Continued from Best Videos 2009

Best Rube Goldberg machine video? OK Go - This Too Shall Pass

My God, was that one take?
Holy crap! That was amazing.

That was incredible. Screw that old Honda Rube Goldberg video, this was way more fun.

No band has benefited more from the internet than OK Go. It's nice to see they're still utilizing it.

Thanks for continuing this thread, Bruno.

OK, I can't stand it any more... Cris posted this video link almost two weeks ago, and nobody has commented on it?

This is the most extraordinary video I have ever seen on YouTube. Many of the comments on YouTube about the video echo this sentiment. Everybody I have shown it to feels the same way. What is wrong with you people?

Watch it several times to follow the story line...

tanstaafl.

I remember seeing a video very similar to that when the internet was younger. I thought it was cool then and just skipped over it this go-round.

It's an exceptional performance that brought a tear to my eye... a year ago.

I'm seriously impressed with the sand artists. This one is probably the most coherent piece I've ever seen- the images are really, really well blended together.

I didn't comment because, for me, it was, "Shrug. Another sand painter."

Not to dismiss the skill involved: The artist in question is an exceptional example of the genre. It's just that I've seen lots and lots of sand painting videos by now.

I'll probably have a similar reaction to the OK Go video. (As soon as I can get it to work: I'm getting errors trying to view it.)

That OK Go vid was awesome...

I would be surprised if you did. I'm sure there are more Rube Goldberg videos out there than sand painters, but this one was special in its creativity, humor, and occasional tie-ins with the music its self, which is what really impressed me.

I would love to get more info on it, like how long it took to put together, and how many times they had to run it to get it to work. There certainly was a lot of destruction in it, so it couldn't have been easy to reset. I'm sure they didn't take a sledgehammer to that TV or drop that piano on every take, though I just remember finding the process behind that Honda commercial to be as interesting as the video itself.

"itself"

Agreed, it was very impressive. You can tell that it was certainly not the first take, as there was already paint on their coveralls. I'm wondering which take it was. And on which *day*... with a setup that complex, I wonder how many days' worth of attempts it took to get that one final good take. The studio audience was clearly excited about having finally gotten a good take.

The paint on the coveralls was a required element, whether or not the posted video was cut/pasted or done as a single take (of many).

Without paint on the overalls, the ending would suffer.

And there were an awful lot of destroyed television sets...

There are a few "making of" vids from OkGo...

Here's a very well done Infographic video on the State of the Internet

Spoiler: Facebook is crazy-huge.

There was so much extraneous crap going on it was impossible to follow the chain of cause and effect.

Making of the OK Go video.

There was certainly a high level of intricacy that could not be followed.
A great shame- because those details are such a delight.

Roger Ebert regains his voice.

The Esquire interview is a great read as well.

You know, when I first read your comment I thought about it, and I agreed with you despite still liking it.

But I just watched it again, and it really does benefit from repeat viewings. I think the first couple times I was just watching to take it all in. After reading your comment, I went back specifically to look for the cause and effect of each action, and I was able to find it at every stage except for one, but I think it was just slightly off camera**. So that was a rewarding viewing.

**The one place where it looks like they might have cheated was on the end of the level change. It's just not clear what is opening that initial curtain. Everything else, though, has a clear cause and a effect. I think my favorite is the thing that starts off the level change, where the ball starts an electric drill that rotates a wheel that types on a type writer, causing the register to advance and knock over a cup.

*edit*
ps- one thing that makes it easy to spot everything is to watch it at 1080p on a large monitor or a TV. There are some very small reactions that set off the very big set pieces, and that might have made it hard to follow.

I think the curtains are opened by bits of string tied to a descending water jug. In the next bit you can see the cameraman and dolly reflected in the shiny metal ball.

The other thing with the paint on the overalls is, if someone were anal enough to care, they could compare the band members' splatter patterns in different segments to verify that they were all from the same take.

