Ok Go’s Obsessive Videos

BY: Claire Connors

Since 2002, the indie rock band OK Go has been producing quirky, foot-tapping songs that’s earned a ton of well-deserved play on alterna-rock radio stations around the country. But what’s really put lead singer Damian Kulash, bassist Tim Nordwin, guitarist Andy Ross, and drummer Dan Konopka on the map are their insanely inventive music videos, where they seem to do the impossible…in just one take.

The first one to go viral was 2006’s “Here It Goes Again,” a hilarious parody of obsessive gym culture where the boys perform an elaborate dance routine on eight treadmills…without falling down. Of course, it took a week of rehearsals and repeat tapings to accomplish the final flawless take, but who’s counting? Directed and choreographed by long-time OK Go contributor Trish Sei, who happens to be Damian Kulash‘s sister and Pitch Perfect 3‘s director, this Grammy Award-winning video has been viewed almost 40 million times.

 

The visual for OK Go’s 2010 music video, “This Too Shall Pass,” is a giant, complex Rube Goldberg Machine that starts with the “classic” falling dominos, triggering elaborate moves through a maze, and ending with the band getting shot at by paint cannons. It took two days of filming, a sixty person production staff, and three takes to capture every angle of the catastrophic video but somehow it all works. It won Best Video at the UK Music Video Awards…58 million youtube fans can’t be wrong.

 

The stop motion video for the dancey 2010 tune, “End Love,” was shot in one, that’s right, one, 18-hour long take. The boys, dressed in brightly colored jeans and hoodies, move and dance throughout Los Angeles’ Echo Park, crash there in sleeping bags, and later are joined by fans boogying along with them. Most adorable part? A goose living in the park became obsessed with the band and followed them through the entire video. They nicknamed him Orange Bill.

 

Reminiscent of the Beatles‘ in A Hard Day’s Night, here OK Go is in Japan, surrounded by 2300 umbrella-twirling dancers, while riding on Honda UNI-CUBs. “I Won’t Let You Down“ was shot in one take with drone-mounted cameras catching all the action from above, this complex dance video took a month to plan and practice before it was finally filmed but the results are flawless. It deservedly won Best Choreography at the 2015 MTV Music Video Awards.

 

OK Go‘s latest video is truly a sight for bored eyes. “Obsession” the newest single from their 2014 album, Hungry Ghosts, is a perfectly orchestrated kaleidoscope of 567 color printers spitting out countless sheaths of paper to the beat of these perfect drummers. Called “the world’s first paper mapping project,” the video has gotten a whopping 117 million youtube views since it came out last month.

And for those worried about the number of trees sacrificed for this video, take heart: the band recycled the paper and donated all proceeds to Greenpeace.