I was going to be the first to reply to this and I too was quickly going to dismiss it as green screen fakery. But then I watched it a few more times. Then I read about it online (not a fan of the band, never heard of them). Glad I did.
Couple things:
Yes, it is free-fall zero-g in an airplane (but not the actual Vomit Comet).
It is a fake airliner ‘set’ built inside a Russian cargo plane.
Because the zero-g lasted 27 seconds each time but the rhythm of the song repeats every 21 seconds they ‘sang’ (lip-synced) at a slower pace while filming and then sped it up to match. This causes some weird looking movements.
The cameras ran continuously but the performers would ‘freeze’ during the non-zero-g phases and then they used a CGI dissolve (aka a morph) in post to seamlessly skip over those periods of time.
An anecdotal way to tell that it’s real? If it were CGI it would be perfect down to the millimeter, and it’s not. Pretty cool that we’re to the point where complex practical effects now compete with CGI!
Mocking someone with that meme doesn’t actually work when they do have the expertise in question. Some people can actually tell photoshops by looking at the pixels, its not hard. You open up the image in photoshop, increase the gamma and look for areas which don’t raise in brightness equally, thats a dead giveaway thats is a montage from multiple images where the color corrections haven’t been properly matched. You also look at the RGB channels seperately and look for noise patterns that don’t match. If it’s not shot on the same camera at the same time in the same lighting the sensor noise won’t match across the whole image.
So yep I can tell shops by looking at the pixels… so can anyone with experience in compositing, its not rocket science.
They are an actual band, with songs, albums and a Grammy. Why, I hear they even have their own homes with furniture and keys. I suspect YouTube is not their sole source of income.
No its not but despite their viral success on youtube their actual sales are pretty low, check the guardian article I posted above. They’ve never had a platinum album, they don’t tour in arenas. They are nowhere near the level where someone is going to pay them $4 million+ US to make a music video.
They have toured constantly since 1998. You don’t need to sell albums to make it in the music industry, you need to sell tickets. They had a three-album deal with Capitol and now own their own label which has produced other acts.
Nobody needs to pay them to make a video, they can easily make it themselves. And you still haven’t said where this absurd $4 million estimate comes from.
The IL 76 is a very large plane with old fuel guzzling engines. They claim to have made 21 flights with it over a three week period. Also they require to have used the specialised model thats adapted for zero g which is going to be more expensive than a generic cargo model. Cite:
(mentions at the top that only certain IL-76’s are able to do this)
I can’t find exact charter costs for a the IL-76 but Zero G charges $165,000 for a private charter flight on their modified planes. Given the much older Il-76 is going to guzzle a lot more fuel its going to be somewhat more than that. Cite:
Ok lets be generous and say $165,000 per flight x 21 = 3.46 million… Then you have the cost of 60 film crew for 3 weeks shooting in Russia (listed in their FAQ), the aerialist performers costs, wardrobe, props, equipment rental, editing and post production costs (the morphing they claim plus color correction etc). There is absolutely no way this is getting made for less than $4 million US if they really did 21 flights over 3 weeks as they claim.
Ok, so it cost $4 million to make this video. So what? That’s not a tremendous amount anymore. Plus exchange rates in Russia are pretty fluid compared to the West…
Yes, this one. The only forces forward or back would be if the plane were decelerating (due to drag) or accelerating (due to thrust) beyond the expected levels from moving in a parabola.
A plane with no drag (either form drag or lift-induced drag) could move in perfect parabolas with no thrust, and a ball within the aircraft would not roll forward or back. In practice, some thrust is needed, and at least on the upside of the curve, the pilots are going to have to modulate the thrust somewhat due to the changing levels of drag with speed and angle of attack, so that objects do not drift around too much. Obviously, this is what they’re trained to do, and there’s no reason for them not to do the same on the bottom of the curve as well. You would only expect rolling to the degree that they get this wrong. I wouldn’t expect it to be perfect, but I certainly wouldn’t expect everything to slap to the rear of the aircraft.
This is bordering on Moon landing denial at this point.
Its a lot for a band at OK GO’s level of popularity. Looking at it more closely I’ve revised my opinion a bit. I think they shot some takes in the IL-76 but what we are seeing is not the end result of 8 weightless segments with only stretches of time removed. I think we are seeing the results of multiple takes where individuals got things right, then they stitched together the best movements using rotoscoping or green screen and most of the balls and disco balls and paper are CGI. Using these sorts of techniques they probably only need 3 or 4 flights to get enough elements to stitch it all together, a much more reasonable cost.
Well in any case, this thread is hopefully boosting their pageviews and thus their wherewithal to make more awesome videos.
I love OK GO!
It’s weird to be watching the birth of a new truther movement.
I think you have to find a cite for what you think these flights cost. I suspect the very reason they used a Russian IL76 was because it was cheap. Yes old aeroplanes use more fuel, but old aeroplanes also tend to be owned outright and owe nothing. They can be flown very cheaply. It is a mistake to compare it to a commercial zero g charter company whose very livelihood is based on selling a niche experience to rich people.
According to this, an IL76 burns around 8000 kg of fuel per hour. That’s going to be at cruise but a series of parabolas is going to have periods of idle thrust followed by periods of climb thrust, it will average out to the same sort of figure. Even if we allow it to be double it’s still only around $16000 for fuel per hour, and you don’t need a whole hour to do this kind of stuff.
I would get the idea that these flights were prohibitively expensive out of your head.
Aside from the fact that it is obviously a number of zero g sections stitched together, there is nothing particularly odd looking about the zero g to me.
You sound like the hammer that sees every problem as a nail.
Exactly - S7 are just a sponsor, they never claimed to own or operate the plane itself. The explanation seems legit to me.
This is the plane they would have used.
The tail number is RF-75353.
I doubt this would show up on flight tracking websites, as it is unlikely to have an ADS-B transponder. I can’t find any flights logged for it.
S7 Airlines is a prominent sponsor, so it’s basically an advertising campaign. Is $4 million an unreasonable amount for the huge publicity they have generated? The video has been out for less than 24 hours and it’s already been viewed 400,000 times.
Seriously?
It’s fake because they didn’t release a blooper reel for a video that came out like two days ago?
I’m done. You guys have fun.
I’m thinking of the bottom of the curve, when the plane reaches the bottom and begins curving back upwards. At this point, everything should go from weightlessness to moving forward then curving “downwards” (i.e. towards the plane’s floor) then ultimately to the back of the plane as the plane completes the curve and is accelerating upwards.
The plane is not decelerating. The plane is pulling out of a dive, i.e. using the lift generated by the wings to change the direction of travel. The acceleration is perpendicular to the direction of travel.