Peter

My biggest question at the moment regarding the OK Go video is why they chose to make it. Remake it as it were, because they had quite a nice video for the song already (with a marching band): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY

The fact that we're discussing the video right now is the answer to that question.

Remember the treadmills!

The only reason the internet was invented was for shit like this...

http://trololololololololololo.com/

Magic!

Cheers

Cris.

Sorry, I meant why for this particular song, when I assume they could have chosen another possible single that didn't already have a video made for it.

You guys have to check this video out as well. Marble Machine 3 My summary: Holy shit!

It's a long video and pretty slow, but what a bloody amazing creation. Basically a kinetic machine made of ramps, pulleys, gears and other contraptions to move a ball bearing from the bottom of the machine to the top. And repeat this process for 24 hours powered simply by a 21lbs weight descending down a shaft. There's another weight, a counter-weight, which is directly responsible for the ball's travels. This counter weight can raise the ball 42" three times in a single drop. The counter weight can be lifted to its apex with only a 1/16" drop of the primary 21lbs weight. Damn!

Oh, everything is made by hand (using tools of course). Out of wood.

Anyway, check it out.

This is floating around various forums:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caPmw3OVQMo

Not much more I can say than not sure I'd want to let it pass me....

That's a damn fine VFX shot/comp, even for a low res YouTube video.

Seriously?

This gave me a bit of a chuckle:

Does seem like there is an absence of sparks and I would think the drag in pushing a car sideways would be very significant.

There is a small shower of sparks at around 0:18

I'm not looking for tell-tale smoking gun proof in the quality of the pixels nor even analyzing the physics. I'm basing my judgement solely on the absurdity of a truck (lorry) going full tilt down a motorway pushing a perpendicular vehicle in front of it.

I mean, who would do that knowingly?

One would assume that the notion is that he didn't know. I, too, though, find it overly absurd to be taken at face value. The truck is quite clearly from this company, if someone were inclined to call and ask them about it.

As far as pixel examinations go, though, I have to wonder why the video is in 1:1 ratio. Seems odd.

Perhaps because it's from a PAL cell-phone video?

Do British cell phones shoot video in 1:1?

I wouldn't have said it has anything to do with PAL, some phones just shoot in really weird modes.

The person who posted it has replied in a couple of places:

Well there's your problem!

Still sounds like a load of bullshit to me. You'd have to be asleep and on tranquilizers not to know you hit a car, regardless of how much mass your own vehicle has. And even if said driver could not see the car while it was attached to his front bumper (unlikely) how did it get there?

Fake.

Speaking of fakes, someone at my car club forum dropped this down with a straight face in the 'current events' section.
ugh. Don't waste too much of your time with it-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fR3vBB1Yn0

Wow, that's even better than the perpetual motion machine I created, which can only power itself.

It's hit the national news here now, but not much more information other than it's confirmed as genuine and happened in January:

http://news.google.co.uk/news/story?ncl=dHjQ0erjX7St_sMaFJ4vO5765cVAM

Amazing. My next guess: The Clio driver did something to anger the lorry driver, and he did it on purpose. Perhaps just nudging her from behind at first, causing her car to skid sideways and end up against his bumper. Then he just dragged her along, cackling the whole way.

I've seen 18-wheelers try to run folks off the road before (admittedly, not in England).

Big truck drivers can be scary but they can also be good "enforcers". The best thing I saw was at a backup because of a closed lane on a two lane road. Of course all the people in a hurry where driving in the closing lane to get to the front of the backup and slowing down everyone else. So one truck/lorry drive drove in the closing lane right next to a truck driver in the non-closed lane- blocking the line jumpers. Somehow you can't pull off this kind of road justice in a small car, but in a big truck you can get away with it.

That's exactly the situation in which I saw a truck driver run someone off the road. Someone driving a ricer tried to rush up into the closing lane, and the trucker swerved out of his lane into the closing lane as the ricer approached, forcing him onto the shoulder. I cheered a little.

That could only happen if Dennis Weaver was driving the Clio...

