Making the Every Major’s Terrible Video
At midnight, two nights ago, I read:
and decided I’d be the guy to do the video. Obviously, someone had to.
I was up till three in the morning singing it over and over again trying not to slip up on the words. I ended up with a video that advanced from frame to frame of the comic with me singing not over an audio-only version, but over a full version of the song. I sang over this:
It was fun, but because it was 3am, there was a good chance it might was awful. I decided to rewatch it in the morning, and post it then if I still liked it.
When I woke up, I rewatched it and decided it was terrible. I started to write an email to a friend who’s recorded music for me in the past, asking if he could record a version of Modern Major General for me. To help him out, I chased down some sheet music on 8notes, and saw they had a ‘play’ option. I’d spent over half an hour the night before trying to chase down an audio only / karaoke version with no success. But here it was. Found accidentally. I scrapped the email, sped the music up by about 20% because I’m an idiot, spliced it so it allowed for another verse as the comic required, and sang over it over and over again until I made few enough mistakes to be proud of it:
Even then, I was hesitant to post as someone had done a fantastic job beating me to the punch. I figured mine was about 40% faster and way more fun, even if it came 11 hours later. After I posted mine a bunch of great other videos of this came out.
As of now, it’s my biggest one day hit of a youtube video, and the first acting/singing related video I’ve ever had any success with. It’s inspired me to start creating more videos just for the fun of it. I was thrilled to see it get 5,000 views the first couple days, over a 150 likes, and not a single dislike. It really gets me excited for whatever the next project will be.
And a big thanks to Randall Munroe. All hail Randall, king of the internet.
