OK Go’s Kaleidoscopic Splitscreen Is Pouring Hope into the World’s “Depressing Reality”

OK Go’s latest music video for ‘A Stone Only Rolls Downhill’ is one of those that you watch and then immediately hit the play button again. One of those where you immediately scour the comments to check if everyone else is, firstly, as awestruck as you, and secondly have spotted hidden details that you might not have noticed yet. It is, as ever with OK Go, an outrageously impressive visual spectacle that’s been pulled off thanks to the band’s frontman and co-director Damian Kulash, director Chris Buongiorno, and the help of 64 iPhones. 

Produced through Park Pictures in the US, Damian’s long-time collaborator on OK Go music videos and the company that reps him for commercials, ‘A Stone Only Rolls Downhill’ is a continuation of the band’s legacy for virality. Not only memorable for its visual quality, the song in itself is a welcome commentary on the state of the world at the moment, its opening line, “I wish I could say, it would all be all right”, reflecting the uncertainty that many are feeling right now, and an optimism that things will get better. 

 

“It [the music video] is our way of playing with splitscreen, because the song is about the splitscreen we’re all living with. We have so deeply fucked up the world, and it’s getting worse by the day, whether you’re talking about climate or geopolitics," says Damian, speaking with LBB. "In the face of that depressing reality, the only way to keep putting one foot in front of the next is to have faith that goodness and justice will ultimately prevail. That splitscreen between the hope, (which is just necessary), and anxiety (which is just realism) seems to get more stark all the time.”

The film is a mosaic of colour and vibrancy, each frame expertly crafted to deliver just what it needs to in each moment. Building layer upon layer, the video opens with one iPhone before forming a kaleidoscopic chorus of movement, sewing the screens together as each device shows its own video whilst forming part of a bigger picture simultaneously. 

Shooting the film on 64 iPhones acts as a continuation of the song’s message, but seeing as OK Go doesn't do things by halves, the split screen effect that came from it had to be achieved in real time. “Since this is an OK Go video, the split screen has to be a physical, practical, understandable thing”, says Damien. “The whole ‘thing’ with our videos is trying to keep the humans who are watching right there in the room with the humans who are performing.” 

Damian and Chris were keen for the video to feel grounded in reality, so at times when it felt like it was becoming “too digital”, they would find a way to counteract it. “We didn’t need to plug the array of phones in, for instance; their batteries would last as long as we needed. But seeing the nest of cabling and chargers and stuff really helped keep it physical and grounded,” explains Chris. 

Adding a tangible element such as the phone chargers was part of a broader way of thinking that informed the making of the video, and the way the band wanted audiences to feel and respond as they watched it.

“Film generally is about suspension of disbelief; we know we’re not really in outer space, but those stars zooming by sure are thrillingly convincing.” Damian says, “But when anything is possible, nothing is really that surprising. So our aim is kind of the opposite – we want the viewer to immediately understand how it’s all made – to feel every step and layer of it – so the world they’re seeing is our real world, and they’re in it with us. That way when something amazing happens, it’s genuinely amazing. Most filmmaking uses invisible magic to take you somewhere imaginary –  our aim is to ground you somewhere real and then hope we can make visible magic.”

OK Go offered transparency into how the video was made in another way too, releasing a behind the scenes video sponsored by Project Management Institute alongside the film, allowing fans and curious viewers to take a look at just how the technical feat was pulled off. 

You wouldn’t be alone in thinking that if you’re gearing up to work with so much technology at once, and rely on it to bring your vision to life, one of the hardest parts of the process would be getting the tech to cooperate. However, Damian admits that was not the case. “Believe it or not, the biggest challenges weren’t with the tech, they were with the limitations of our own imaginations,” he recalls. 

The band’s creative process is rooted in play and discovery, which sees a simple idea turn into a playground for testing, experimenting and uncovering new ways of doing things, but preparation for ‘A Stone Only Rolls Downhill’ saw the process take much longer. 

“With this video, the process of play had to be radically stretched out, because any idea we wanted to try required shooting 5 or 15 or 40 clips and assembling them together. We couldn't intuitively feel how ideas would work, spread across so many little rectangles, so we just had to adopt a slow-motion version of play where we’d try out one idea per day instead of several per hour.” Damian recounts, “Every once in a while, the tech would slow us down even more, but for the most part, the biggest challenge wasn’t in getting so many phones to work at the same time, it was in getting our brains to imagine what it would look like when they did.”

Damian and Chris’ collaboration was facilitated by Park Pictures, after Damian realised he was in need of assistance from an “After Effects badass to streamline a system for quickly iterating, playing, and discovering stuff”, with Chris’ vivid imagination and mathematical mindset proving vital in bringing the concept to life. 

A defining moment in production that stands out for the pair comes from what Damian describes was initially considered “a moment of failure”, as attempts to craft the perfect finale failed. After spending hours upon hours trying “to briefly tip an impossible idea into the realm of the possible, we finally finished a test which proved, unfortunately, that our idea wasn’t gonna work.” Damian reflects. 

“That’s also when most people pull into their shells and get protective and start turning against each other. And Chris did the opposite, he leaned in and we laughed and learned. A day or two later we were back on track with a new and better idea.” Damian says, “Those turning points are so rare, so delicate. For me, it changed the whole tenor of our collaboration. Anyone can be a good team player when things are going well, but the people who can see the lemonade on the other side of the lemons are a rare breed.”

For Chris, the moment shared the same importance to him, telling LBB, “As heartbreaking as it was, it was such a pivotal moment in the process that really defined our partnership and trust in each other.” 

Reflecting on the experience of working on the video, and the feeling of when it all came together, Chris adds, “I’m sure this is true of all OK Go videos but that moment on set when it all came together perfectly for the first time was particularly special for me. Seeing the final grid of 42 phones play their individual videos in sync was such a cathartic moment, especially after the countless hours of creative exploration, mathematical calculation, and emotional tribulations we endured — delayed gratification at its finest.”

Finishing the conversation, Damian surmises, “OK Go is unique, of course - we’re ‘the video band’; the band that makes weird, elaborate art projects, and I feel so lucky to have stumbled into such an unlikely niche. It’s my personal happy place, chasing ambitious ideas, and most singers don’t get the chance to branch out into a directing career.”