OK Go have built a career around creative music videos, and their latest “WTF” is no exception:
OK Go – WTF? from OK Go on Vimeo.
This is a great example of a “high budget”, low budget piece. There has obviously been some investment in a nice chromakey studio to shoot in, and plenty of prototyping of effects and props. I think OK Go are making better use of that investment than the endless, homogeneous “band playing in white studio” clips which pollute our music video ecology like so much floating styrofoam.
Of course we’ve all seen video-delay and single shot clips before. However, “has it been done before” is a poor creative yardstick. We don’t need to pioneer a wholly new technique for every piece we make. As long as you produce something which has personality, and creates an emotional connection with your audience, then I think anyone who accuses you of being “unoriginal” is missing the point.
Very well put Jaymis. I've been struggling with the, "it's been done before" with my current project. When viewers recognize the personal connection and emotion from the artist, the unoriginal becomes original.
There are some very clever moments in this video. Today's trends in motion design/music videos, creativity trumps high budget.
this is a really good example of taking a simple idea and letting it shine. the creativity isn't in the single take or chromakey, it's in everything else – the coloured bar swipes, kicking balls, staggered multi-arm thing. it's exactly the sort of thing that makes gondry so grand (star guitar, oh yeah!)
Was so into watching the video I didn't really pay attention to what the song was about…
(Maybe that's a good thing?)
I happened to love Jim Jarmusch's Fifth Golden Rule when I found it. It goes like this:
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”
The making of can be found here.
[…] released an early holiday present, a video delay system allowing us to reproduce the effect seen in OK Go’s “WTF” clip (Behind the scenes video on […]
[…] Here It Goes Again, stopping at the artistically hip Do What You Want, before blasting through CDMo favorite WTF? to the new hotness of This Too Shall Pass, which they’ve actually released two […]
[…] Here It Goes Again, stopping at the artistically hip Do What You Want, before blasting through CDMo favorite WTF? to the new hotness of This Too Shall Pass, which they’ve actually released two […]