1,2,3...and Go!

This year, we were unable to celebrate the children's grandma's birthday with her and so we decided to create a short video and post it on Facebook. It would be the children's birthday gift for their popo.

Easier said than done.

The final product was 42 seconds, but the production took days in the making! OK, we had other things to do and could only talk about it at night. But we had a glimpse of what directors of films have to go through to get a movie done :)

First, we had to decide on the concept. Initially, Son No 1 wanted to mix a birthday song using the GarageBand software which he has been using in his Music Technology class in school. Son No 3 would play the tune on the piano and it would be a collaborated effort. But after a few attempts, the sound that came out was just not .... right. So we had to abandon the idea.

Then, we thought of having each son performing an item. Son No 3 was ab-so-lute-ly game, he was excited and practised diligently the "Happy Birthday" solo on the piano and I duly recorded it. Son No 2 did not practise a lot but managed to play another solo piece on the piano. But Son No 1 was stuck. Hmm... maybe not... somehow, the whole thing was turning out to look like a piano recital.

On the day before the actual day, I finally provided the story-board and the direction for our grand effort. I would play on the piano and the children would sing the "Happy Birthday" song, first in English and then in Mandarin. Hubby would be the cinematographer. We had to agree on how and where the children would stand, the type of lighting and the effects. I wanted to pan the children's faces close-up, but hubby said our camera would not be able to do a decent job. So we settled for what our equipment could do... which was not a lot.

Anyway, then the actual recording started. The children were nervous on the first take. They sang softly and kept looking uncertainly on the floor or at me. The next take, Son No 2 acted up a bit and moved from his position so that he was half-hidden behind Son No 1. And so on and so forth. Mid-way, I amended the script to have them cheer and greet popo at the end, but after a certain point, it was difficult even to coax smiles from the boys. OK, I think we just had to make do.

Then the post-production began (cheh!). We played the various videos and chose what we thought was the best. But we had a setback when we tried to upload the video - we were told that it would take something like 20 hours! That would cut it really fine to meet our deadline. So, as Plan B, we took a backup video with a poorer resolution and smaller filesize, just in case. But thank goodness, somehow, the uploading speed accelerated a bit and we got our original video up after a few hours.

The feedback from everyone was good - especially popo, she was really happy with her three grandsons. Well, all I can say is that it was definitely worth the effort!