Oh yeah, and Kevin and I are in it as well. :D

I wasn’t really sure what filming a music video would be like, which meant I was able to walk in with no expectations of “normal”. I think I romanticized what the process was going to be like – and perhaps like most things, the end product is fabulous – but the creating process is time and energy intensive. Regardless of the time commitment, I had a blast. Here are some picture Kevin and I took during the three day we spent on the Speakeasies “Black Swamp” music video.

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The Back Story

MONDAY

Kevin and I were supposed to leave Rome at 9am which meant we caught our shuttle around 6:30am. We arrive exhausted to the airport, only to find out our flight had been rescheduled for 9PM. Fucking excellent. The only thing we could think to do was head to the Hilton down the street and see how much money it was going to cost us to nap. Much to our good fortune, I am apparently a Gold Member of the Hilton Honors which allowed us to stay on the executive floor, have free internet for one computer, and access to food in the lounge. So not all bad. We nap most of the day, check out at 6pm, fly to Greece, and arrive at Alex’s house around 2am (instead of 2pm). Luckily (insert sarcasm here), we’ll get to sleep for 4 hours before the video shoot. Yeah! Long of the short of it is: we are exhausted.

TUESDAY

It’s still dark out when we leave the house around 6am to drive up into the woods. Even though we are fully clothed, we are still cold. Luckily we’re excited to see what the set is going to look like and that makes everything better. Within moments of our arrival, I have a plastic bag placed around my neck and my makeup is being done by a professional. As the sun rises, my inner zombie awakens (see photos). Kevin snaps pictures of the morning sun warming the sky aaaaaand Scary Jo.

Kevin is first up to film. He wanders around at various tempos, takes a knee by the grave, and does more walking. When I’m ready, I sit on a rock in a cape-thing and hold out my hand. You can see in one of the pictures there are lots of people sitting around me making sure my hand “emotes properly” and to check my hair and makeup. :) Finally, we film the ending where I pull back my hood to reveal Scary Jo!

That’s a wrap (at least for Kevin and me)! It’s about 10:30am and we’re done for the day. Alex takes us to eat crepes and we talk about what direction we’d like to go with the dancing and the who/what/where of choreography.

WEDNESDAY

Kevin and I head to the Lindy Hop Greece dance studio to put together choreography for the slow section. After about two hours, we have something we’re happy with. We then move to the group choreography section for the zombies. We thought it would be fun to do a Michael Jackson tribute and to keep it swingin’, so we threw something together, showed it to Alex and Christina, and they liked it! In total, I think we spent about 3.5 hours on choreo.

After rehearsal, I needed to go shopping and find something to wear for the fast section. I didn’t really have anything I thought would read well on video, so I headed to Zara to try my luck. I found a white polkadot shirt with a peter pan collar and a black skirt with a nice amount of flair :D Perfect.

Before I went to bed that night, I put my hair in pin curls in hopes that my hair would have some much needed body to it (see photo).

THURSDAY

Filming Day! We arrive at Block 33 around 10am and immediately start on hair and makeup. Even though the place was cold, I was charmed by the exposed brick, abandoned-factory sort of look. Kevin helped with set up as a transformed from “blah” to “yeah” (see pictures) and then we were first up to film. While all the dancers and crew looked on, we did 7 takes on the slow. We never hit it perfectly in any one of the takes, but we were close. Then we filmed closeups of our faces as we walked away from each other. At this point, we were hoping that all of the Zombie Dancers were going to be in full makeup, but mostly people had watched Kevin and me slow dance. Hahah…..that’s amusing to me.

As more zombies are created, I help run through group choreography  with the “humans.” People continued rotating in and out until most knew how to “dance-support” Kevin and me during the flash back sequence. I change and redo my hair, and then did what I could to keep warm. At this point, it’s probably close to 2pm.

One of the fun/difficult things about shooting was the fog machine. Sometimes there was too much and sometimes the fog would dissipate too quickly. Regardless, it was awesome to work with and I think I’d love to have one for the house :p Something else that was difficult was keeping warm and keeping the energy up. The entire experience was exciting, but filming days are long days. What also elongated the day was that Kevin and I don’t speak Greek, so almost everything needed to be translated. We finally wrap up around 10pm that evening.

Coolest part: We talked to the director and crew and explained to them the importance of syncing the dancing to the music and they were totally receptive to it! Now, you might say “Well, yes, of course. Why wouldn’t you do that?” but if you look at other videos with dancing in them, you can find examples where the dancing is in rhythm, but not on beat. Seriously, it happens. So, that being said, it was freaking fantastic that we were able to tell the crew what takes we liked best, had opportunities to look at our lines and make some adjustments, and that they were receptive to our feedback. Woohoo!!

All in all, it was a fabulous experience and I would love to do another one. The days are long, and I can only imagine what it must have been like for the band and crew who had considerably more work than I did. So to all the members of the Speakeasies Swing Band, the crew, and especially to Lindy Hop Greece, thank you from the bottom of our heart for having us.

A tumblr called ‘Pinuprdj’ has curated some very funny images of Robert Downey Jr, as pinup girls. The creator explains, “Vintage pinups are the pinnacle of art. Robert Downey Jr. is the pinnacle of sexy. It’s not rocket science”.

[via Neatorama]

See the whole picture set here at Flickr.

Which is your favorite?

Photographed by Signe Vilstrup for Vanity Fair source via DJA

Description: On his way to work one morning, a man senses the allure and potential of his day as he sets out to get a cup of coffee.

Music: “Black Coffee” by The Careless Lovers

Love it!! Well done, all of you.

The video!!

Here are some of the behind the scene photos that Stephanie Albo of Intuitive Image Photography and Evonne took during the excitement!

