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OUR STORY BEGINS....

Since its release in early 2003, the "Gay Boyfriend" video has been downloaded from this website over 2 million times. No one involved ever imagined the audience it would find or the opportunities it would soon provide each of us. This page tells the story behind the video, in my own words from January, 2003. At the time I was a working editor trying to focus on my own side projects, and the girls went by the name "The Ukes of Hazzard."

January, 2003

Having edited many a music video, I thought it time I create my own. Friend and co-conspirator Dave Ratzlow thought my sensibility would be a good fit with the ukulele duo Sydney Maresca and Anne Harris. We began with modest ambitions: this project would simply be an excuse to make something fun. If a good self-promotional piece or something that people would just want to see came out of it, that would only be a bonus. And so we were off!

Dave and I wanted to illustrate the Ukes' lyrics, turning their lament into a fun, pop fantasy adventure. After setting up the dismal realities of their straight boyfriends, our video quickly moves into the perfect dream date with these, the perfect boyfriends. Their adventure grows ever more ridiculous until its... out of this world! (Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

I knew the frantic story could be disastrous and confusing if it wasn't completely worked out beforehand, so I animated my storyboards to fine tune the pacing. The video is conceived to the lyrics, sight gags playing precisely on some lines. By shooting the Ukes singing sync within an ever unfolding story, the footage would be married to that single lyric. I wouldn't be able to re-pace anything, and I really wanted to avoid the token music video cutaway to a separate performance set-up in case any one section or joke didn't work. That would rupture the charming, continuous flow of our tightly knit adventure. I planned most of the video in an animated storyboard. You can watch a split-screen comparison with that, the rough cut, and final product below

With my out-of-pocket budget of $1800 and no one begging us for the final product, the production had to be as simple as possible. Of course that meant shooting on miniDV. But I really wanted their fantasy to be a sparkling bubble-gum wonder. Building large sets was not an option, and the prosumer cameras available to us are decent, but all are plagued by poor contrast rendering, excessive depth-of-field, and of course that georgeous "video" look. I knew the only way I'd get satisfying imagery was to turn this into a compositing heavy project where I could shoot elements in a controlled environemnt, build my own backgrounds, and layer and finesse every shot. I initially speculated it would be four weeks of post-production. (Cue laugh track here.)

The quest for eye-candy began with a two day shoot in a former restaurant turned impromptu soundstage. A cast of seven and a crew of seven used generously donated lighting and grip equipment to shoot a series of simple sets, and a healthy amount of greenscreen. Fortunately, Sydney is a costume designer by trade, so she pulled together over thirty outfits, some of which she sewed from scratch. Rae Umsted and myself rekindled our art direction skills from long ago and built three one wall sets. Dave Ratzlow served as Producer/Assistant Director. Jon Jacobson tirelessly rigged and rerigged lighting and grip gear for an endless shotlist. Old film school buddy and now successful cameraman Jonathan Furmanski lensed our studio days. He's widely experienced with both film and video, and he specifically had experience with a pre-release model of the brand new Panasonic DVX100 minDV camera. We utilized the camera's 24P mode, as shooting 24 frames a second gave a more cinematic look, and substantially simplified compositing tasks.

While Anne and Sydney strapped on their diminutive instruments, friends David Carney and Blair Black put on their most sensitive face for their roles as the gay boyfriends. Actors Lee Lorenz and Oliver Butler filled in as the meathead boyfriends whose wandering eyes set-up our story. Kate Gormely juggled the entire cast's hair and make-up, including the excellent technicolor sailors.

Those two days came in at 14 and 17 hours each, and I'm deeply honored that everyone stuck with it and worked so hard throughout. Incredibly, we got everything I needed, with the the exception of two location scenes that would be picked up in the following weeks.

The bustle of production gave way to the quiet task of post-production. Editing was simple with so much of the video tightly structured, and I quickly moved into the real task. My all-time favorite software Adobe After Effects would be used to composite the video. Many scenes, such as the park, our stylized Times Square, the movie theater, the motorcycles, the casino, and the flying sequence are generated completely from greenscreen shots of our actors. Everything else was created from scratch, mostly in Photoshop and Illustrator using digital still photos I shot. I praise Google's image search function that provided not only much visual inspiration, but also lot's of small photographic details and textures I blended together into the scenery, filling in what I couldn't find myself.

Building scenes this way is daunting, but the power you have to tailor imagery is fantastic. Every line and color can be purposeful and lovely. Tireless excitement soon trampled my initial doubts. Compositing took seven dedicated weeks, longer than I hoped for, but the final product's quality is unbelievable for its budget.

The compositing and 3D scene generation techniques used here are now commonplace on all sorts of productions. What's exciting about this video's post is that I did all of this by myself on two laptop computers using off-the-shelf software. I spent just under $2000 on the shoestring shoot, and I made up for everything that lacked using every digital trick I could muster. I think the production value looks it may have cost over 50 times that. I am proud of this feat.

And that's it! "Gay Boyfriend" was conceived as a fun, low-tech amusement. Once the wheels of production began to turn, I ran hog-wild past even my own expectations. I am proud of its charming adventure and frivolous, fun energy. I thank everyone who was involved and supported the production.

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