Hasta La Creative!

OK Go has collaborated with plenty of brands—including Chevrolet, Google, Samsung and State Farm—on its own music videos. But here is the first truly traditional commercial the band has ever filmed. Though of course, this being OK Go, it’s far from typical.

The ad, which the band worked on in China for much of February, is for the Chinese furniture store Red Star Macalline. Full of optical illusions, it visually references OK Go’s 2014 video “The Writing’s on the Wall” (which the band later accused Apple of ripping off) but is set to another OK Go track, “I Won’t Let You Down” (a remixed version by drummer Dan Konopka).

Hear the band talk about the project here:

CREDITS
Director: Damian Kulash Jr.
Co-Director & Creative Director: Mary Fagot

Executive Producer: Fung Ni
Director of Photography: Luke Geissbuhler
Art Director: Julius Mak
Production Manager: Bihong,Chan
Assistant Director: Joan Chen

Photograph group:
Steadicam Operator: Alec Jarnagin
1st Assistant : Kenan Qi
Assistants: Xinfeng Zhang Hongyan, zhang Yanru, wang
Equipement: Wei Pang
Digital Image Engineer: Tiger
Equipement Company: Yiying Shanghai

Light Group:
Lightman: Kok Kin Wing
1st Assistant: Jingdong Wang
Light Assistant: Bin Xu Xinbin Jiang Yongchao Hu Chaoliang Wang Yang An
Light Equipment : Chenjun Zhou

Art Group:
1st Assistant: Ong Wan Hoong
Art Assistants: Harris Eddie Sequerah, Rae Chen
Props: Songyi Wu
Studio Factory Manager: Yubin Xia
Recordist: Yan Xia

Production Group:
Executive Producer: Xiaoming Tang
Production Assistants: Jojo Ying Yuanbiao Wang Yong Dong Longhui Li Yi Zheng
Translator: Lingyi Chen, Yifei Gu
Runner: Chao Huang
Transport: Shuguang You

Casting: Fei Huang, Jingyuan Yuan
Choreography: Guanglei Zhang
Dancers: Weijia zhou, Chuanjing XU, Kaijie Wang, Xi Xu, Zhijing Cao, Yimian Song, Xuqin Hua, Wentao Fan, Qin Zhang, Xubin Geng, Chunmeng Yan

Costume:
Stylist Director: Mengjia Zhan
Stylists: Yuanjun Xiao, Shiqi Zhang, Yinghui Huang, Zhihui Wang, Chen Wang, Bin Lang, Huiting Wang

Postproduction
Offline Editor: Fenny
TC : Jian Wang
Online user: CiCi & Yuqian Jin
Post Producer: Jojo Ying
Behind the Scene: Steven
Post Production Company: Liveplus Shanghai, Film Vally Shanghai
Music Studio : Take One, Shanghai

General Planner: Red Star Macalline “Two Days coming” program
Agency: 25hours, Shanghai
Production House: STEAM ,Shanghai
Advertising Agency Executive Creative Director: Lei Tao
Advertising Agency Creative Director: Song Zhang
Advertising Agency Art Director: Lei Shi, Binyan Huang
Account Director: Lingning Yan
Account Executive: Yan Huang, Da Li

Does the three-minute “Perspective” film that kicked off Apple’s product event on Tuesday borrow ideas from a popular music video by OK Go? The band seems to think so and is weighing its legal options, its manager, Andy Gershon, tells Bloomberg Businessweek.

Both “Perspective” and OK Go’s “The Writing’s on the Wall” video take place inside large white rooms and rely on optical illusions. In Apple’s mainly black-and-white video, tricks of perspective make inspirational slogans like “See things differently” and “Follow a vision” appear as the camera pans around.

OK Go’s more colorful film sees band members interacting with various objects in different ways to create a series of hypnotic visuals. That video has been viewed more than 10 million times since June and won an MTV Video Music Award for optical effects.

Perhaps most damningly, Gershon says OK Go pitched its visual concept to Apple in April, hoping for a collaboration with the brand, but the company declined. After OK Go made its own video, Apple hired the same production company, 1stAveMachine, to create “Perspective.”

Apple did not immediately respond to AdFreak’s requests for comment.

In advertising and other creative fields, it’s not unusual for similar concepts to crop up in work from different sources. Tricks of perspective have been used in several notable campaigns lately, including this trippy Honda CR-V spot from 2013, which some found derivative of an earlier ad by Audi.

For Apple, it’s a particularly thorny issue, though, because appearing to borrow concepts from others repudiates the brand’s core message of being original and innovative. Simply put, Gershon believes Apple didn’t think differently enough when creating its film. “The videos speak for themselves,” he says, “and you can draw your own conclusions.”

Voici le clip officiel pour le titre “This Too Shall Pass”, dirigé par James Frost, OK Go et Syyn Labs. Une impressionnante machine conçue par le groupe durant plusieurs mois. Produit par Shirley Moyers, la captation a été réalisée dans un entrepôt de 2 étages et dans le quartier de Echo Park.

Previously on Fubiz

• Experiencing Abstract Information
• The Airplane Hangar
• Gorillaz – Stylo