Today is John Mayer’s turn! Besides being a fabulous musician, he has been also on the forefront of emerging technologies, embracing the art of blogging and tweeting before it was trendy to do so. In 2009 he was the first recording artist to release an augmented reality music video, and that’s us daily video!
 
From the album Battle Studies, “Heartbreak Warfare” was the second single came out, and the video, despite being an expensive venture, was successfully completed, and previewed on October 19, 2009.
Mayer and his team allowed online viewers to become active participants in the 3D experience. It was an interesting experiment, that engages online fans in a whole new way.
 
To participate was necessary a webcam and the special augmented reality marker, which could be downloaded from the site or opened on visitors mobile phone. First, you needed to download and print the Battle Studies icon or his mobile version. The you had to place the marker in front of your webcam and lined it up with the one onscreen, and held it there until you saw Mayer walk onto the set: the video began playing with you as an extra in the background.
 
John Mayer collaborated with Studio B teamed and Adobe to realize this video.
Studio B Films is a video production company based in the San Francisco Bay Area specializing in documentary, sales and marketing sizzle videos, customer stories, motion graphics, corporate communications, green screen shooting, and creative video editing. Here you can see the Studio’s site.
Studio B shot and keyed the green screen footage using the new Apple ProRes 444 codec. Flash Augmented Reality (FLAR) is a way of creating a digital hologram in 3D space by holding up a marker to your computer’s camera and activating a special piece of Flash software. In this case, the marker (the one downloading and printing) was a broken heart.
Wired interviewed Mayer on the set during production the augmented reality video. Here you can check out the video interview.
 
“It’s very exciting. It’s a completely 3-D, immersive experience you have” told John “It’s moving from this very casual guy in the room, to the middle of the song, where I transition to being on a battlefield.”
 
“In keeping with the ‘Heartbreak Warfare’ battlefield theme, I end up entering this really cool, otherworldly universe of falling bombs, bright colors and things just stemming and growing and blossoming and blooming…”
 
“I’ll be the first musician to do a video centered around this new technology. I won’t be the twelfth, like I used to be.”
 
Unfortunately, integration is no longer available from the site of John Mayer, a second music video for the song was released on April 12, 2010. On youtube remain the testimonies of people who tested it.
On May 22, 2012 his new album, “Born and Raised“, came out and with the lead single, “Shadow Days“, John offers us a new interaction. Curious? Stay tuned, we’ll soon reveal it!