OK Go on TV shows, movies commercials etc.

Unknown

I'm dying to see! Would anyone mind Youtubing it? please?

target35ghost

Anyone who DVR'd it...? Youtube?

Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore said he was going to look into finding out how Brits can watch, but he hasn't got back to me since. And it sounds awesome.

Who kicked a hole in a treadmill???

plane8order

QUOTE (Electra @ Dec 1 2007, 08:09 PM)

Anyone who DVR'd it...? Youtube?

Mr. Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore, Whom I Adore said he was going to look into finding out how Brits can watch, but he hasn't got back to me since. And it sounds awesome.

Who kicked a hole in a treadmill???

I DVR'd it but I don't know how to put it on the internet.

Damian kicked a hole in the treadmill bc he messed up on the jamiriqui(sp).

LolaBert

Oh I wish I can see this!
Spare a lowly Aussie fan the heartbreak and put this up somewhere? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

QUOTE

I DVR'd it but I don't know how to put it on the internet.

Damian kicked a hole in the treadmill bc he messed up on the jamiriqui(sp).

Awww, wish I could help you, but I'm totally hopeless at stuff like that!
How can you kick a hole in a treadmill? I wouldn't wanna piss off Damian, yikes!

walk2sock

Ah, I don't get that channel! A lot of searching has yielded fruitless... if anyone could find an online version, I probably would love you forever.

person4target

In response to this:
Being a straight boy in a gay bar is so much fun -
All the girls are like "Ooo i bet I can turn you"
And you just go "oh, i bet you can't, sweety!" *acts camp* - Damian Kulash

Damian,
Your Sex appeal is irresistible and that Video (Invincible) WoW Guy your gonna make us girls and gals go looney.

Please keep up the great performances,
and hats off to all those extras you have circulating.

DJRose

Hi Guys. I transcribed the FUSE special. I know some of you can't see it, and this should at least give you an idea of what was said. I'm sorry I don't know how to get it online for you.