Damn- it took me far too long to catch on to that one.
I must admit that I couldn't make it all the way through when I did try to watch it, years ago.
Snoozefest.

According to the chat on Pistonheads, sounds like the truck driver just wasn't aware of the Clio being there at all. So the investigation has reopened...

And I think that sounds like a real nice excuse.

It's just appeared on BBC Northwest Tonight. The police have confirmed the video is legit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/8574609.stm

I'm personally more taken aback that we now have concrete proof that Bruno is actually wrong about something.....

For the record, lots of people assumed it was fake, because it was so absurd. I certainly thought it was fake, too.

I still don't believe the video is legit. I'm not saying I'm right about anything, I just don't believe it. Nothing in that news story even begins to corroborate the authenticity of the video.

So there was a collision involving a lorry and a car on the motorway in January. Ok. No one involved in that collision thought to describe the events we saw in the video? There was no investigation until now? How credible is that? How absurd is it that the driver of the car being pushed didn't think to tell the police about it? It would have likely led to some negligence charges, wouldn't it?

Anyway, for those keeping up with this, do post any news as it becomes available. I'm genuinely curious how this went down and why everyone involved seems to be so brain-dead that they didn't think to disclose the actual details at any point.

So you've read the witness statements have you?

But of all the things to make a fake video about? It seems a really odd choice, which I why I doubt its 'fakeness'.

Yeah, we have dipshit "enforcers" like this too.

My favourite is where we have two lanes merging to one on an "off-ramp". In the morning in stopped traffic the lorries play this game of "no-one shall pass me" about 500yds from the final merge.

Sadly what happens is that the traffic just backs up 500yds behind them.

Even worse is that they are only 200yds off the motorway.

Result? They cause stationary traffic on the motorway and total traffic chaos as the inside lane is stopped and the outside lane has people doing full speed...

Like I say... dipshits.



Oh, and a little more for the 'merge early' brigade...

Imagine 2 streams of traffic approaching a 'merge'.

All the cars in the left lane are red, all those in the right lane are blue.

Scenario 1:
All cars merge, in turn, just as the lane closes.

Result:
Alternate red/blue cars.... 100% fair.

Scenario 2:
Some cars from the right lane (red) merge early. Some don't.
Everyone who reaches the end of the lane merges in turn.

Result:
For every car that merges early you get a
blue:red:blue
in the left lane and
red:red:red
in the right lane (can you see what's coming?)
So when they merge to a single lane you get a
blue:red:red:red:blue:red
glut going through after the merge.

Conclusion?
The selfish people who merge early actually hurt the people in the lane they merge into.

Side effect?
They get pissed and cause crashes by acting all self-righteous and 'enforcing' their boneheaded idea of "being right".



On the 'car being pushed sideways'... I actually witnessed this once. I was right next to a car when the lorry pulled out (slowly) as the car was just passing him. The car just tilted in front of the lorry very gently. The lorry actually carried on for quite some time before pulling over to the hard shoulder.

I was trying to stop traffic passing us as I figured this was one situation where that made sense. Someone overtook me

Incidentally I can see this being missed by a tired driver in a noisy lorry.

There was very little damage to the car - I did expect it to dig in the wheels and roll but it wasn't even close.

I was referring to the "facts" presented in the article you linked.

And as to why anyone would fake this? It makes a nice entry in your VFX reel if that's your (intended) livelihood. Same reason as the awesome airplane/highway one from a few years back (it was phenomenal).

Ah, so you don't 'actually' know what was said to the police. You're just 'assuming' they didn't say anything about it because there's nothing about it in the article. Could it be that the police won't release all the details of an ongoing investigation. Of course not, because this is someone's showreel video... Yeah right.

EDITED. I had a nice reply written, but it's not worth it. Another thread headed into the crapper because someone had to start with the personal attacks.

No, I think you'll find that's actually your skill. I merely comment upon it.

Ok, I hate to have to do this, but I'm putting my admin foot down. This little personal spat needs to end, somehow. This thread is being locked.