Rube Goldberg machines

I don’t know how many of you recall the band OK Go’s awesome video with them dancing on treadmills, for their song Here it Goes Again. But they’ve got another awesome video for their song This Too Shall Pass – and it’s on YouTube. The video features a Rube Goldberg Machine, which is, as Wikipedia puts it, “a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction”.

Another example of a music video that uses this kind of machine is The Bravery’s An Honest Mistake. OK Go’s video is the best by far. If you’re still not knowing what I’m getting at and haven’t checked out the videos yet, think about a line of dominoes standing up one after another. You tap one, and the whole line of dominoes falls over in succession. Now imagine this in a larger scale. (Like Over Four Million Dominoes.)

Now imagine this being even more complicated, with the dominoes activating something else. Balls falling, balls rolling, water spilling, traps opening, hammers clanging – and that’s pretty much what you’ve got. Try thinking of the game Mousetrap, which worked by the same principle.

I feel like I am amused by such little things. :P

But what I think about is how much attention I pay to the video compared to the music. In the case of OK Go and The Bravery, I love both their music. I don’t know if it’s a bad thing when someone might pay more attention to the video clip than the song itself. Some people find the video clip infinitely better than the song, and they usually find that at the end of the clip, they don’t even recall any part of the song.

The thing I like about OK Go is that despite their videos being so interesting that you could watch them on mute, they dance and move to the beat of their songs. And their videos are made in such a way that they go with the flow of the song.

Perhaps the videos make me like the song more than I would with an alternate video clip. But I guess these things go hand in hand when you’re watching a video clip – not only do you have sound, but you’ve got visuals.

If anyone has any really good video clips for songs, feel free to share them in the comments. :) And who’s up for making a Rube Goldberg machine? /bounce Share all your awesome videos in the comments!

I have only a few days of semester left and then university is finished for the year. I’m really relieved and glad about it. I just want it over and done with. I have a few assignments left and some are due after classes finish, but I’ll live. :3

I’m mostly glad that Regulating Communication is over. I hated that subject. Big time. ;)

Comments on this post

I’m starting to OK Go’s music. So much so it’s starting to get into my ‘Big Four’ group (my favourite bands) and soon will have to be renamed the ‘Big Five’. XD;

Not only is their music good, but they’re very creative, especially with their low budget videos. Which is funny, because some of my Film Studies lectures talked about film movements that focused on low budgets films in order to be more creative! I don’t know, I find that amusing.

I would be up for doing a rube goldberg machine. I don’t know, but getting a big group of people and doing it all together feels like it would be so much fun haha.

Man, I love music. <3

I love music too! Ahh… the versatility of it is truly amazing. So amazing that I honestly can’t choose a single set of bands that I like the most. ;)

To make a film on a low budget would be a real challenge, but sometimes that leads you to delve into more “real” things and more experimentation, the way I see it. If you have heaps of money you could just touch everything up digitally and have something that looks super fancy, but there are a lot of films and music videos that are exceptional for low-budget. /bounce

Man, that has to be the best thing that’s ever involved the word ‘rube’.
Let’s make a mini one someday; one that cracks eggs into a pan or something /eee
But seriously, the precision in some of those parts was amazing. Ngeo!

Yeah, hating things Big Time is pretty ‘in’ right now. /sweat
Hehee, I’m feeling okay about this semester. :3 should be fineg

(Y)

Haha that’s what was in Back To The Future – or something similar, anyway. I’m craving eggs. :D

I find it hard to believe it was a continuous shot, and the way some of the things worked – what continues to baffle me is how they got the ball rolling down the swirly half-tube to hit that little target several metres away. The whole thing is totally amazing. XD

I love Rube Goldberg machines, and Ok Go’s video is quite the popular one for the subject. I love the song ‘An Honest Mistake’ as well but have never seen the video so I actually just checked it out, it’s pretty cool it’s like Domino Rally, into a Rube Goldberg – and I liked the end mistake. My little sister actually had to make a Rube Goldberg project for her class and I helped her film it – she had a bat acting as a pendulum to hit a car down a ramp, to hit into a baseball, which rolled into a book, which dropped down on a tube of toothpaste and squirted on a toothbrush :) We never uploaded the video online but if we do I’ll definitely share :)

I can’t think of any music videos that I think are really cool at the moment, but I thought of a band that has really weird music videos (not Rube Goldberg related), MGMT. For example their song ‘Time To Pretend” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9dSYgd5Elk

hey hun
i so want a graphics tablet i think it will come in handy XD ..
i only kept one diary it was half private, and half where i wrote little stories down, when i coould write stories lol.
i just wanted to ask how did u get over your ex? i need advice

i do the same to movies that u do with song music videos. im amazed by how they use special graphics and u can tell if the movie is really good if u ccant tell that they using special graphics or visual effects. im a movie fan, i have over 300 dvds at home /hehe

I love Rube Goldberg machines! They are so neat and cool, and so clever! Though I wonder how much of that video was actually Rube Goldberg and how much of it was video editing (filming until you get one mechanism right once). There are many factors that are hard to get exactly perfect, especially the ball rolling to hit the target. 💥

I do remember Here it Goes Again. I liked how that music video was playing on the TV that got smashed.