Alan Light (music journalist): In 2006 the digital world is in transformation and is really taking over.
Corey Moss (Music journalist): in 2006 literally almost half of the country got high speed internet connections and that meant suddenly, you could watch a video on the web and enjoy it with ease.
Daniel Sieberg (CBS News): Youtube started in about February of 2005 and when it first came out I don't think people really knew what they would use it for. The idea of posting and sharing videos online was relatively new.
Steven Smith (music journalist): Things like Lonelygirl15 and Numa Numa and that kind of thing showed that anybody could make a video and get it out there for people to see.
Trish: Everybody is feeling this same phenomena right now which is "We don't need gatekeepers so much anymore".
Alan Light (music journalist): Musicians had not yet grasped this idea of you could put video out there and it could be instantly and immediately spread out in a million different directions. That light bulb hadn't gone on.
Narr: The Internet boom had changed the rules for entertainers. But nobody thought that 4 paisley-clad, synchro-dancing indie rockers would give viral video its tipping point.
Damian: A brief history of OK Go. Tim and I met at summer camp in Michigan and we started a band there. We stayed friends for years and years and years and sent each other mixtapes through high school and so forth. After we both graduated college I moved to Chicago and we started a new band, OK Go.
Contessa Brewer (MSNBC): OK Go was a fairly successful band when it comes to Indie Rock.They had been signed by Capitol Records and they had a loyal following.
Narr: Hardly the typical brooding rockers, OK Go was prone to euphoric dance numbers, and eccentric fashions. Not an easy fit for the marketing culture of the music industry. (ed. note: at this point they are showing a picture from Irving Plaza I think with Marcass from Quit Your Day Job standing in front of Dan's drum set in his underwear. Just sayin'.) Their first album had failed to make much noise. But rather than try to change their image, OK Go just kept on dancing.
Damian: We were getting ready to go off on tour and we had to come up with a new dance routine for our new album.
Trish: Their fans EXPECT dancing from OK Go. They're legendary with their dancing. It started out when they got asked to perform on Chicago-go which is like a cable access show in Chicago. Then it kind of became this kitschy thing that they would do in their live shows.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: And they had this song called "A Million Ways" and it seemed like it was just sort of begging for the same kind of treatment.
Damian: So we made this dance with my sister who was a professional ballroom dancer at the time. And we just figured it was part of our live routine and that was kind of it.
Trish: And we filmed it to see how it looked and see, you know, that it worked
Damian: When we watched it back, it sort of dawned on us this is actually a music video. It's kind of perfect because it was just homemade, you know? It was just like something we had done ourselves. It was shot in my backyard and it just like, it was a real event.
show matrix bit of AMW.
Narr: But all that jazz didn't exactly impress their label.
Jamie Kitman (manager of OK Go): We actually brought it in and showed it to some people at the label and they were horrified.
Bill Werde (Billboard): We're talking about a moment in sort of music video history where videos were kind of very stylized - it was all this like very slick Hollywood Production.
Jamie Kitman: A senior executive said to us "If anybody ever sees this you're sunk".
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: And so basically we decided to take matters into our own hands.
Jamie Kitman: A DVD copy of it was given to a fan, I believe in Toronto, and the next thing we knew it started popping up all over the place.
Tim: That went up on like people's blogs and myspace pages.
Damian: It was on iFilm, I remember you could kind of track it on iFilm. There wasn't like a central sharing agent for the online video world. You know there was like people sort of competing to be "that thing". But youtube hadn't taken over the game yet.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: It started getting some views, people started passing it around.
Damian: Our label doesn't even know it's out there, and within a month it had been downloaded like 200,000 times.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: When Capitol found out that the video had been leaked to the internet, they had a right to be angry.
Damian: And we were lucky they didn't sue us, cuz technically they could have. I mean since they own the copyright to that recording, we were using their material.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: A few emails went around, you know, in all caps. Lots of exclamation points. But other than that, they basically tried to ignore it.
Narr: But thanks to viral video, the game was changing faster than anyone realized. The voice of the fan had power, and OK Go wanted to feed it.
Damian: We had started to realize, if we can make a music video like this by accident, we should make one on purpose. You know? We should just, like, set out with the same basic goal, but ratchet it up a level. Instead of just dancing this time, like, really figure out some way to screw with it. So we got my sister back on the phone -
Trish: And I wanted to have Dancing On Treadmills. I've been at the gym and I've seen these things. They are Raw, Unused Power. There's handlebars, there's moving platforms, there's things you can jump on, there's things you can swing under, and all people do is walk on them. (ed. note: Trish has this fabulous WTF look on her face - I wish I could post a picture of this for you guys) So it was time to bring them to the next level.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: After the response to A Million Ways, they knew there was no way that they were gonna get Capitol to approve of this or even look at it.
Damian: We didn't wanna propose the treadmill video to our label as a real funded, big production. We just wanted to have control of it ourselves...
