OK Go have always been famous for their crafted and extremely complex music videos. This time, they made a commercial for a big Chinese furniture store all shot as a single steadicam take and full of optical illusions and practical effects.
Rental company KitSplit reached out to us with this BTS video, where they show a tiny piece of the month and a half of preparation, two weeks of rehearsal, and one day of shooting. The song they've used was a remix of OK Go's "I Won’t Let You Down." The video has been made on a steadicam where the operator had to be so precise at moments that he had to be on the right spot within two inches. It was shot on a 5K RED Dragon and a Canon 17-120 Cine-Servo lens. That lens was used because of the push-pull effect at the end of the video after which they've nailed the rest of the optical illusions and all in-camera practical effects. The steadicam operator admits he practiced that shot for two weeks. Check out the finished product below:
A particularly interesting part of the video is the rotating room, where two of the band members look like they're defying the laws of physics. In this shot, the camera was rotating with the room, while it looked like the guys were walking on the walls and the ceiling. You can see how they locked the operator on a custom built crane-like construction, and no, they didn't rotate him. If you look closely, they've put the camera on a special head that allowed a remote operator to rotate it to match the rotation speed of the set:
What do you think of the commercial? Was it worth the effort?
Their videos are always dope. And they keep up to their audience's expectations ... which I find quite hard to do every time you thought they pushed the limit further.
And never get old. If you check the date of the commercial, it's from 2015.
Very creative production, thank you for sharing.
You're welcome Jonas. Thanks for commenting
After the comment, I went through these two videos multiple times. This is truly inspirational, great article.
Hah :) Yeah. I've learned probably a third of my skills from BTS materials.
What's with all this reaching out stuff?
Mutual benefits. Sending an article suggestion from the Fstoppers.com contact form sometimes can end up as an article as this one.
I meant the expression, not the purpose. I don't really get this 'reaching out' phrase. The more usual 'contacted us' is simpler and a more accurate description of the action being performed. Reaching out implies a desperate plea for help.
As a non-native speaker, I found out this expression has been used a lot between English-speaking people. I usually don't use it when I communicate with English-speaking people. Decided to use it as a synonym. Obviously doesn't evoke the same associations as I thought.
I certainly wasn't criticising your excellent language skills. I was commenting on this annoying lingo-trend that seems to be sweeping the communication airwaves at the moment.
And I do appreciate that. These kinds of expressions have been smuggled into many languages.