OK Go: 'This Too Shall Pass Video Shoot Was Frustrating' - Exclusive

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OK Go bassist Tim Nordwind says filming their new music video was both “exciting and frustrating”.

The single-shot video for ‘This Too Shall Pass’ features a complex Rube Goldberg machine, which sparks a series of chain reactions.

Shot over two floors of a Los Angeles warehouse, the video has already attracted over three million YouTube plays since its release on Monday (March 1).

In an exclusive interview with Gigwise, Nordwind said the band attempted to shoot the video sixty times over two days, and only succeed three times all the way through.

“The frustrating part would be getting half way through and then something doesn’t trigger,” he said.

“And because the setup time took so long once you got about half way through you started to get really excited because you think ‘Oh my God, this thing is working’, and then the paint can doesn’t get triggered to knock off the red trash can and you’re like ‘Oh fuck’.”

Rube Goldberg Machine Was 'The Star'

After developing the idea for the video last November, OK Go employed LA-based company Synn Labs to build the Rube Goldberg machine.

The arts and technology collective, which includes scientists and circus riggers, spent three months developing the devise alongside director James Frost.

“The actual shoot for us took two days,” Nordwind said. “But that was just done right at the very end.

“The machine is really the star of this video so it was really just about making sure that the machine was followable and aesthetically pleasing to watch.

“Then we just dumped ourselves into it and made sure that we could move with it in a pleasing way.”

'Honour'

The bassist added that it was an “honour” to start the mechanism, although he admitted that knocking over dominos proved harder than expected.

“There were a few times when it was kind of embarrassing because the dominos didn’t actually go and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I can’t push over some dominos’.”

You can watch the video for ‘This Too Shall Pass’ below. Read the full interview with Nordwind on Gigwise here.

OK Go - 'This Too Shall Pass'