First music video filmed on a reduced-gravity aircraft

The US alternative rock group OK Go (Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka and Andy Ross, all USA) filmed the music video for their single “Upside Down & Inside Out” (2016) on board a Russian S7 Airlines flight flying in parabolic curves, resulting in periods of weightlessness. The 3-minute 30-second video was filmed in one take as the aircraft described a series of eight parabolas. The 27-second periods of weightlessness – achieved as the aircraft “crested” the peak of the elliptical path – were edited together to form the final video, which was directed by Trish Sie and OK Go frontman Kulash and released on 11 February 2016.

The video was filmed in one take over a 45-minute flight, so in order to present a seamless edit, the brief segments of weightlessness were morphed together (breaks occur at 0:46, 1:06, 1:27, 1:48, 2:09, 2:30 and 2:50). Also making an appearance in the video are S7 air hostesses Tatyana Martynova and Anastasia Burdina, both of whom are aerialist acrobats. The featured aircraft is normally used to train cosmonauts. The project took months of planning, and in the three weeks prior to filming, 21 test flights were made, resulting in – according to the band’s website – 58 vomiting incidents!