SAN FRANCISCO -- A group of digital video professionals has given last week's World Trade Center tragedy a human face on the Internet, creating a digital video quilt of people expressing their feelings about the attack.
Dreamed up by streaming media experts at tiny Red Zeppelin Digital and Workshop 173, the project has attracted the backing of larger players like Exodus Communications and Penton's Streaming Media.
So far, 150 people have had short videos recorded at Red Zeppelin or at spots around the city such as Grace Cathedral and local schools. The quilt will shortly go international as requests to submit come from places like London and Australia.
The project was conceived from the horror of watching the first television coverage of the attack.
"We just sat there and what hit us was the sense of helplessness," said Red Zeppelin chairman Stan Bunger. "We could see the faces of the firefighters, and we knew they were hurting, and there was nothing we could do to help them."
The quilt consists of small digital images "stitched" together on the website. When clicked, the images give way to video interviews.
The comments range from Arab-American grocer Alex Assad, who expresses "sadness and hurt" at the attack, to 9-year-old James Cameron, who notes that "many children don't have their moms and dads to hug and love them."
Bunger, an anchor on San Francisco news radio station KCBS, says that the group has only turned down one would-be contributor so far -- somebody who was "talking about anger and retribution," Bunger said.
"At some level, I'm uncomfortable with the notion of censorship," he said. "But in this case, we thought it was important for us to emphasize the good."
