A closer look
Before green screens ruined the magic of music videos, directors relied on pure, unadulterated manual labor. Jamiroquai's 1996 video for 'Virtual Insanity' famously features the singer dancing while the floor seemingly glides around him like a conveyor belt. The practical effect is a staggering optical illusion: the floor was completely stationary. The camera was mounted to a massive, three-sided room built on wheels. Just off-screen, thirty exhausted stagehands physically pushed the massive wall structure back and forth, tricking the human eye into perceiving the ground as the moving element.
