Here’s How You Make A Documentary Only Using HTML5 And WebGL Graphics

One Millionth Tower is part of Highrise, a series of mini-documentaries about the history of high rise towers and their effect on society. What sets this one apart from the others is that it was made using HTML5 technologies such as WebGL and Javascript.

The entire documentary is rendered using WebGL graphics, audio and and photographs of the buildings in question. One Millionth Tower makes specific use of a Javascript tool called Popcorn, which was designed to integrate web APIs into online video. What director Katerina Cizek did was utilise Popcorn to control the movement of the video frame, having it effectively behave like a video camera. The documentary, running nearly seven minutes in length, can be viewed passively or interactively. When viewed interactively, you can navigate and click around in a 3D environment where you can explore the documentary at your own pace or find links to external sources, such as Flickr or Wikipedia.

You can watch One Millionth Tower right, and also check out the other Highrise interactive documentaries over at the Canadian National Film Board site. [Wired, Boing Boing]