to our usual layouts (which I have no part in actually designing, however, just implementing).

And yea, the project itself looks pretty interesting, I'll probably check in on it later on :)
posted by cyrusdogstar at 12:19 PM on September 8, 2004

Great, cyrus, you can explain this to me: The top of the opening page has an animation (with the link text "Explore the Timeline") that painstakingly shows you how to use what looks like a Flash timeline interface. So I click on Explore the Timeline and get another page much like the last, with no timeline visible nor any links that look like they'll go to one.

Hell is up with that?
posted by soyjoy at 12:44 PM on September 8, 2004

"The project is directed by Jim Whitaker, President of Imagine Entertainment, the production company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer."

Interesting...

And am I the only one who really enjoys stuff like this because I always get to enjoy even more how misguided the terrorists are--they could never create lyrical art like that film, and will never understand that building, slow, tiring construction, is a far greater enterprise than any simple destruction could ever hope to be.
posted by jengod at 3:38 PM on September 8, 2004

soyjoy: I just accessed our extranet for the project and it's working fine; what happens when I click it (the Flash timeline link) is that the timeline expands to take up a lot more room at the top, shows a quick Flash loading dealie and then loads up fine.

http://cyrusdogstar.net/misc/prflash.jpg <--screenie of the result

As you can see I'm using Safari on OSX, although I would assume that if you're asking me about it, you've got Flash working well elsewhere...but it sounds like something is up on your end.

Just checked their live version at projectrebirth.org and it works exactly the same there, too. (Why I did not go there first is beyond me :D)
posted by cyrusdogstar at 4:41 PM on September 8, 2004

Yeah, thanks, it works beautifully for me at home (also Safari on OSX), and I mean beautifully, a very nice interface. But at work I was on IE6/PC, which is not exactly an uncommon combination. You may want to check that out - could it be a javascript thing? Because the idea was obviously to launch something within the same screen, but in IE6 it was proceeding as though following a link to a new page.

Anyway, an interesting project, of a kind I think we'll see more of - time lapse as browsable history - as time marches on.
posted by soyjoy at 10:15 PM on September 8, 2004