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Congratulations ladies for a job exceptionally well done. I can only image what it must have been like behind the scenes. From the video and the pictures, everything looks fabulous, fun, easy, and a blast. I’m sure it was that, and more. :D
___

Here is our new video. Just like Americanarama, it was directed by the president of awesomeness, Greg Jardin. Once again it was done in one take, with one camera. We love doing one take videos with Greg because they make us feel like we are in elementary school gym class. This shoot was basically a giant obstacle course that we had to try and figure out before our two days of shooting time expired. The cameraman also had a really hard job because he had to memorize the choreography for everyone so that he could follow it all.

The dancers are from an awesome troupe called the Atomic Cherry Bombs. They worked for weeks on this choreography and refused any payment besides flowers and cupcakes. Also, one of the dancers holds the world record for the largest collection of Bruce Lee paraphernalia.

We shot the video in the studio that Charlie Chaplin built almost 100 years ago. Later Jim Henson took over and used it to throw awesome muppet parties. This explains how our drummer Jake is so effortlessly channelling the ghost of Animal. I also found it funny that the two days of the year that it rains in Los Angeles happened to be the same two days that we shot a video where the only props were 53 umbrellas. Maybe it was Charlie Chaplin’s way of wishing us good luck.

directed by GREG JARDIN | http://www.gregjardin.com

choreography by NIKKI MARVIN and EVONNE MARVIN | http://www.nikkimarvin.com

dancers THE ATOMIC CHERRY BOMBS | http://www.atomiccherrybombs.com

produced by GEOFF McLEAN and DEREK ROBERTO

executive producer JENNIFER HEATH

production company VISION ENTERTAINMENT / RADICAL MEDIA| http://www.visionfilmco.com| http://www.radicalmedia.com

cinematographer LARKIN SEIPLE | http://www.larkinseiple.com

art director SUSANNAH LOWBER | http://www.d14productions.com/susannah-lowber.html

Thanks also to MuchFACT for the $$

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BUY MERCH ONLINE: http://www.galleryac.com/hollerado-record-in-a-bag.html

These guys are SICK. Really, you just need to watch 20 seconds of this and if you aren’t hooked by then, then don’t worry, clearly this video wasn’t meant for you :D

Show “La Preuve Par 4″ à l’Hotel de Ville de Paris au Préselection du Juste Debout 2010
Chregrapher: Marvin Gofin (R.A.F Crew)
Dancers: Marion Motin (Swaggers, Quality Street), Julie Moreau (Swaggers), Nicolas Medea (R.A.F Crew) et Marvin Gofin (R.A.F Crew)
Music by Raphaël Judrin aKa SoFly

I love what the girls are wearing and the beat. And that marcelled hair!!

Notice that clips from ‘Spirit Moves’ made it into this!

I was SOOO hoping to run into her while I was in Norway, but she’s not from Oslo, she’s from Trondheim. Maybe another lindy hopper can get a picture with her!

Kjetil Vatne // http://www.flickr.com/photos/kjetil_vatne/2877836593/

The Oslo Opera House (in Norwegian, Operahuset) is the seat of The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera theatre in Norway. The building lies in Bjørvika, in the center of Oslo, at the head of the Oslofjord. Its builder was Statsbygg, a government-run property owner. The theatre designers were Theatre Projects Consultants based in London, the acoustic designers were BrekkeStrandArup, a joint venture between local consultant Brekke Strand Akustikk and international acousticians Arup Acoustics. The structure provides a total area of 38,500 m² and includes 1,100 rooms, one of which has 1,350 seats and another has up to 400 seats. The angled exterior surfaces of the building are covered with Italian marble and white granite and make it appear to rise from the water. It is the largest cultural building constructed in Norway since Nidarosdomen was completed circa 1300.

The Opera House was finished in 2007 with the opening event held on 12 April 2008. King Harald V of Norway opened the Opera House that evening at a gala performance attended by national leaders and royalty, including President Tarja Halonen of Finland, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. The main stage is 16 meters wide, and can be made up to 40 meters deep.

The Opera won the culture award at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona in October 2008. Jury member Sir Peter Cook said of the Opera House that it “…in its scale, ambition and quality has raised the bar for Norwegian architecture.”[1]

In April 2009, the Opera House was pronunced the winner of the 2009 Mies van der Rohe award, the European Union prize for contemporary architecture.

Bear Mash Blues

That floor was SO slippery in those shoes, my goodness! Otherwise…..booty!

Hat Trick Tranky Doo

I think this might be the first time Kevin performed this without his buddy Tops. Good on ‘im!

Black Swan

Isn’t she gorgeous! I talked Alice into doing some ridiculous makeup and I’m so pleased she followed through with it (picture on FB). Not that you can really see it here, but still, it’s there. And Tommy!! Omg, he played his part perfectly!
I think Alice went about this routine perfectly. She was inspired by a costume, bought it, found a song, and choreographed something brilliant to it. Her points are gorgeous and lace-removal is stunning.

Stud Muffins!

Brittany and Dargoff being amazing. I love their movement and am totally inspired by it. Again, congratulations to both of you; you were fantastic all weekend. xoxo

Later that night we had the student cabaret. I think I have a performance idea for all the girl instructors for next year. :D

CABARET NIGHT

Dance performance to popular K-Pop songs by “Orange Chocolate” during Cabaret night, Camp Swing It (CSI) 2011 / Korean Lindy Hop Championships (KLHC)

Eeek, I can’t find the second cabaret number. I guess it’s not up yet OR it is and I just can’t read Korean. :D

Korean traditional fan dance performed by Crystal Lee, at Cabaret night of Camp Swing It (CSI) 2011.

Here are some of my favorite pictures I’ve found on the web from the weekend:

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Thanks for having us Korea!!! xoxo

I think this is such a darling song!! Extra points for the cute yellow dress and playing the xylophone.

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