http://video.bobdylan.com/desktop.html
November 19, 2013, 2:04 pm 3 Comments
A Bob Dylan Video 47 Years in the Making
By ALLAN KOZINN
William C. Eckenberg/The New York Times
Bob Dylan in 1963.
Promotional video clips were hardly unknown when Bob Dylan released “Like a Rolling Stone” as a single in 1965, but Mr. Dylan never made one for the song. Now Columbia, his record label, is making up for that oversight with a newly produced web video for the song, mainly to promote “The Complete Album Collection, Volume 1,” a 47-CD set that includes all of Mr. Dylan’s studio albums, six live sets and a two-disc rarities compilation. But in the process, the company is redefining the way promotional clips are viewed.
Usually, you sit back and watch. If they’re by a performer you collect, you may go to some effort to obtain a copy. But Columbia’s new “Like a Rolling Stone,” which went live on Mr. Dylan’s website on Tuesday morning, demands not to be played so much as played with.
The clip, produced by Interlude, a digital media and interactive video technology company, includes 16 separate video tracks, each either a television show (like “The Price Is Right,” “Pawn Stars” or a BBC news show), others lightly disguised parodies of shows, films or cable networks.
Using the up and down arrows on a computer keyboard, or controls to the left of the clip itself, you can channel surf, changing the program at will. Celebrities — among them, the comedians Drew Carey and Marc Maron, the actor Simon Rex and the rapper Danny Brown — are seen on the various tracks mouthing the words to the song.
But, you may be asking, what if you just want to see Dylan singing his biggest hit? You can. Among the 16 channels is a video of Mr. Dylan performing the song live in 1966, although the video is cut to match the somewhat brisker studio recording, which is heard on the clip’s soundtrack.
Time-based Communications 1 Fall 2013 