OK Go Filmed a Zero Gravity Music Video That Put One Direction's NASA Clip to Shame

"Upside Down & Inside Out" is carefully choreographed and was shot in a single take

By Rebecca Macatee Feb 11, 2016 6:51 PMTags
OK Go - Upside Down & Inside Out

Hello, Dear Ones. Please enjoy our new video for "Upside Down & Inside Out". A million thanks to S7 Airlines. #GravitysJustAHabit

Posted by OK Go on Thursday, February 11, 2016

One Direction set the bar pretty high with their filmed-at-NASA "Drag Me Down" music video, but OK Go's raised it even further.

The alternative rock group released their new, zero gravity music video for "Upside Down & Inside Out" Thursday via Facebook, and this foursome took full advantage of their outer space-esque environment. (To be fair, 1D was only working in partial gravity conditions, so unlike OK Go, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, Harry Styles and Liam Payne did, indeed, have a little bit of gravity dragging them down.)

This clip features OK Go band members Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka and Andy Ross putting their carefully choreographed moves to the test—and without the help of any special effects!

"What you are about to see is real," reads a disclaimer at the start of the video. "We shot this in zero gravity, in an actual plane, in the sky. There are no wires or green screen."

The guys do flips, bounce off the walls and have all kinds of fun with disco balls and paint. They even hired two aerialist acrobats to dress up as flight attendants for the clip. According to a FAQ section on OK Go's website, the video "took months [to] plan and set up," but the band members "were actually on site near the Cosmanaut Training Center in Russia for 3 weeks." During that time they did 21 flights and experienced a total of about two hours and fifteen minutes in weightlessness. The ran through the routine eight times over eight flights, but the final product was all from one take*.

"Yes, it's all one continuous take, but there's a bunch of time removed," the band explained on their website. "Again, the longest stretch of zero gravity we can get is about 27 seconds, and then it takes five minutes to reset to do it again. We wanted the whole video to take place in weightlessness, so we designed the routine in 27 second chunks, scenes that start and end right at the moments gravity is going and coming back. After we filmed a scene, when gravity returned, we stayed as still as we could for the five minutes of the plane climbing, and then began the next scene as soon as we were weightless again. When we were done, we chose our best take and cut out all of the long reset periods, so the routine is continuous and feels seamless."

We'll buy it. Job well done, fellas.

On another note, watch the video below to find out about the newest member of the 1D family.