A few years ago I wrote a song about Gappy's adventures but had never gotten around to finding a musician to perform it. Then I met Bernard Badria, who lives in South Africa, and knew I'd found the man for the job. When he accepted the challenge, I got to work and added another verse to include Book Six, as the original song only covered books One through Five. The resulting song was six or seven verses long! I e-mailed Bernie the lyrics and notes of the song, along with a recording of me singing it.
While I was singing into my cell phone, however, I could tell that the song was way too long! I think Bernie was relieved when I told him not to start working on it until I had trimmed it down to size. I had to reduce it to only three verses, plus add an instrumental (middle-eight) section between the second and third verses. It was really tough slashing the song to half the size but it had to be done, and after much agonizing I managed to accomplish my goal. I then sat down at my piano and composed the instrumental piece and transition into the final verse. I sent Bernie the new Word file of the song and a new recording from my cell phone, including a hummed version of the middle-eight, and waited in anticipation to hear what he came up with.
Bernie launched into the project with great good humor and did an excellent job, adding percussion and backup vocals to the recording of him singing and playing his guitar. He also cut a couple of bars off the instrumental . Anyway, I couldn't believe it when I heard the first take! Here at last was my Gappy Song in actual sound! I even caught my husband, who'd poo-pooed the idea of my writing a song, bopping his head along to the tune. Now for the next step of turning it into a music video.
In my vision, the video was comprised mainly of beautiful black and white graveyard scenes from Oakwood Cemetery. That's where Gappy's fourth adventure takes place, and Uncle Sam is buried there. Videographer Bob Shenise and I drove around the cemetery, taking photographs. It had recently snowed, which was great for my black and white theme, and Bob kept exclaiming in delight at the resulting monochrome effect of the snow against the headstones and monuments.
Once all the photos were downloaded on my computer, I selected the ones I wanted to use and changed them to black and white. I also tone-mapped them to make them appear more spooky. Then I laid them out, story-board -style, on my dining room table in the order in which they would appear in the video, numbered them, and added the numbers to my typed Word document of the song.
While I was singing into my cell phone, however, I could tell that the song was way too long! I think Bernie was relieved when I told him not to start working on it until I had trimmed it down to size. I had to reduce it to only three verses, plus add an instrumental (middle-eight) section between the second and third verses. It was really tough slashing the song to half the size but it had to be done, and after much agonizing I managed to accomplish my goal. I then sat down at my piano and composed the instrumental piece and transition into the final verse. I sent Bernie the new Word file of the song and a new recording from my cell phone, including a hummed version of the middle-eight, and waited in anticipation to hear what he came up with.
Bernie launched into the project with great good humor and did an excellent job, adding percussion and backup vocals to the recording of him singing and playing his guitar. He also cut a couple of bars off the instrumental . Anyway, I couldn't believe it when I heard the first take! Here at last was my Gappy Song in actual sound! I even caught my husband, who'd poo-pooed the idea of my writing a song, bopping his head along to the tune. Now for the next step of turning it into a music video.
In my vision, the video was comprised mainly of beautiful black and white graveyard scenes from Oakwood Cemetery. That's where Gappy's fourth adventure takes place, and Uncle Sam is buried there. Videographer Bob Shenise and I drove around the cemetery, taking photographs. It had recently snowed, which was great for my black and white theme, and Bob kept exclaiming in delight at the resulting monochrome effect of the snow against the headstones and monuments.
Once all the photos were downloaded on my computer, I selected the ones I wanted to use and changed them to black and white. I also tone-mapped them to make them appear more spooky. Then I laid them out, story-board -style, on my dining room table in the order in which they would appear in the video, numbered them, and added the numbers to my typed Word document of the song.
I also tone-mapped illustrations from the books for insertion during the middle eight section. Armed with a thumb drive of the altered photos and illustrations, I headed over to Bob's production studio. Seated side by side, sipping the occasional cup of coffee supplied by Bob's wife Carol, we compiled the music video, plugging in the photos and illustrations at the appropriate places on the sound track. Then we added a variety of dissolves from one scene to the next and used the Ken Burn's effect on each shot so that the static photos were constantly on the move. Lastly, we added the title and credits with a final parting shot of Bernie playing the song. The Gappy Song video was complete!
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