Film Projects

Computer Nerd In General Project

Hello! I hope you find interest in helping me out with another film project of mine.  I'm looking for backup actor/singer.  I can promise you that the pay may be a piece of giant sandwich and the video may or may not go absolutely no where.

The idea

So I woke up one morning last week and had an idea. Most of my ideas come from dreams showing that I am not truly consciously talented. Moving on, I had the song of Moder Major General in my head but thought it would be neat if I could list off a lot of the skills I've aquired throughout the years working on computers. Then I started piecing the song together starting with the end of the refrain, "In Audio & Video & Internet & Technical, I am the very model of computer nerd in general". I really thought that was funny so I got up, put some paper on a clipboard and began to pace. If you are not familiar with Gilbert & Sullivan's 1879 production of Pirates of Penzance then you will want to watch this live rendition. Keep in mind that the part I want to do start :51 seconds into this youtube video:




More information can be found here, it really quite interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major-General%27s_Song

UPDATE:  I have put the vocals in including the background vocals so you'll have an idea what to do:

https://blog.freddythunder.com/_media/cng4-vocals.mp3

 

Video Part

Once I started getting some rhymes together with all the nerdy acronyms I started thinking about funny video parts I can do and how I can work it into a story. So here's the story. I'm going to rent/borrow an office board room, preferably the one where I used to work in the tall buildings by the lake on Mill & Rio Salado on the 7th floor. I will walk into a job interview and there will be three people doing the interview. My wife, Brenda, will be one of those people giving me the interview. One of them will look over the resume which will be in really small print to fit in all of the things that I do in the field. Showing that he/she can't read it easily, they'll say "Well, uh, tell us about your qualifications, what are you passionate about?" (which the passionate line comes from an interview I almost walked out of) Then I will start singing the song.

As I start singing the song, people walking by [backup singers] will make their way in acting curious about the song I'm singing. Of course they will all make it in on time for the first backup signing part. I have yet to put together a screenplay type write up for this; I want to get the song together first but have lots of ideas including:

• When I sing about finding their location using their remote IP, I'll show a video feed with white boxes around their heads with some information listed by it


• When I sing about after effects, I will pull out a lightsaber that will get stuck in a chair that I have to shake off the light saber


• some super imposed 3d objects


• 3d tunnel animation for the tunnel proxy part


• When I sing about my text message API, I'll type a little on my iPad that I'll have in the interview and everyone's cellphones will go off

And other stuff. I think it will be a lot of fun to do and pass around to the world. Of course I picture everyone in business attire and if you don't have any, I will get you some business attire to wear. If I need to get anything for anyone, we will have a cast shopping day at the goodwill the 1/2 price saturday before shooting. No kidding. Great place for costumes too. I actually found an official DPS Police windbreaker their for like a dollar.

Assets

If you're still reading, I hope that you are interested and also think that it would be a fun quick project. Acquiring a copy of the song that I can use was difficult. I thought that maybe I could use the original off the Wikipedia page but I figured that that version which plays at 209 beats per minute is too fast. I noticed that the youtube version is running at about 180 beats per minute, which I think is too slow. Regardless, I cannot remove the words, so that's out. Then I downloaded a kareoke version of the song from iTunes for practice at first, but then on the screen while it plays is all kinds of copyright warnings saying that you can't really use it for anything. So I dusted the keyboard and learned it in a couple weeks. Also knowing that since I have like 6 other projects I want to do [it's my hobby] I can't spend months learning how to play the song good enough from front to back so I recorded it in segments and then did the ol cut n paste. Here's the song, if you want to download it, right click and click your save as option.

http://www.freddythunder.com/mp3s/computer-nerd-in-general.mp3

UPDATE:  I have put the vocals in including the background vocals so you'll have an idea what to do:

http://www.freddythunder.com/film/cng4-vocals.mp3

I split the difference and recorded the fast part at 190 beats per minute and the slow part just 10 beats per minute slower. Of course as a backup singer, all of your parts will be at
190. Here is a PDF of the lyrics that you should be able to download and run on pretty much any technological device. All of the backup vocal parts are in red:

http://www.freddythunder.com/video_projects/lyrics.pdf

This link you should be able to open it and click the little disk at the top to save a copy. If that doesn't work and you want to save a copy, right click and use the save as
dialog again.

Spoiler Alert

Don't read this if you want a cheap giggle later... The end of the video, or the punchline, will be that after the whole song, and everyone is breathing heavy from the quick singing and moving around and acting and what not and me standing with jazz hands, Brenda will whisper to the other two "bosses" and then tell me, "Yeah, I think we feel that you're overqualified" then cut to me and my smile drops and I hear "Thanks for coming in!"

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