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OK Go’s video, for the song “The One Moment”, took only 4.2 seconds to film

280 points| breck | 9 years ago |npr.org | reply

85 comments

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[+] sleepychu|9 years ago|reply
Title is inaccurate. >How long did the routine take in real time? The first three quarters of the video, from the beginning of the song until I pick up the umbrella at the a cappella breakdown, unfold over 4.2 seconds of real time. Then I lip sync in real time for about 16 seconds (we thought it was important to have a moment of human contact at this point in the song, so we returned to the realm of human experience) and we return to slow motion for the final chorus paint scene, which took a little longer than 3 seconds in real time.
[+] midgetjones|9 years ago|reply
That dodgy formatting made me think you were in OK Go for a moment.
[+] StavrosK|9 years ago|reply
I don't know, I doubt that. If you look at the first guy's bit, he's lipsyncing even though he doesn't move his lips at all in the first (4.2 second) cut, plus lipsyncing the words in half a second would be nigh impossible, PLUS the confetti bits from the background color fall at normalish speed, where I would expect them to pretty much stay stationary if this were filmed over half a second.
[+] michael_h|9 years ago|reply
Anybody know of a mirror? Facebook won't let me through :(

Edit:: found https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QvW61K2s0tA

Bafflingly, a search on YouTube for 'OK go the one moment' didn't turn this up for me. Bunch of ripped songs came up though.

Edit 2: Ah, it's 'unlisted'. Also, I've read a few of the comments on the youtube video, so you don't have to. It's still the worst bit of the internet.

[+] seanalltogether|9 years ago|reply
OK Go have listed there last couple songs on facebook first and then youtube second, i think it has something to do with preventing reuploads to facebook for sharing
[+] GuiA|9 years ago|reply
Yet another solid example of the spreadsheet being the best programming tool for the masses there is out there
[+] qwertyuiop924|9 years ago|reply
Spreadsheets are like FORTRAN: If you have certain, specific needs, they're the best tool for the job. However, they're not the best tool in the general case, and if you learned another programming tool first, you will recoil in disgust from some of the more non-ideal uses of it. At the end of the day, though, it gets the job done.

I never really learned spreadsheets, so for most of the (very simple) work I have to do that would involve spreadsheets, I use AWK.

[+] mattdeboard|9 years ago|reply
The interesting thing for me about this video is the math behind "scaling up" the rhythm of the song, syncing that with the "events" (popping balloon, splodin guitar, etc), so the 6000fps cameras can cut down to, idk, 500fps or something in editing and have them all reflect the actual rhythm. Pretty cool stuff
[+] MBCook|9 years ago|reply
That was one thing that occurred to me while watching the video, because they keep transitioning between different speeds they can choose the transition point so that the music will continue to match up even if in real time there was a very minute timing difference that would cause a problem. I'm assuming that's how they got the various flipbooks to sync up perfectly, where the lead singers singing when they went back to real-time video for a second.

I think I have all their albums, I love their videos and their music is often pretty good. I suppose I should know his name. (Edit: Damien)

[+] disordinary|9 years ago|reply
Yeah, my guess is they're playing with the speed constantly to keep things in sync.
[+] sbierwagen|9 years ago|reply 

  What role did Morton Salt play, and what is
  #WalkHerWalk
  Morton Salt have recently launched a campaign to
  support a group of people who are bravely making
  a positive difference in the world. They’ve
  pledged funding and assistance to incredibly
  inspiring and effective young innovators who are
  tackling difficult issues like the global water
  crisis, the plight of young female refugees,
  systemic failures in arts and music education,
  and children’s health and wellness education.
  The slogan for this campaign is #WalkHerWalk, a
  reference to the girl in their iconic logo, and
  you can learn more about the innovators and the
  many facets of the campaign at
  http://MortonSalt.com/WalkHerWalk.

  Morton was moved by the message of “The One
  Moment,” and felt it captured the spirit of
  what they are trying to do with #WalkHerWalk, so
  they reached out to us and asked if we were
  interested in making art with their salt – a
  video that could fly the banner for their
  initiative. We were impressed with their efforts
  to support positive change, so we proposed this
  idea, and together we collaborated to bring this
  video to life.
A beautiful and inspiring 4 minute video ad for Morton Salt.
[+] grzm|9 years ago|reply
Just a friendly FYI: block-quoting long-line text makes it very hard to read, especially on mobile, due to side scrolling.
[+] lukeholder|9 years ago|reply
You can see that the first flipbook has a digital overlay mask for the sync of the mouth video to the words. See his right hand fingers.
[+] teraflop|9 years ago|reply
Yeah, there's definitely a lot more manipulation than they admit to. Around 1:50-2:00, a guy is turning a crank that flips the pages of another flipbook, but the pages keep turning at the same speed even while the speed of the crank changes dramatically.

