OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine - Official Video
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as an example of ambitious, practical-effects creativity in music videos, made without CGI.
What it is
OK Go's music video for This Too Shall Pass, featuring a huge Rube Goldberg machine built in a warehouse in Los Angeles with Syyn Labs. The band interacts with the contraption in one continuous take.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2010 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec Intermernet · 2013-06 · on “Seriously.js”
That was OK, Go ( [LINK] ) . The song is "WTF?" They're famous for quirky video clips (original for this song is at [LINK] ). You should watch [this video] . You'll like it. Trust me.
Recommends Perceval · 2010-04 · on “Another lovely Google Chrome ad - Extensions”
Reminds me a bit of Ok Go's latest video: [this video] Seems like something Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze ( [LINK] ) would do. I think it is abstract, but I like it a whole lot nonetheless. It's creative and cute and whimsical. Kudos!
Recommends derrybryson · 2011-11 · on “Stop motion video shot over 2 years with 288,000 jelly beans”
Not really. Stop-motion music videos have been done quite a bit, especially 10 years ago and more. There was a time before CGI when artists shot "videos" on film and computers weren't capable of the things they are today. Consider the Peter Gabriel videos: [LINK] [LINK] both of which feature various types of stop-motion animation as well as other effects. Also consider the works of Bruce Bickford whom Frank Zappa hired to work on several videos. This guy is a genius/savant, I don't know which. Zappa saw the genius and funded some incredible work. [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] You also might want to check out: [this video] and their other videos, which aren't stop-motion but are incredible videos made with
Recommends ymse · 2016-11 · on “OK Go’s video, for the song “The One Moment”, took only 4.2 seconds to film”
OK Go really do make some amazing music videos. The Rube Goldberg machine [0] one is particularily impressive. It even got its own TED talk [1]. 0: [this video] 1: [LINK]
Recommends gosub100 · 2026-05 · on “The Greatest Shot in Television: James Burke Had One Chance to Nail This Scene”
Reminds me of the 3 minute rube Goldberg machine in "this too shall pass" by Ok Go. [this video] I thought they really did it all in one cut but there are at least two. Still a great music video and song.
Cites ugh · 2011-11 · on “Stop motion video shot over 2 years with 288,000 jelly beans”
This video would be pretty uninteresting had they used artificial jelly beans. I think everyone is aware that it’s trivial to convert a simple animation to a jelly bean animation. That’s not the point. Art works by different rules. (Hey, and if you like to be a cynic about it you can also say that viral videos work by different rules. OK Go owes their fame to never taking shortcuts when creating their music videos†.) (I think that placing the singer directly on the jelly beans allowed them to do certain tricks that would be harder to accomplish otherwise: pay attention to the lighting or the costume changes. It’s not clear to me whether using a green screen would really have saved time.) — †
Cites mgdlbp · 2024-05 · on “Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'”
Brings to mind the OK GO music video with all the exploded guitars that they stated were already junk. Spilled paint is reminiscent of their videos too. They also smashed pianos in the Rube Goldberg video, and a TV with a sledge. Now I wonder if that was a 1984 reference. [LINK] [this video]