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: So they pooled their money together...
Jamie Kitman: They were all broke, and they were about to spend thousands of dollars on doing this thing that's - reallyis a, it's a covert operation. It's a "dark op".
Narr: In secret, OK Go headed to Florida to shoot a crazy music video. Exactly the way they wanted. There was no precedent, and plenty of risk. And if their plan failed, their careers would be going nowhere.
(Commercial Break)
Narr: OK Go had a vision and a plan for their singing and dancing extravaganza. All they lacked was money, label support, and 8 treadmills.
Trish: It's amazingly difficult to find 8 treadmills of the same model. And there was only one place in all of sort of the state of Florida that would provide 8 of the exact model. But they didn't want to rent them to us, and they said "you can buy them, but then you'll have to return them if you're not satisfied and pay a restocking fee."
Tim: I don't think he fully understood what we were gonna do on those things.
Damian: No, I don't think he did.
Trish: Directing it was a big team effort. I mean we knew we wanted to do it in one take because it was so colossally difficult to pull off this dance that we didn't want anybody to doubt that it could be done and was being done.
Damian: The treadmills were delivered her house.
Tim: I was Way too scared to do it at first.
Damian: When you're standing there looking at, like, a rolling piece of rubber that could take your face right off, like, it's Terrifying.
Tim: (laughs) Extremely Terrifying.
Trish: It is just this berserk landscape of moving rubber and there's really nothing to grab on to.
Tim: Dan and I were probably the biggest scardeycats and we sent Damian and Andy, our guitarist, sort of to the front lines to try out a bunch of the different moves and then they would come back and tell us of their tales.
Trish: We filmed the footage at the end of the first day, just to see if this was even worth continuing, cuz it was pretty brutal. At the end of the first day, in fact, Andy the guitarist said "We cannot do this, someone's gonna die." (Dramatic music) And when we watched the footage we were like, "this is magical enough that we have to risk it." We choreographed the thing over the course of about 5 days, and then rehearsed it, non-stop, 12 grueling hours a day for the next three days.
Tim: It was pretty difficult -
Damian: It was basically just throwing yourself at the treadmills. And 9 times out of 10 it's like really injurious. Like you wind up in the middle of them being chewed up like one'll be eating at your hair and the other's like chewing your pants off and - there were some pretty painful experiences.
Trish: There were a lot of big big bruises, hematomas, twisted ankles...
Damian: And then by the end of the week we had the whole thing ready to shoot.
Trish: Then we shot it all in one day.
Damian: The shoot day was really, it was kinda the same as the rest of the days it was just kinda like now we don't do it in sweatpants we do it in clothing.
Tim: I was dancing in like cuban heels. I had these like white cuban heels on. You know It's a difficult thing to jog on a treadmill with cuban heels on.
Damian: It's difficult for any of us to jog, period. We're not particularly athletic people. So I think - It's just like, it's 3 and a half minute pop song. You just have to get through 3 and a half minutes without screwing up. You know and it's always like right at 2:50 or 3:15 that somebody would like, "GAHHHHH!"
Trish: So, we got about 15 takes and of those 2 of them were kind of good enough and we had to decide. One of the takes was cleaner than the other, but the most magical take of all, it was just like crisp and clean from the start, and they went for it and everybody was perfect, and about 4 seconds from the end Damian screwed up.
Record scratching, sad sad chords playing
Damian: During the so-called "Jamiroquai" move, you can see me like, I start to trip. And that was my move. The ice skating is everyone's move, I mean, everyone enjoys the ice skating, you know? But it was like the "Jamiroquai" was one that I felt particularly invested in. And of course, in the final take, I was the one who screwed it up. You know? I was going for just a little extra slide, you know? Little extra Panache. And whaddaya know, I just get, screw up.
Trish: And he was so angry he kicked a hole in one of the treadmills right after that. And they never found it, luckily, when we returned them.
Damian: That night we went to the bar, we went back to my sister's house, we reviewed what we had done in part shame and part joy and we transferred it onto my laptop and laughed.
Trish: We were pretty sure that we were sitting on something pretty spectacular, at least we thought we were? So we weren't really sure what to do with it.
Damian: There just didn't seem like a reason to put out a new video. The label hadn't decided that song was a single or anything, there was no like promotional push behind it.
Narr: The band headed back out on the road. But with each passing gig they sensed the support from their label was waning. (visual: promo picture of all four boys with their faces in their hands)
Jamie Kitman: The record was about a year old, we were on tour with Panic! At the Disco, and you know, the label wasn't showing up for their gigs...
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: And I think Capitol was, they were moving on. Record labels have a cycle for bands and they'll work on a band for a certain amount of time and if you haven't sold 300,000/500,000/ 750,000 copies, they move on to other projects. And that's pretty much what was gonna happen with OK Go.
Jamie Kitman: We kept trying to persuade them that it was time to put out an OK Go single, that we really had fans. And they really weren't interested.
Narr: The band's only hope was to unveil their quirky, self-made video to the label, and pray that it would kick-start the promotional machine and their careers.
Trish: So we showed the treadmill video to the people at the label and they were just kind of like "You guys did another dance, alright, yeah..."
