Not a front for a secret organization.
Written by Rob Schultz (human).
It's a jam, it's a gas, it's Marc Gasway on the bass jamming along with Becky and Libby in the shower this week.
The extra gloss on the video this week is something I’d been thinking about for a while. As you can see at the end, it's made to seem like we've simply been lighting up points on a single transparency that contains all of the words in the song.
I'll tell you this much: one of them is a fake!
Back to basics this week with a classic, barebones shower jam.
I'll let Jonathan Regier, Libby Ward, and Becky Sanders provide the pizazz.
Here it is, the grand finale to our month of Halloween carols.
I've been excited about doing this for weeks, ever since I discovered all this weird stock footage of Russian kids hanging out in arcades.
I have a hard time articulating why this video is a thing. It's not exactly a prank that I'm pulling, by springing an extremely over-produced video on the Shower Sweeties. But it's... it's not not that. Sort of in the way that it’s not showing someone the room you’ve wallpapered with eyes clipped out of magazines. Not exactly.
Production fact: This installment took me 5 or 6 times longer than the average video. There are over 40 VFX shots.
As far as that aspect goes, two versions of the video were edited in Premiere: first, a completely post-able, perfectly good cut of the performance. The Wheat Squares of shower jam videos. Then a second version collaged from found footage shot by all of the fine individuals (or collectives!) named in the credits was laid out on top of it. And then the Dynamic Linking started…
I wish I'd run a screen recording of making this, because it would have been a tidy collection of tricks and techniques for tracking, quick composites, and a bunch of different styles of tv effects. But also, it's very wise that I did not record any evidence of this, because I let myself get away with some abysmal practices in file and after effects project management. Just for fun. Nobody should see that kind of thing.
Finally, and this is also kind of hard for me to explain correctly, I almost don't want to even share this video around. I have, in fact, posted it to more places on the internet than the average week's videos, but like, I know that people don't watch these. Not in the numbers that would justify this kind of thing. And there's something kind of appealing to me about the sacrifice of hours poured into it. Almost in a mystical sense. I’m storing mana for the future in these shots of televisions.
I'd like to unpack whatever that feeling is, but I've got to get started on next week's video.
Look out, our second original shower jam is here! This week it's a song penned by Becky Sanders.
I really like this song, and I was excited about the idea I had for the visuals. I like that the videos have been getting weirder. I don't know if anyone else does. I do know that nobody has asked for this. Maybe this is my jazz.
But.
I don't think I nailed this one. I did multiple versions, and none of them quite did the song justice. But we're on a weekly treadmill now, so it's time to push this one out the door and get going on next week's video.
Man, next week's. Wait 'til you see it.
Our first original shower jam! Libby Ward on drums and songwriting, Becky Sanders on guitar and vocals, Michael Pelleg on ewi. Presented in a terrifying 16 frames per second.
When we filmed this, there was some talk about how it would be fun if everyone turned into bats at the end and flew away. So... they do. It was easier than I thought.