How could I resist a title in my RSS Reader from the TED Blog called “Nellie McKay: The Dog Song”:
If you need a companion
Just go to the pound
get yourself a hound
and make the dog proud.
That’s what it’s all about
It’s a lot of fun; even downloaded the MP4 to have it on my iPhone.
There are so many things to like about the TED videos- besides an amazing array of top speakers on compelling topics (like dogs!), the fact that they are not long monologues, the way it is provided online, in several formats, is top notch.
But there was more when i was watching the video is how great the video production is– not really my expertise, but some key things about the TED video style:
* Very clear audio nothing breaks a good video than lousy audio, crackly audio, audio levels wrong. TED is perfect quality, IMHO
* Multiple cameras Not something most of us can use- but notice the shifts from a full on shot of Nellie at Piano, other cameras zoomed in on detail such as her finger movements or her sliver shoes at the pedals. and especially, the close cropped views of her face:
* No Transitions Note the lack of dissolves, wipes, cube spins, all the stuff amateurs like me tend to throw in “because you can”- all the changes between camera views are cuts. It’s so subtle you don’t notice it. The timing too of the cuts is such that they are not all clips of the same length, but it chnages rather frequently to keep a sense of liveliness, and is keyed to what is happening as Nellie plays
Great Dog Song, great video!
We came across your posting of Nellie’s song and thought then you might enjoy ours! Also, we feel like idiots, because we are always saying “Two Paws Up,” and while math is not our strong suit, we believe four is more than two, and is the number of paws we have, so that is smarter.
We hope you will enjoy our song at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCsxIiksAnU
We think that there are enough sad songs and videos out there — and that we can get some more humans interested in awesome rescue doggies by spreading happy messages too. So that’s what we’re trying to do!
Also, we are amateurs, so don’t be too hard on us! It was our first time to write an original song, and our Humans would only drive us to rehearsals at night and on the weekends.
Love, Your Rockin’ PaLs, LuLu and LoLLy!
We apologize if this is the second time we are leaving a message, but we can’t tell if the first one went through or not. We wanted to give you Two Paws Up for thinking of Four Paws Up, which is more than Two, which is what we always do. So you’re smarter.
Second, we thought you might enjoy the world’s first doggy rock music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCsxIiksAnU
We made this because we think the world has plenty of sad songs and videos about rescue dogs — but that a lot of humans could be drawn in through happy messages. So we’re trying to make some! If it helps one dog get adopted, then that’s good enough for us!
Also, we’re amateurs, we’ve never written a song before, so hopefully we didn’t make too many of the mistakes you talked about! Many paws up for Nellie and for your great blog!
Love, Your PaLs, LuLu and LoLLy!