Just A Reflektor is an interactive short film and Chrome Experiment set to the Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor”. You can connect your phone to the desktop experience, using the webcam and a marker image, to control some of the visual effects by moving and rotating your phone. The movement of your phone is reflected on screen to move lights, shapes, and to blend video together. (Get it? reflected.) It’s quite fun to play with.
This project isn’t just about the short film, of course, it’s also about the technology behind it (Three.js, WebGL, WebSockets and more) . There’s an interactive explanation of how it was all done along with the impressive list of the Web and Google technologies that have made it all possible on the tech page. There are also links to github repos of the open source libraries used in the project and the film code itself. For the short and sweet version of the backstory, there is a three minute behind the scenes video featuring some of the developers.
In spite of all that is cool about it, Just A Reflektor met with some disapproval on Twitter for being Chrome only. So be warned, if you’re not using Chrome you won’t get to see much of anything. Otherwise, grab your phone and head on over to justareflektor.com to try it out for yourself!