The American rock band OK Go is known for its ridiculously ambitious, mind-boggling, and highly creative music videos released on YouTube. A few examples are their music videos for "I Won't Let You Down" (which featured hundreds of dancers) and "Upside Down & Inside Out" (which featured the band on a plane, at zero gravity). Needless to say, their music videos are always a hit — a thrilling experience for people who watch them.
On November 24, 2017, the band released the official video for their song "Obsession," and similarly to their previous music videos, it became viral for its crazy idea of filming a group of guys behind 567 printers and using "a lot of paper" to create a trippy backdrop for the band.
The said music video was made possible through the band's collaboration with Double A, a Japanese company known for its high-quality paper. The video took two and a half years to create — an unexpectedly long time for a music video that lasts for a little over 3 minutes. But all the effort that went into the video paid off well. Each second is worth the watch.
So how did these crazy bunch of people pull it off? For starters, the band worked with media artist Daito Manabe for the "paper mapping" to work smoothly. Manabe was responsible for synchronizing and controlling the printers as they dropped papers. And because the printers were not able to keep up with the song's speed, it was the song which had to adjust. The song was slowed down, and the band had to film "really slowly" (like stop motion, but with humans and tons of paper, I guess).
One of the band's worries was whether there would be errors during filming. Thankfully, there wasn't. Damian Kulash, the band's singer, notes that there were "no printer jams at all." Kulash attributes this to the smooth paper made by the paper company.
As for the paper used for the video, the band assures their audience that all were recycled. The proceeds, meanwhile, were donated to Greenpeace.
(Image Credit: OK Go/ YouTube)