Wow, that music video is freaking awesome. Are all their videos that interesting?

I’ve never heard of the band before either, might have to try to find some of their songs to download. :)

I hope my mum likes the letter I write her. :)

And thanks, Currar and I brought him treats, two toys and some hair spray to help get knots out of his fur. :) He didn’t know why he was getting treated so well, was quite confused.

The first thing I thought of when I read that Wikipedia quote was Tom and Jerry. Tom was designing a mouse trap, it was totally complicated and the only result was a large safe box crashing onto the mouse. Complicated way of performing simple task with chain reaction.

I think I pay more attention to videos than music too. I enjoy watching people dance – usually what they do in the MVs I watch. Unless they suck at dancing that is, but most people in the K industry have talent and a lot of training. I don’t think I’d enjoy watching Lady Gaga dance -dies-

I think we should just go with DST time all year long. If we used DST now we’d get sunlight from 7 – 6, without DST it’s 6 – 5. I think more people are out in the afternoon than that early in the morning. I miss being in my backyard at 8PM when it’s bright out … well that will come back in May. Life is so much easier without changing clocks though. A lot of non-tropical-countries don’t use DST and they get by just fine.

Yeah I’d expect so. Doing it manually I’d have to type the same thing every time – or else I feel this weird twinge, it’s like OCD. But what can I say, it’s FanUpdate. I had to mess with the timezone problem again today.

It’s hot in Asia? I’ve only heard stories of it being cold. It’s really cold in Korea right now from what I hear, like below 0C at night (even we have warmer weather and we’re much to the north). But Indonesia is on the equator so it would be hot year round. I think I need a break from all-time heat though. I was told there are a lot of mosquito related diseases around the tropics because there’s no cold weather to kill them.

Haha some sleaze! Sorry that word is so funny. But it’s nice that you can keep a good relationship. So many people lack that these days, it annoys me so damn much.

Only 9 hours?! My best friend is doing communications design and she spends 27 hours in class alone, and for every hour of class they’re expected to put in an hour for homework. That’s what I might have to look forward to next year too. Australian university degrees mostly only 3 years? Every degree I know here is 4 years, or in some cases architecture 5 years, pre-med 8 years. I should go to Australia …

Hahaha that’s really nice to go for your biggest idol … if only I’ve never been to a concert and if Son Dambi was performing here. It sucks when all you favorite music originates from overseas. =( I think I’d prefer small concerts, because when I was at the concert I nearly got trampled. There was literally no breathing room, you’d have to touch everyone on all sides. Nasty. =(

I’d think that’s really rude. I don’t want people knocking on my door, ever. That includes my bedroom door. Which my mom doesn’t even knock before entering. She said if I want her to knock before coming in to my area I’d have to knock before leaving my room, because the rest of the house is her area. So ridiculous. >.<

I actually figured out a way to make codes for fanlistings. I made like 40 in one day! 0-0 though a lot of my subjects I can't seem to find good images for.

The whole concept of that is really cool, I’ve always found the Domino effect intriguing. I understand what you mean about watching music videos and sort of getting lost in them. I just recently watched the video for “Firework” by Katy Perry and the video alone made me teary eyed, even if I wasn’t listening to the lyrics of the song the video alone had a huge impact on me.

Yeah, I remember it very clearly. I didn’t know it was a band’s music video though. I’ve seen this video before, it’s amazing how it works! They must’ve been under so much pressure to get the words right, haha.

I’ve seen the four million dominoes video too! I wish that video was in better quality though. I remember when I was younger, I used to always make these massive (around 50 dominoes, but at the time it was massive for me) domino trails that I’d try and make go up-and-down the stairs, and off the sofa. Haha, I had about five sets of dominos, and the each came with a few things like a loop-the-loop, and stairs, haha.

I don’t really think about focusing on one, more than the other. It’s kind of.. Automatic, for me, haha. I honestly think that having a good video makes the song sounds slightly better, because you know what the song’s about.

I’ve seen one, but I’ll have to find it. It’s one of the 924,923,284 videos on YouTube. I’ll find it someday. Haha.

You’re so lucky! I’ve still got about four weeks until my next break! And that’s only for two weeks! Ah, well, I’m sure I’ll live. I hope you have a nice break!

