It's All Done With Mirrors

February 22, 2012 6:57 PM

"Off the Wall"* is an electro-pop ditty by French artiste Yuksek** with a video that uses a mirror effect*** for maximum delightfulness. Bonus fun: a 'Making Of' video that just replays the whole thing without the mirror.****

*no relation to the Michael Jackson song
**no relation to Gotye, although they may have gotten both their stage names from the same Random Syllable Generator
***previously seen long ago in Escape Club's "Wild Wild West" to a much creepier effect
****IMO, the Best Literal Meaning of "Behind the Scenes" EVER.
(While I generally try to avoid music videos that are not animated or anything from RIAA labels, when I realized I was still smiling at this thing 15 minutes after I saw it, I had to share.)

posted by oneswellfoop (14 comments total)

It's amazing how the making of is about as fun as the video itself.
posted by ztdavis at 7:07 PM on February 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

Very nice effects done very simply, just cardboard cut outs and people moving stuff around. Refreshing in this period of CGI-everything.
posted by Alnedra at 7:11 PM on February 22, 2012

I kind of want to introduce them to Ok Go just to see what would happen.

Incidentally, "Gotye" isn't random syllables -- it's a phonetic rendering of his actual name, "Gautier." I know this only because I'm a big-ass pedant.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:17 PM on February 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

I knew there was a big-ass pedant coming, but I made the joke anyway.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:26 PM on February 22, 2012

I liked the looks of concentration on people's faces in the 'making of' vid.
posted by carter at 7:26 PM on February 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

Better than a big ass-pedant.
posted by notsnot at 7:28 PM on February 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

And Gautier is (apparently) the French variant of the Belgian, Wouter, his given name, hence....
posted by cmoj at 7:48 PM on February 22, 2012 [1 favorite]

*no relation to the Michael Jackson song

The relation to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," however, is pretty blatant.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:10 PM on February 22, 2012

Oh oh oh! Yuksek is my hands-down favorite French electro remixer. He's like the bastard child of Justice, Orbital, and Giorgio Moroder.

The Gossip - Heavy Cross
Phoenix - Lisztomania
The Plugs - That Number
autoKratz - Always More
U-God - Dopium

and his duo with Brodinski, The Krays: We're Ready When You Are
posted by mykescipark at 8:38 PM on February 22, 2012 [3 favorites]

I especially like how intently all the... would we call them grips, but they're all watching the monitor with such intensity, it has to be a live feed of the rough mirror effect. Very neat idea, and excellent execution.
posted by chipolux at 10:17 PM on February 22, 2012

This video made me think of Talking Heads, although I can't pinpoint why.

Thanks for this post, Yuksek is brilliant! (He's also on tour, for those interested.)
posted by JLovebomb at 3:07 AM on February 23, 2012

The simplest ideas are the best.
posted by Hartham's Hugging Robots at 3:41 AM on February 23, 2012

The simplest ideas are the best.
posted by Hartham's Hugging Robots

True.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2012

More reflection and speculation [YouTube]≈

Ouah Ouah
Funny Faces
Tokyo Sky Drive 01
posted by 0rison at 2:54 PM on February 23, 2012