The OK Go ‘This Too Shall Pass‘ Rube Goldberg video is already at 3 million views after three days and looks like it will continue being the most talked about video on the web. It is already the #1 top rated music video on Youtube of All Time!

Still from "This Too Shall Pass"

I got involved with the OK Go project in September when we sent the first proposal for Syynlab’s involvement in the video. Since I currently live in Santa Barbara I drove 90 miles to Los Angeles six weeks in a row during the build. Despite my part-time build schedule I was fortunate to get to work on several different parts of the “machine”. What follows is an overview of  some of the machine elements I was involved in. An in-depth making-of documentary and interactive flash ‘blueprint’ of the machine will be forthcoming on the band’s website so stay tuned!

Sunrise

The sun is a yellow umbrella mounted on a counter weighted lever which is held out of view by a string that is pulled taut. When the holy-man moves upwards (triggered by the shopping cart hitting the red banner) the string on the sunrise releases.When the sun lever pivots up the counterweight strikes another lever which falls to trip the string holding the flowers down.

The holy man rises

The spring-loaded flowers

The flowers are attached to a drawbar which is pulled upwards by two bungee cords. A rod attached to the flower bar on the left side pushes up to flip another lever over. This lever’s movement releases two birds and also pulls a pin which held a bird nest in place. The bird nest zips down a rope to trigger the toy crossbow.

The shopping cart aftermath

Ping Pong Ball Shower

The ping pong ball shower rained over 1,000 orange ping pong balls on Andy, the band’s guitarist, and generally everywhere on the first floor. We put a makeshift shower curtain around the device during test shoots to limit cleanup time but for the real deal we let the balls go everywhere. This part alone took 10 minutes to clean up after each take!

Still from "This Too Shall Pass"

(more…)

I used 40+ feet of Electroluminescent Wire leftover from halloween to create a glowing tree for some holiday ambience. Since EL Wire does not hold its shape very well I first made a skeleton of two inter-twined coils of multipurpose bendable wire supported by a central trunk. I was then able to attach the EL Wire and make a somewhat tree-like sculpture.

I also made a festive collar for my girlfriend’s dog using red LEDs. This serves the dual purpose of letting her join the holiday party in style and ensure she is visible if she wanders on the street at night.

She doesn’t seem to even notice it even with the hefty 9V battery taped in place.

Below are two preliminary videos using new parameter control modes that I am working on. In each of these, parameters such as level of background fading, rotation speed and color characteristics are being automatically changed at a pre-determined interval using another control program that I am writing.

More information to come.

Razzle MIDI Control: Stripes from Pehr Hovey on Vimeo.

Razzle MIDI Control: Fragments from Pehr Hovey on Vimeo.

Since the animations are fast moving and very dynamic the Vimeo video compression when uploaded has introduced a lot of artifacts. I am experimenting with uploading full HD video to avoid this for the future.

This past Friday, April 10 I performed live visuals using my animation program for a departmentmate’s band (and their opener) at Stateside bar in downtown Santa Barbara, CA.

It was an interesting experience since I had never performed visuals for a public setting before but it was a good time and I made some connections with local multimedia enthusiasts as well as the manager of the venue so I may be back in the future.

The VGA input was behind the bar which meant it was difficult to see the screen sometimes but it was still a lot of fun.