That is a pretty cool music video. Have you ever seen the ‘Honda Cog’ advert? It’s amazing. They’re quite similar XD

Woahh I think the dominos one is even more amazing :O! It must be so hard to make something like that. At frustrating as well XD

I’m gonna be honest, like you I was just concentrating on the video not really the song itself, haha. On usual songs I tend to acknowledge both, but on things like this the clip is just so interesting that you forget you’re listening to an actual song ;P

I’ve made a RG machine in AP physics my junior year, we had to demonstrate certain things within the machine and such. I can’t remember the exact assignment, but I remember my team was made up of me, my twin and our two best friends, Justin and Danielle. Soooo, it was tons of fun XD And since it was our final project and the end of the year and whatevs it’s the last few days of school we got to spend an entire day with our physics teacher in the student lot combining the machines all six teams had made. I wish I could dig up that old video, I’m sure it’s on an EHD somewhere in my house, but it was awesome!

Well, congrats on almost being done! That sounds so nice. x_x

A lot of my music doesn’t have music videos, and I don’t think that I’ve watched a music video in like months O_O But I do love it when the pulses in the video match the beats in the music! It gets me pretty excited, too :D So I tend to like music due to its sound and how it makes me feel, but it makes sense that a director giving a feeling would be more likable either way…that’s interesting. I can’t remember some of the songs on my MP3 player because they don’t give me strong visuals.

Sorry I can’t think of any good video clips. 😳

I freaking LOVE machines like that. They’re so amazing. They must take so much time & effort & creativity & money to make. And you can only really do it ONCE, but I think it would be so worth it in the end. It would have been amazing to be in that group of people above it all.

I don’t really listen to OK Go that much, but I do love their other music video. Because like you said, I also just pay attention to those music videos, not the song itself. I couldn’t tell you anything that was a aprt of the actual music, except the chiming of the glasses.. though I’m not sure if that’s part of the actual song or just the video :P I LOVED the flags part, it looked so cool. I’d be so down for making one of them, but it would be so much thinking.

YAY for almost being done for the year :D I won’t be done until the end of January, sigh. And after that, I’ll just be working until September when I’ll go back to school so I’m guessing I’ll get pretty bored some days, haha. I’m going to need to find a much better job.

Thank you <3 I'm still a bit iffy on the layout but there are still some parts that I really like. Maybe I'll spruce it up a bit when I get some time :)

Fascinating video, and that is one hell of a Rube Goldberg machine! /bounce Those things always remind me of the really intricate gumball machines I used to see from time to time as a kid, where you put the money in and it sets off a chain reaction like that with flaps and chutes to give you the gumball. I was endlessly fascinated by those when I was a child!

I know what you’re getting at though about some videos overpowering the song itself – it’s for that reason that I’m not terribly fussed on music videos in general, because the success of a lot of really dreadful songs often seems to be due mostly to a captivating video. I think if a song is actually worth listening to, it will sell itself just by radio play and online streaming audio…

As for videos, my absolute favourite is probably for “Suedehead” by Morrissey (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AvuweztG4Q), but that’s probably not of interest in the slightest to anyone who’s not a fan of Morrissey or James Dean (the video is pretty much a tribute to the latter), so instead…

“70 Million” by Hold your horses – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erbd9cZpxps – probably the most creative video I’ve ever seen, and fortunately it’s a rather good song too.
“Right here, right now” by Fatboy Slim – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7jSp2xmmEE – not a big fan of the song itself, but look! Evolution. 👏
“Just a gigolo” by David Lee Roth – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN-4lX0QyZc – DLR is utterly ridiculous, but it’s an entertaining video. Or at least I think it is, lol. ;)

And yay for the end of semester! I’m glad it’s over too…*sigh of relief* :D

I really hope things get better for you as well. I sure hope we can both get out soon & get on with our lives & prove our parents that we’re better people than they treat us to be. But I suppose we’re lucky, we’ve already been through some of the toughest things in life that majority of people can get through their lives happy & never have to experience. We’re stronger than they are (:

I love good, creative music videos & it seems like only the older ones are any good anymore. All the new ones are mostly pointless, don’t make any sense at all, or are extremely inappropriate, Lady Gaga’s Alejandro music video for example. For some reason I think my favorite music video is Clumsy by Fergie (:

OMG I remember when I first saw the video they did with the treadmills. I get memories of living with my parents and how even though my brother and sister were into more of rap and main stream, they loved the video. OK Go is pretty fantastic.

Love this post! I hadn’t seen that video until now, but really admire how low key it is, but so effective! The video goes so well with the music, whereas there’s so many music videos out there which really don’t fit with the song.

I was always mesmerized by the Rube Goldberg machines, one must have some serious imagination to make something like that, or maybe I’m not creative enough. I like this version of the video better though.