Jamie Kitman: We kept saying "Why don't you take it to the music networks?" and they're like "They'll never play it, it's too low-budget."
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: Capitol didn't have a plan, they didn't know what they wanted to do with it. And so, they didn't do anything with it.
Narr: Their options were running out. And their label had nearly checked out. But nobody knew that OK Go's flamboyant video was poised to blow everyone's preconceived ideas to pieces.
(Invincible drum kit explodes, commercial break)
Narr: OK Go's future looked bleak. Their eccentric new video didn't excite the label, and seemed unlikely to ever see the light of day.
Trish: The album was running its course. It was like "well, if we're going to put this thing out, now is the time." They just knew that now or never.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: I spent like six months or a year on youtube just building up an OK Go community. Pretty much just treating youtube in the same way that bands treat myspace. But nobody on youtube was doing that so - there was already a huge group of people on youtube that were waiting for anything by OK Go.
Damian: It's like, put up on youtube and within a day it had been downloaded a million times.
Trish: OK Go's fans are incredible, they're crazy and they just sort of like swung into action like a finely-oiled machine. And it sort of went viral almost immediately.
Damian: And we were kinda like "Whoa!" You know like "That was quick!" And within a week it was like 5 million or 7 million and it was just you know like you could sort of feel the earth shaking it was like "This is going REALLY fast."
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park: I thought it was a riot. I mean it was just such a great idea.
Fergie, of Fergie: Where did they come up with that routine?
Panic! At the Disco guy: There's actually one move in there that I remember that actually looked pretty crazy. They're walking on the opposite way and then they do a 180 and then they keep doing that through all four treadmills and that's, that's kind of crazy and they're still in like a straight line.
Fergie: I'm thinking they must've rehearsed this A LOT.
Mike Shinoda: To see a young band do something so crazy? It was really refreshing.
Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna (music journalist): And everybody was forwarding it to people, and as soon as you saw it you were forwarding to a hundred people
Contessa Brewer (MSNBC): I sent it to my mom, who then passed it on to my grandmother.
Daniel Sieberg (CBS News): It was viral! It Defined a "viral video".
Narr: It wasn't just a viral video, "Here It Goes Again" was a full-on epidemic, and at long last, it woke up OK Go's record label to the idea that this band had life.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: Capitol went into overdrive. They made a ton more CDs and got them into stores, and within a couple of weeks the band was back on the charts.
Damian: It was almost like our album had just been released all over again, it was like #1 on the same charts again. You know it really did the exact same thing twice.
Tim: We actually sold more records in that 53rd week than we did the first week.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: The video got so huge so fast that within a few weeks of it being posted on youtube they were asked to perform at the Video Awards.
Damian: Justin Timberlake was like "yeah I just wanted to say that video was super-awesome and I downloaded all your stuff on youtube." You're thinking like maybe like your nerdy fan sitting at home before bedtime is like clicking being like (high pitched voice) "I wonder how they made the record" but you certainly don't think that Justin Timberlake is doing that.
Tim: Yeah, we've been stopped by like, P.Diddy, Snoop Dogg, and I think Common even raps about us in one of his songs.
Damian: Yeah. That's pretty awesome.
Tim: Yeah.
Narr: The video's break-out success, and the band's resurrection proved that the internet's promotional power was for real, and a new age had officially arrived.
Talib Kweli (Hip Hop Artist): I have my own Youtube channel, and I'm all over the world. People post videos of their shows; I post up my own videos
Panic! At the Disco: And if there's something we want our fans to know about, you can just send it and it goes out to 2 million people.
Daniel Sieberg: Bands now are thinking hey, we can do a version that's more for the internet crowd. So the video might be a little edgier, a little quirkier, a little lower budget, but it's something that will appeal to that internet community.
Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore: Even the biggest stars are doing this. For Kanye West's most recent single he made two versions - a big budget one for Music Television, and another one that went straight to the internet. And the internet one's a lot better.
Narr: The video's greatest impact may be in opening the closed gates of the entertainment industry. Now labels, networks, and studios are surfing the web to find the next big thing.
Fergie: I definitely think that nowadays record labels take into account the internet and what power it has. Today it's an avenue in which you can make a career.
Bill Werde (Billboard): You have like an Esmee Denters from the Netherlands? She's an amazing singer and she just kinda put her voice out there and I think recently she was signed by like Justin Timberlake to a recording contract. So we've come a long way from the treadmill, I guess.
Narr: And it all started with one dance routine, 8 treadmills, and a band willing to challenge the system.
Trish: It is kind of the poster child for the "Anybody can do it era."
Alan Light (music journalist): This video really will stand as the moment that the audience and the industry saw "we're living in a different world now".
Trish: This video spanked the music video industry. This video is like the president of the 7th grade math team coming in and just like grabbing the 12th grade bully and giving him a wedgie. And so I think people like that. And no amount of money and fancy cars, production value up the nose and out the ear but it doesn't compare to just people doing something cool. And putting their heart into it.

