Fatboy Slim Juggling Video

Soooo . . . this might require some background info. So, brace yourself, we're in for a long post.

Here's the site with the info if you'd like to open in a new window:

http://www.myspace.com/fatboyslim

See . . . there's this juggling video contest thing that's going on. Take Fatboy Slim's song and do some juggling to it. Upload it to MySpace.com and then link it to a comment / e-mail the link to Fatboy Slim himself. He watches the videos and I guess picks one to be on his next CD or something.

I actually had rather grand plans for this.

Wanted to do a 4 ball thing, thought it would be cool to have a 4 ball glow section in it and everything.

What went wrong?

Time mostly. It would have taken quite a bit of time to do all that I wanted with the juggling. Plus a lot of editing, and I still need to play with the camera a bit to get a good color from the glowballs. So, there's a lot of effort that it would have taken, not that I mind, but I do have other "projects" that I'd like to work on, plus the deadline (original deadline was the 8th I think, now the 19th) so getting it done sooner rather than later was important to me.

Weather was a bit of a factor. I was allotting the weekend (Memorial Day) to put the video together, and most of the weekend it rained.

What went right?

Monday. Very Very Very nice day. An excellent day for juggling! So, my modified concept was to make it as easy as possible. Load up the stuff, drive to the campus, find a nice looking spot for juggling, slip on the iPod and just find out what happens.

After wandering the campus for a bit, I found a really cool spot at Weatherford. Two alcoves across from each other. One perfect for framing the juggling, the other perfect for parking the tripod.

I checked the shot, did some practice juggling to see how high I could go and still be in frame, and then slipped on Brenda's iPod.

I'd love to say that what you see in the video was the first take, but I can't :-)

I bought some new tapes and figured if I couldn't get what I needed in an hour, I wasn't going to do the video that day.

I didn't do a whole lot of warmup, which will be something to remember in the future for me, that yes, I DO need to warm up a bit if I'm going to do a "performance".

It took just over a half an hour to get the "no drop" run. There are a couple of "close saves" in the video, and some aborted tricks, but nothing too drastic. Also the people walking past were kind of a bonus as well. If anything I think they add a bit of realisim to the setting that it might have otherwise been lacking (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!).

Some of the elements I knew I wanted in there (circle round yo-yo for "pick up off the ground") but there comes a point where it was pure juggling to the music. The end was planned as well of course, and I really didn't think about the collect being a potential problem until after it was all finished.

Let me tell ya, I was SPENT after the song was finished. It's a lot of effort to sustain that kind of pace for that long. I know people give Mr. Bliss a lot of flack for the kind of juggling that he does (myself included at times . . . heh heh) but it's certainly a lot of work to keep that kind of juggling going, so great respect for his accomplishments, even though it's not the "style" of juggling that I personally find myself wanting to watch :-)

All of the "other" shots were done after the juggling was filmed (after all, why bother with the additional footage if I'm not going to be able to make something? :-) and most of them were done at Brenda's house.

Heyyyyyyyy . . . nice buttttttttt . . . .

Well it *IS* a "That Old Pair of Jeans" song, so HAD to have something related to Jeans ;-)

The editing of the video was easy as any contiguous long piece is.

The only trick was getting the start of the song just right to match the start of the juggling. Was pretty easy to get it to line up though, just took a few attempts / fine tunings.

After checking out the final product, I'm actually really happy with it.

It goes nicely with the music.
It "Fits" with the idea of "Take this piece of music and do some juggling to it" rather than "Take some juggling and put this music to it".
It was FUN!

Plus, it's done, out of the way, and I can go back to working on the 4 ball stuff for the upcoming IJA performance.

There are a few things that still have to be done with it.

I have created the "MySpace.com" account that I needed.
I have uploaded the video there:

Fatboy Slim MySpace Juggling Video

I also uploaded my video to Google:



I have put in a request to Fatboy Slim to add him as a "friend". Once that happens I can post a comment to him with the video, and then e-mail the video link to a special e-mail account.

Then . . . who knows?

Regardless of what happens, I enjoyed the experience and recommend to anyone interested in making a juggling music video to give it a go!

Sorry about the super long post, just wanted to get this all out :-)

Check out the video if you get a chance, and with the MySpace one, you can even rate it / post a comment.

Have a fantastic day and see you soon for some juggling!

Dave