Double A and OK Go make paper the star in a feat of technical wizardry

The chances are you’ve never given much thought to the paper in your printer—if you even have a printer. But Double A, a global paper company, wants to remind people that not all sheets of paper are created equal.

The brand and the band OK Go, which is famous for its elaborate music videos, came together and worked with Six Inc, a division of Hakuhodo; Daito Manabe, a celebrated Japanese media artist; and Mikiko, a musical choreographer, to create what is billed as the world’s first ‘paper mapping’ project. AOI Pro produced the content.

According to Hakuhodo, OK Go’s track, ‘Obsession’, relates to Double A’s ‘obsession for smoothness’. The video has the band perform against two giant walls of printers (567 in total) that deliver an awe-inspiring cascade of coloured paper to complement the music. In an account detailing the making of the video, Jin Saito, creative director at Six, said the smoothness of the paper was essential to the project.

Indeed, although it took 2.5 years to complete, apparently not a single piece of paper jammed during the printing process. OK Go made multiple trips to Japan to test, rehearse and shoot. In order to pull it off, the band moved in slow motion against the falling paper, with their movements subsequently sped up for the final video.

All paper was apparently recycled. This generated an undisclosed financial return, which Double A donated to Greenpeace.

Campaign’s view: Let’s just say it: This is an awesome piece of content. It’s a brilliantly simple idea, made extraordinarily complex and then rendered to seem effortless. It's also a reminder of the value of physical craft in a digital age. The fact that a paper brand facilitated this piece of entertainment is proof that any company, regardless of how boring its products may at first seem, can produce something genuinely interesting if it puts its mind to it and is prepared to give the most talented people creative freedom.