14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla is introducing Popcorn, a HTML5 media toolkit that enables creators to make the most of the web when presenting their films online or to create entire interactive experiences around video.
Popcorn is one of Mozilla's many projects designed to make use of the technologies that the modern web provides and to push the web forward at the same time.
It's a collection of the tools that leverages HTML5 video and audio, WebGL and more functionality to enable anyone to create videos built for the web.
The core of it all is Popcorn.js, a JavaScript framework built around HTML5 for media content.
But there is also Popcorn Maker, a tool to enable anyone to create using Popcorn, with no coding skills required.
"Popcorn allows web filmmakers to amp up interactivity around their movies, harnessing the web to expand their creations in new ways," Mozilla's Mark Surman wrote.
"Popcorn uses Javascript to link real-time social media, news feeds, data visualizations, and other context directly to online video, pulling the web into the action in real time," he said.
"The result is a new form of cinema that works more like the web itself: interactive, social, and rich with real-time context and possibilities that continue to evolve long after filming wraps," he explained.
Just as Popcorn 1.0 debuts so does the first big project built on top of it, a documentary dubbed "One Millionth Tower," a new episode in the Canadian National Film Board's series 'Highrise.'
"One Millionth Tower" is hardly what you'd call a movie or documentary in the traditional sense. There is video, of course, but how you consume it and in what order is entirely up to you. You don't as much watch the documentary as you explore it, thanks to the 3D environment built with WebGL.