My view from onstage at a Mannheim Steamroller concert in Athens. One of the many holiday gigs! It was about a week before Christmas and I was massively overscheduled--but the Falcons wanted Celli to be involved in a project for the playoffs.
Sure, I thought. AFTER Christmas!
In case you didn't know this: Christmas is when most musicians make most of their money. Sometimes our extra earnings from the month of December are the only thing that keeps us fed in the lean summer months! And because there is so much work to be had then, it keeps us extremely busy.
Sure, I thought. AFTER Christmas!
In case you didn't know this: Christmas is when most musicians make most of their money. Sometimes our extra earnings from the month of December are the only thing that keeps us fed in the lean summer months! And because there is so much work to be had then, it keeps us extremely busy.
Here's how busy I was:
| Again, I was thinking this would go down AFTER Christmas. But they needed it done the week before the holiday-- DURING THE BUSIEST WEEK OF THE YEAR! What could I say? It's the Falcons! So we made it work... Somehow. |  |
First things first...
Step 1:
We had to go into the studio to record a track. The idea was to remake Jermaine Dupri's legendary "Welcome to Atlanta." Luckily, I had a 10-hour bus ride a few days before we were scheduled to go into the studio to record, so I could listen to the track and write out parts for us to play.
Then we spent a day at Silent Sound Studios having fun and recording the track.
We had to go into the studio to record a track. The idea was to remake Jermaine Dupri's legendary "Welcome to Atlanta." Luckily, I had a 10-hour bus ride a few days before we were scheduled to go into the studio to record, so I could listen to the track and write out parts for us to play.
Then we spent a day at Silent Sound Studios having fun and recording the track.
Then we had to shoot the video...
It was HARD to find a day where we could reschedule everything to try to fit in a video shoot. But we were told it was to be on the ROOF of the new Mercedes Benz Stadium, so we had to make it work!
The day before the shoot, we were told it was going to be too foggy to get any footage of the skyline behind us on the roof so they asked if we could reschedule. We couldn't make it work, so we would just have to shoot our part of the video indoors.
We were so disappointed!
The day before the shoot, we were told it was going to be too foggy to get any footage of the skyline behind us on the roof so they asked if we could reschedule. We couldn't make it work, so we would just have to shoot our part of the video indoors.
We were so disappointed!
In the meantime, I had to figure out how to do "edgy, goth" makeup! That was an adventure in and of itself!
The toilet situation...
 Mercedes Benz stadium Once we got to the stadium, our green room was quite sparse. Turns out it was the Press Room. Someone came and took us to a better green room... |  The Press Room |
COACH DAN QUINN'S OFFICE!!!
 |  Luxuriating in DQ's office |
This was very nice--much better than the press room! But there was one disgusting aspect...
The toilet!
I know. Weird, right? I definitely took a picture, but I won't post it here in case some of you have sensitive stomachs. Let's just say that I had never seen that many different colors of MOLD before.
Of course, the powers-that-be sent in someone to clean it ASAP.
It only occurred to me after the shoot that this was probably a good luck dirty toilet. You know how that sport-ball jinx stuff goes. Maybe this was a "don't-clean-until-after-the-playoffs-are-over" type of dirty toilet.
Ooops.
The shoot itself was so much fun, but it was lots of hard work too. I had to concentrate on looking mean (not my usual face as you probably know!), and we had to make the same wild arm motions over and over and over... Luckily we were playing to our previously recorded track, so we didn't have to sound good. Whew.
When we were finally finished, my faux leather jacket was soaking wet!
When we were finally finished, my faux leather jacket was soaking wet!
To the roof...
Though we didn't actually get to shoot on the roof, they let us go with the whole crew to the roof to watch Jermaine's shoot after our part was finished filming. I have never in my life been that excited to climb so many steps! At one point we were standing on a catwalk right behind the halo screen which I had watched from way down below at so many Atlanta United games!
Aftermath...
Well the Falcons made it to the playoffs, so our video was released on January 4th 2018. If they hadn't made it, I would have felt so guilty about that toilet cleaning... plus the video would not have been released until NEXT SEASON!
You can find the article they put out about the video HERE.
And the finished product itself:
You can find the article they put out about the video HERE.
And the finished product itself:
Another side benefit is Jermaine Dupri and I are now besties. Although I am not sure he knows that...
I wonder what he would think about my rap video.
I wonder what he would think about my rap video.
More new friends made along the way...
 Shinji! Special thanks to Shinji Morokuma, Joe Davis, and Stephanie Lu for letting us borrow your Luis and Clark cellos for the shoot! | |
RSS Feed