Also, the apparent lack of regard for personal safety irks me a little. Wear some eye protection, dudes!

[+] taneq|9 years ago|reply
Yeah, the choreography was impressive for what it was. Claiming that it was "real" when there are clearly multiple aspects of the clip that are, at the very least, time shifted relative to each other in the same frame, cheapens it a bit to me.

The first few seconds are legit, then the flipbook synchs up and you have that "oh wow" moment that sadly I am coming more and more to associate with "no wait, it's bogus."

Great song and great video clip, though, even if it's not "real".

[+] vlunkr|9 years ago|reply
There's certainly no way he could have flipped the pages at the correct rate.
[+] jszymborski|9 years ago|reply
It seems like it's only released on FB, which is a shame because even with their "HD" option on, I feel like I'm being transported back to YouTube circa 2008. Holy crud is the quality awful on FB videos, really undermines the work they did here.
[+] jboynyc|9 years ago|reply
Whenever I hear an OK Go song (or see one of their amazing videos), I have to remember the appearance of Damien Kulash at the Aaron Swartz memorial at the Cooper Union Great Hall. "Everybody's heart's breaking now..." Very moving.
[+] piracyde25|9 years ago|reply
Any other bands (or music videos) that does this sort of thing? I am ready to love them!
[+] sogen|9 years ago|reply
In the 90s there were 3 very creative directors : - Michel Gondry - Chris Cunningham - Spike Jonze I'd recommend you check their music videos.
[+] cyberferret|9 years ago|reply
Some of the older music videos are really ingrained in my memory for me - particularly Aha!'s "Take On Me" video, which was a composite of real and hand drawn cartoon imagery all done in the pre digital editing days. Clever stuff.

The early Michael Jackson clips when morphing and digital editing was still in its infancy are also still really cool to look at (particularly "Black & White")

They may seem really dated and cheesy now, but in their day, it was pretty cutting edge stuff.

[+] disordinary|9 years ago|reply
The band Goodshirt from the late 90s had some pretty interesting but low budget one take/reversed music videos.
[+] bertiewhykovich|9 years ago|reply
The Pharcyde's video for "The Drop" was filmed entirely in reverse. They apparently worked with a linguist to work out mouth movements that would sync to the lyrics when played backwards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co3qMdkucM0

It's a really cool effect -- except for a few bits where objects fall upwards and the like, there's nothing too strikingly "off" about the motion in the video, but you can tell that something's up. It doesn't form an uncanny valley, though -- there's still an overarching "organic" feeling to the thing.

[+] cyberferret|9 years ago|reply
I didn't think they could top the 'Zero Gravity' clip, but indeed they did... indeed they did!
[+] amelius|9 years ago|reply
Personally, I think this clip looks almost as boring as a screensaver. But then again, I might not be the target audience.
[+] xyzzy4|9 years ago|reply
OK Go needs good videos to compensate for the music quality.
[+] debt|9 years ago|reply
tech makes music cool sometimes
[+] mccoyspace|9 years ago|reply
with integrated sponsorship. "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom"
[+] oolongCat|9 years ago|reply
HN and GO(lang) has ruined me. Every-time I see "Go" my brain tries to think Golang.
[+] edgyswingset|9 years ago|reply
I'm sorry about that. Have you considered programming in Haskell?
[+] rounce|9 years ago|reply
Why all the downvotes? His (dis)position is legitimate nonetheless.
[+] beefman|9 years ago|reply
No video appears in latest Firefox Mac. Also, blogspam. Official link is

https://www.facebook.com/okgo/videos/10153836041340683/

(which is notable for not being at YouTube...)

[+] dang|9 years ago|reply
I think the article adds enough context to the video that it's ok for it to be here. No one who wants to watch the video will have trouble finding it.

We did replace the baity title with the article's first sentence. (That's in accordance with the HN guideline that asks to not use original titles when they're clickbait.)

[+] pimlottc|9 years ago|reply
Fortunately that doesn't stop youtube-dl from working!