The band OK Go revolutionized the music video with the 2016 release of “Upside Down & Inside Out,” the first music video to be shot weightlessly in zero gravity.
Camera men were floating, sound people were floating, and even the choreographer and film director required someone whose sole job was to hold onto her leg to keep her from floating away during shooting.The point of it all was to get past what was logical and create something new—a concept that the Chicago-bred band creates in all its music videos. They took this concept to the TED Talk stage to discuss how to find a truly wonderful idea—something that meeting planners can relate to, especially as they try to find the next-big idea or “wow factor” for their events.
Damian Kulash, the lead singer of OK Go, explains that the band is constantly searching for elements of wonder and surprise to incorporate into their music videos. While there are tons of untried ideas out there, people too often simply reshuffle ideas that have already been proven to be 100 percent reliable in order to avoid failure. So, instead of thinking these ideas up, the band “finds” them through a lot of trial and error, testing ideas that have yet to be proven as reliable.
In the TED Talk, “OK Go: How to Find a Wonderful Idea,” Kulash shares the band’s “This Too Shall Pass” video, which requires 130 moving parts to go exactly as planned. Check it out to gain inspiration for new ideas that incorporate an element of surprise for your next event.
