That one they sped up the film for a few seconds to synch up the music as the RGM was lagging slightly. It was still one take.
You’re going to have put up some proof for the others.
And they were quite up front about it.
Found this YouTube link OK Go Backstage which has a bunch of footage. I’m convinced they were on an aircraft doing parabolas.
By the way, I showed the video to a colleague who has flown on the NASA Vomit Comet, and he says it looks real.
That was awesome.
Agreed!
Yes, very awesome. Some of the best CGI I have ever seen! 
I’ve only watched a few minutes, but it is pretty amazing. Thanks for that video.
and here’s another behind the scenes showing the ‘finale’ shot multiple times.
It looks like it indeed is real.
I think one of the factors that lends the video a slightly CGI-esque feel is just that they chose bright primary and secondary colours for the balls, baloons and costumes - they are physical objects, but they just chose physical objects that look archetypically CGI.
This coupled with the fact that we see the objects doing things that physical objects do not normally do in everyday life (but do commonly in computer animation) does push some of the buttons in my brain at least, to generate a perception of artificiality.
I don’t think they are CGI. I think they look a bit like CGI.
Yes, I remember similar debate at the time about the beautiful Sony Bravia ad in 2005. Turns out they actually did dump 250,000 primary-coloured bouncy balls down a hill in San Francisco, but I can totally understand why people thought it was computer-generated.
Anyway for me the final nail in the coffin for the OP’s assertion about the balls being CGI is that in some of the behind-the-scenes footage you can see a bunch of them getting realistically splashed with coloured liquid. If the liquid’s real, as he has conceded, but the balls are CGI, then is the splashing a seamless transition from floating liquid to CGI? Or are only those splashed balls real and the rest CGI?
Wow! That is great footage. How kind of the band to film all that “making of” stuff, and have it available to anyone, for free.
Three things stand out for me:
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How dangerous it looks every time someone floats toward and past the main camera apparatus – it looks like they’re inches away from cutting open their head on a metal bar or other hard object. The musician in pink, for example, almost gets a gash just after he dunks the basketball.
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It’s great to see the scenes being filmed at real speed rather than the compressed (sped up) versions in the video itself. Since we’ve all seen shuttle and ISS astronaut footage, we know the rhythm of real weightless movement, so these scenes in this behind-the-scenes footage feel very real and “you are there.”
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The piñata delivery to the aircraft is funny – something about the juxtaposition of colorful Mexican fiesta imagery and a drab Russian tarmac on a cloudy day. (My stereotype of Russia isn’t entirely fair – I’ve been to St. Petersburg, which is a colorful and lively city).
They’ve posted a How We Did It video that’s a pretty straight-forward explanation of the overall techniques used. For the most part nothing new information-wise for this thread, but a good reference and straight from the source.
Actually, that was helpful for me. This whole time, I pictured the “weightless” segment of a flight to be when the plane is hurtling toward the Earth! Now I get it – “parabola” , duh.
Ironically though, that entire explanation video is CG.
Sometimes, if you drive fast and go over a hump in the road, your stomach goes a bit woogy. I’ve always figured that was weightless in the same way.
I’m surprised the ball thing is such an issue. The video is heavily edited, they don’t deny that. Notice nothing in the plane’s cabin moves that’s not intended to move. It’s relatively straightforwards to film the parts with the balls rolling around on the floor alone, film the floating dancing sections with no balls, and then merge the scenes together. That’s how you get balls rolling + ppl floating. That’s editing, not CGI. And of course other shots are sped up, slowed down, and I even saw a couple of flight attendant moves that i suspect was filmed one way and then played backward.
Yes, they could have done all of that. Do you have any reason to suspect that they did?
I don’t have to suspect, it’s quite obvious where they used editing to compile different shots, or ran a shot “backward”. etc. Otherwise some laws of physics have been violated 
You just set this thread back 195 posts.
How would the band interact with the balls?
Why would they do it like that instead … nope, not doing this again. You and coremelt can theorize about this together.
One, pick one law of physics that’s been violated, just one, show me one. Bet you can’t.
Bet you didn’t read the whole thread, bet you didn’t read my post invoking Newton’s laws.