Category: My Works

A song from BUMS! THE MUSICAL, In which I sing about unicorns, dwarves, and the wonders of anarchy.

Lyrics:

In my dream last night,
A magical unicorn
Was trotting through
The glimmer of the moon.
I climbed onto her saddle,
And then to my surprise,
She took me to
The kingdom of the dwarves.

All around were little men
With silly hats and silver beards.
Though I was roughly twice their size,
No one laughed and no one feared.

Some were flying golden kites
While others chipped away at stone.
Though some were dreaming, others cleaning,
Everyone seemed right at home.

But how could their economy
Support this strange anomaly
With some at work and some at play
And no one bossing anyone?

Did this happen every day,
A world of sweet tranquility
Where each with his ability
Pursued his calling, never stalling?

Though I longed to join the fun,
I knew I really had to run,
For I had duties far away,
Important business left undone.

I asked around, “Who has the time?”
But all I got were empty stares.
For in the dwarvish world, I learned,
There is no time nor need for cares.

I would soon be late for work.
The stress was driving me berserk.
But still they could not understand,
For in the dwarvish tongue, you see,
There is a secret oh so grand,
They have no word for work at all,
For work is play and every day,
Nothings drives their dreams away.

No systems,
No victims.
Freedom never felt so good,
Till I fin’ly understood.
No compulsion,
True propulsion.
Every man fulfills his part
Following his yearning heart.

When I woke up, I knew I’d miss
That dreamy place of never was.
Still when I face this dreary world,
The hope I saw fills me with pause.

When someone goes against the grain,
They lock him up in heavy chains,
But I know there’s a better way:
To blur the line ’tween work and play.

No systems,
No victims.
Freedom never felt so good,
Till I fin’ly understood.
No compulsion,
True propulsion.
Every man fulfills his part
Following his yearning heart.

No systems,
No victims.
Freedom never felt so good,
Till I fin’ly understood.
No compulsion,
True propulsion.
Every man fulfills his part
Following his yearning —

My vision for this one was not to show my Star Wars fandom through cosplay or geeky obsession but to illustrate how its glorious themes and ideas affect my everyday life. Deep down, I believe we all long to be Jedi knights. (It’s currently at 12,000 views on Youtube … which used to seem like a lot. But with our “Mario Parkour” video at 3M, it’s all relative now … which is good.)

So after the walk, I continued alone through the neighborhood to enlist actors from neighborhood kids. As soon as I shared the vision, everyone I talked to was unequivocally in. On Tuesday, while waiting for my daughters to finish their gymnastics classes, my four-year-old son and I scoped out the locations at UVU (where, thirteen years prior, I used to “run and gun” similar productions). On Wednesday evening, we shot the footage. On Thursday, after spending the bulk of the day at the conference, I used the evening to edit. On Friday morning, I went to my sister in-law’s house to shoot the final scene (with her as the goddess of fashion). When it was time for my panel, the video was launched and ready to go. The total budget was sixteen dollars (fifteen for two Papa Johns pizzas for the neighborhood kids and one dollar for my gangster cap I wore as the god of coolness).

During the panel, we watched a series of popular book trailers. After each, I asked the audience to show, by raised hands, who would pick up the book being advertised. Many of the trailers had meager responses. For my video, the majority of hands were raised. So the moral of the story is: while I don’t actually recommend procrastination, we can do much more in a small amount of time than we think we can. Now here’s the video:

And now a few tips to the indie filmmaker: (1) all of the effects were from creative-commons-licensed videos I downloaded from Youtube. While I do know how to create my own partical effects in Adobe After Effects, when one has a deadline, there’s no sense in reinventing the wheel.

(2) I downloaded the music from the Free Music Archive (http://freemusicarchive.org). While I usually like to compose my own music, again, when one has a deadline …

(3) The green screen scenes were shot in my laundry room. The small space has actually proved to be a blessing, because it allows me to light the screen by bouncing light off of the walls, which creates a soft, evenly-lit diffusion with minimal shadows.

(4) I didn’t get permission to shoot in any of the locations. The great thing about shooting at universities is that there’s always productions and events going on, so no one will ask questions. Even if they do, you’ll open so many more doors in life when you ask for forgiveness instead of permission :-). Actually I did get permission to shoot in the board room, and if anyone asked, I was going to tell them this. What they wouldn’t need to know was that I got this permission thirteen years ago.

In which I take creepy to a new level … just in time for Valentines Day.

We covered a brand new song by Katy Perry (not our usual cup of tea). Following the advice of a famous Youtuber in our neighborhood, the goal was to create something that people are actually searching for. Brilliant, right? So we did a little research and found something so new, it doesn’t appear that anyone has covered it. There’s not even an official music video yet. At the same time, we’re not exactly trendy people, and we wanted to do something unique, so we tried our hand at a capella. Perhaps we were inspired by the BYU Vocal Point concert we attended a few weeks ago.

After I made the video of Teresa and I in our studio, something seemed lacking. I thought of shooting some B roll, but as I listened to the lyrics, I realized I already had all the footage I needed in our previous music videos. It was a perfect opportunity to resurrect Evil Robot Santa, me falling in the snow, Teresa standing in fire, and a love scene between clowns.

It’s too early to say, but since I released the video last night, it’s performed about 4 times better than our usual videos. Neat. Also, in order to stay in line with our cheesy values, we committed a faux pas and changed the lyrics for one phrase. Can you guess where?

At the end of the video, I thank the Katy Perry corporation. I felt inclined to do this after learning more about how the pop music industry works. Without disrespecting any chart-topping artist (as I do love this song and think Katy Perry is talented), the truth is that it takes large corporations and massive amounts of money to make them what they are. Seldom are they self-made, and seldom do they write their own songs. Knowing this makes me feel better about being an underdog. Instead of being dwarfed by superstars with all the talent, independent artists are really up against a bourgeois of music tycoons. Just a few decades ago, it wasn’t this way, but it seems that the proliferation of music through iPods and the Internet was so threatening that it caused a struggling music industry to turn in the opposite direction, scrapping the democracy of the free market and becoming the sole arbiters of what is hot and what is not. In the process, creativity has been stifled, and what’s popular has only gotten harder, louder, more predictable, and less … musical.

Thus it may appear that I’m selling out by covering popular music. In my defense, I’ve created so many videos with original songs that have gotten virtually no traction, that I see no harm in riding a wave in order to gain some momentum. In other words, if the proletariat is to make any advances against the bourgeois, first they must learn to play their game. If projects like this are successful, my other projects will naturally gain more exposure. At the same time, I’ll continue to create original works whether or not they see the light of day. For the most part, what I create is for me and my family.

For example, with our last video, Jump Up Superstar, I knew that we were a year behind the wave, and, not surprisingly, though we poured and our hearts and souls into the video, it’s gotten few hits. But that’s okay. We primarily created this video to record our family’s parkour, gymnastics, and singing skills that we’ve been working on this year, and we’re proud of it.

I create because I have music and stories bubbling inside of me, and I have to get them out. I create in order help my family up their skills and record priceless memories. And I create because it’s fun.

My family shows off our mad gymnastics and parkour skills in this high-energy cover from Super Mario Odyssey. Make sure to watch to the end to see our epic fails.