That is all I have got at this point.
Watch the video below. I know I know, I'm late to the game, but what? I took a break and got inspired. I like that this video uses the sheer genius of the Rube Goldberg, which was another favorite in the Dan Dunn arsenal of cool shit to know. Also, was how to toss an egg off the roof of the school without damaging it.
One take. The whole film cycles through on one take. Or appears to. And I can guarantee that you will find something new every time. Note the State Farm Insurance truck that kicks off the whole Rube Goldberg. Apparently this has been garnering OK Go a lot of attention for its bold drastic take on product placement. Note the "OK Go Thanks State Farm for making this possible" at the end.
I love that this band will never run out of great video ideas. Thanks OK Go.
The video that it instantly brought to mind was this Michel Gondry music video called "Lucas with the Lid Off". For a couple reasons. One of them being the format of the frame and how it moved through the video with the action. The other for its sheer ingenuity (and Solo Take on the action). This was the one thing that fascinated me more than anything in film school. The opening of Touch of Evil (I've talked about this before right?) and the Royal Tenenbaum's ending. So good. But, what they do really well in the above OK Go one is seal the fact that this is a production by showing us the people behind the scenes in the final shot. I get that the whole thing is behind the scenes, but I mean the people making sure that everything is running smoothly behind the camera.
You get little snippets, glimpses of the genius of the action in the Gondry one, but it mostly comes from the main character, who, similar to the band members of OK Go keep re-appearing. Gondry deliberately shows us shots of equipment (cameras etc) but the entirety of the This Too Shall is the background. Everything is revealed in the unfolding of the Goldberg Machine. Whew, this is exhausting and way more than a beers worth. Even a tall Olympia. Know why?
Because there is more.
And here is the really strange part. There is another official video. I read through this letter from OK Go where they break down how the Music Industry works - for them - and then they gave a link to a website where you could watch the video for their new single and this is it. Apparently this was actually the first video that they released for their most recent album in January...
Oh Wikipedia how I love you so.
In any case there was one little section of the letter that seemed to make some sense. It went like this:
That moment – the dawn of internet video – is gone. The internet isn’t as anarchic as it was then. Now there are Madison Avenue firms that specialize in “viral marketing” and the success of our videos is now taught in business school. But here's a secret: zillions of hits was never the point. We're a rock band, and it’s a great gig. Not just because we get to snort drugs off the Queen of England (we do), but because the only thing we are expected to do is make cool stuff. We chase our craziest ideas for a living, and if sharing those ideas takes 40 websites instead of one, it doesn’t make too big a difference to us.Well, thanks again guys. For being crazy, awesome, and honest. And a welcome distraction to the question of "Who's going to win the Tour de France?" Because, we all know that it is going to be A. Schleck. Or Contador. I can't decide. King of Spain? Or the Lads from Luxe?
Are there any good Tour de France T-Shirts that are going to be rocked for this extravaganza?
Ok, back to work there are fucking magazines to make people.