week84crab

Wow. Kudos to you for doing that!

I think the last Trish statement is, by far, my favorite. She's awesome and hilarious:)

mayonaise

yeah, that was awesome!!!!!!!

... still want to see it so badly though...

DJRose

:-D It's no big. I kinda do stuff like that for a living, so it's easy.

But now I've got Football on (for the hubbie) and they just had a run down of the college league set to HIGA! YAY!!!

Unknown

YAY!!!! Thanks so much Rachel!

I think I should start watching football...just for the sake of OK Go.

walk2sock

Oh, Rachel, you're so amazing!

I'm debating whether or not to read it... just in case it somehow does make it to the internet, because then I wouldn't want it to be spoiled. But it seems so much fun. Ahhh.

agentnumone

Rachel! TOO rad! Thanks a lot!

aww tugged at the ole heart strings kinda...

jorge

QUOTE (DJRose @ Dec 2 2007, 07:19 PM)

it doesn't compare to just people doing something cool. And putting their heart into it.

That's what it all boils down to, honestly.


Thanks for posting this, as I haven't seen it yet. I was worried because most of my interview was me making funny animal sounds and coming up with fantastical nicknames for Mr. Tim, but they made me sound all professional and stuff. thanks, editors!



jorge

punkwhitechocolate

My dad was like who is this Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore guy? he seems like some guy that just really likes them and they found on the internet. I defended your honor, don't worry, he stands corrected now.

Unknown

Haha I didn't see it yet, but I'm sure you looked great, Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore!

rice62witch

That was awesome, Rachel!

On a separate note...this is a repeat and it's the full one-hour version. I saw this on repeat about a year ago and it was not edited out.

Comedy Central
MAD TV:(MD-820) - 04/05/2003

Sat 12.08 @ 08:00 AM ET
Sun 12.09 @ 07:00 AM ET

Info: Sketches include spoofs of "Mariah Carey," "Jenny Jones," "Nightline" and "Mary Tyler Moore." Musical guests OK Go! perform their single "Get Over It".

DJRose

QUOTE (Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore @ Dec 3 2007, 12:18 AM)

That's what it all boils down to, honestly.


Thanks for posting this, as I haven't seen it yet. I was worried because most of my interview was me making funny animal sounds and coming up with fantastical nicknames for Mr. Tim, but they made me sound all professional and stuff. thanks, editors!



Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore

You forgot to mention the pink wedding dress and the eyeliner.

In all seriousness though, Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore, you really were fairly professional-sounding. Trish, Damian, and Tim were all pretty much the lunatics we expect them to be, but you were very matter-of-fact about it. It was great to see you on TV though!

ezorvera

Thank you so much for typing that out Rachel!

Surfer Rosa

QUOTE (punkwhitechocolate @ Dec 3 2007, 12:33 AM)

My dad was like who is this Mr. Mr. Jorge, Whom I Adore, Whom I Adore guy? he seems like some guy that just really likes them and they found on the internet. I defended your honor, don't worry, he stands corrected now.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Thanks for the transcript Rachel.

Rosa