The response to our Frozen Grand Central mission has been unbelievable. The YouTube video has over 10 million views and counting. It’s been covered by The Today Show, Nightline, Good Morning America, and countless news outlets around the world.
Most interestingly, it’s inspired people in 70 other cities in 34 countries to stage their own freeze mission. Thousands of Global Agents worldwide in places like Romania, Poland, Italy, China, Sweden, and New Zealand have come together to make time stop for five short minutes. Below is a roundup of all of the videos we’ve seen of the various global freeze events. Congrats to all of the local organizers, and remember you can get involved yourself at IE Global.
Interactive Map of Freeze Events
Afton, Wyoming
Arcadia, CA
Århus, Denmark
Barcelona, Spain
Beijing, China
Berlin, Germany
Berne, Switzerland
Beirut, Lebanon
Bielefeld, Germany
Blacksburg, Virginia (Virgina Tech)
Bloomington, Minnesota
Bogota, Colombia
Boston, Massachusetts
Brisbane, Australia
Bratislava, Slovakia
Brno, Czech Republic
Brussels, Belgium
Calgary, Canada
Chicago, Illinois
Coimbra, Portugal
Constanta, Romania
Copenhagen, Denmark
Dublin, Ireland
Durham City, UK (Durham University)
Edina, Minnesota
Edinburgh, UK
Florence, Italy
Helsinki, Finland
Hong Kong, China
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Lausanne, Switzerland
Leszczynski, Poland
London, UK
Los Angeles, California
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Madrid, Spain
Manila, Philippines
Mexico City, Mexico
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Montreal, Canada
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Nuremburg, Germany
Orlando, Florida
Oxford, Ohio
Paris, France
Portland, Oregon
Prague, Czech Republic
Pretoria, South Africa
Quebec City, Canada
Raleigh, North Carolina
Rome, Italy
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
Santa Barbara, California
Seattle, Washington
Shanghai, China
St. Andrews University, Scotland, UK
Stockholm, Sweden
Sydney, Australia
Toronto, Canada
Tokyo, Japan
Utrecht, Netherlands
Vancouver, Canada
Vienna, Austria
Vilnius, Lithuania
Wellington, New Zealand
Zürich, Switzerland
Atlanta, Georgia (no video yet)
Riga, Latvia (no video yet)
Malmö, Sweden (no video yet)
Shreveport, Louisiana (no video yet)
Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments.
hi, there, I saw your video yesterday nigth and its awesome, i want to do it here in Bogota, colombia can you help me with the scheme or logistic you used so i can gather the people. thanks And ill wait for your answer contact my at lbcu@hotmail.com
Fantastic original and fantastic responses. It’s interesting viewing all of these together, and makes clear what works well and less well. In general, poses that are actually caught in the middle of an action (mid-stride, laughing at a friend, drinking, kissing, etc) are much more interesting than being frozen simply standing in place, which many people were (although it does seem as though there are far more people drinking and kissing than you would catch in any real snapshot in time in these public places…!).
There’s also some interesting variety with respect to the ratio of participants to passersby. Clearly, the effect is much more impressive when you have more participants, and if they are frozen in an area that people actually have to walk through, rather than being able to walk around. Also, one of the reasons the original is so good aside from the above points is that they had just a few discreet camera operators, instead of a dozen guys milling all around inside everyone else’s picture.
Great work everyone, and here’s to IE!
did you already get any video from Hong Kong?
is there an edinburgh improv group? Please contact me if so – I want to join!
The freeze displays is used in developmental research on infancy. Go to my website and see how infants reaction to their mother holding a “still-face”. As with the adults in Grand Central the infants and toddlers try to make sense of what is going on.
Here’s a better link for Lithuania, with a youtube video embedded:
http://www.blogas.lt/EziukasVilniuje/354468/flashmobo-vilnius-freeze-foto-ir-video.html
Here’s a link to one in Belgium!
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=2SHjpf8aC6A
I updated the post to reflect all of the additional freezes, and I decided to just post links rather than YouTube videos. The 30 videos on one page were making my computer freak out.
Hello from Atlanta!
We had a BLAST in Atlanta ! Really, really interesting how much fun we had – it was totally out of proportion for how much effort it was. After all, how much work is it to be still for five minutes!?!
We in Atlanta were slightly hampered by the Georgia Department of Transportation deciding to shut down access on an Interstate Highway (of all places) just about an hour before several folks, including our videographers, could drive to our location. (Sorry, Kim!)
As a result, I think the only surviving video is one that I happened to make using my snap-n-shoot camera. The most unfortunate aspect of the video is that I set up my camera . . .and then I FROZE! So, what you mainly have is video of me, who is (not) cleaning up the Coke that I spilled!
There are several Agents shown in the background. After about a minute and 15 seconds, you can see a civilian, walking from right to left, who joins a group of agents and freezes for a while. At about 3 minutes and 30 seconds, a civilian observer feels compelled to give a shout-out to our Atlantic Station crowd!
After the freeze you see one of the other Agents come over and help me to pick up my Coke cup.
Then my sons, Agent Keye West and Agent Estevan come to help me clean up. They were just off to the right of the camera view, and were holding one of those string-sculpture things, a Cat’s Cradle. They said that while they were frozen a civilian lady came by, pointed to one string and said, “If you pull the string here it will make a knot.” No response from them. “If you pull the string here it will make a knot.” No response from them. Then she poked them in the arm, but they didn’t move!
Here’s the vid:
http://www.filemojo.com/l.php?flink=0205337106987521&fx=
YOU ROCK, BETHESDA!
Agent Jokester
cool
Here’s a link to the news story I wrote about the one in Waterloo for the Waterloo Region Record. There is a video linked from the article.
Freeze, this is a prank TheRecord.com 29 Feb 2008
Kuala Lumpur,malaysia frozen 30march 2008
from agent ezran
36h before the launch of the Freeze in Paris, we have around 2500 registred members… It’s gonna be wild
These last weeks we planned to play a giant “1, 2, 3, Soleil!”. Don’t know the name in english but it’s a game where you have to freeze each time when a leader counts up to three. Rest of the time you try to reach him as quickly as possible…
When we saw the Grand central video, we all thought “that’s THE idea”.
Two weeks later we did it. We were 70 of us in our small city (20 000 people) Lannion in Brittany, France. Great time.
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=x_1JCeVJMJk
ready for the worlwide one.
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN did yesterday at 1:10
There was one Freeze event yesterday in Shanghai.
Check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZz02eAsOA&eurl=http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10196373412
http://www.catshanghai.com/blog/2008/03/08/flash-mob-hits-shanghai/
facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10196373412&ref=mf
More videos of the event should be uploaded soon.
There was also an freeze event at Nanjing Lu, Shanghai, China.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ArpFAnk6Gs
24h before the french final cut : here the official trailer produced by Awak’iT
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=vg9xyUEZIrk
Hi,
This is the Official Video of the Freeze in Paris with more than 3000 people.
Will probably make a longer film as we had maore than 20 cameraman…
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=qtUNj2BNTsU
Love this concept.
If everyone could even do this individually, even if just in their mind stress levels and diseases would dramatically drop.