Ghosts Film Festival

The Ghosts Film Festival was a partnership between Nine Inch Nails and YouTube to host fan-made videos inspired by the music from Ghosts I–IV. Videos were submitted to and could be viewed on the (now defunct) NIN Ghosts group page on YouTube.

It was intended that the submitted videos would be sorted through by NIN, and the best ones would be presented and highlighted in some manner. However, despite the submission of over 2000 fan videos, there was never any follow-up on the project by NIN after the initial announcement.

Announcement

On March 13, 2008, Trent Reznor posted the following on nin.com:

Hello-

First of all, a sincere THANK YOU for the response to Ghosts. We are all amazed at the reaction for what we assumed would be a quiet curiosity in the NIN catalog. My faith in all of you has been restored - let's all go have coffee somewhere (my treat)!

Today we announce the expansion of the Ghosts project into the visual world. This record began as an experiment with us using sound as a means to describe visuals. Early in the project we thought it would be interesting to see what the community could create / collaborate on as a reaction to the music we were making. We wanted to keep the canvas as blank as possible for you, hence the lack of descriptive song titles and the primarily textural artwork and packaging.

So here's the plan: we've teamed up with YouTube to host a "film festival" around Ghosts. The concept is for you to take whatever tracks you feel inspired by from Ghosts and create what you feel should accompany them visually. You will be able to see all of the submissions, and a team of us (including me) will be sorting through them and setting aside ones we feel are exceptional. Eventually (within a couple of months?) we will present a virtual "film festival" with me and some special guests presenting selections of your work.

This isn't a contest and you don't win elaborate prizes - it's meant to be an experiment in collaboration and a chance for us to interact beyond the typical one-way artist-to-fan relationship. We've discussed some interesting ways this could go, including multiple installments of the online "film festivals," to broadcast TV specials, to a one-time live performance of the entire Ghosts record with your visuals involved. It really depends on how this progresses and develops.

We are all very much looking forward to what you come up with, and hope you enjoy the experience. Visit our YouTube channel for information on how to participate.

TR

NIN YouTube channel

A message from Trent Reznor can be viewed here.

From the NIN Ghosts group:

To expand the idea of the "Ghosts" project, Nine Inch Nails is inviting anyone and everyone to create visuals to accompany the album's music. In a few months, we'll be gathering the entries we feel are particularly exceptional and highlighting them. There are no rules to this - be as creative as you like. Create a music video, or a short film, or something completely abstract. Use only one track from the album, or use multiple tracks.

Join this group and add your video to submit it to the film festival.

Some tips when creating videos for the film festival:

- Prepare your content in the highest resolution you can, and hang on to the original files, in case we want to use your video for something beyond the scope of YouTube.

- Incorporating copyrighted materials (clips from movies, unlicensed stock footage, music by other artists, etc) into your video might limit our ability to feature it in the future. The same goes for filming of people or locations without their permission. Anything goes on YouTube, but we'll have to play by the rules for other outlets, so if you want your video to be eligible for anything we come up with in the future, make sure its content is fully cleared.

- Make sure we can contact you about your video. Upload from your own YouTube account that you check messages on, or include contact info in your profile.

External Links

• NIN Ghosts group at YouTube (archived)