I’d call this a Special Edition Jam Report, except we didn’t actually Jam. Still, though, we had a good number of the Murkjammers present today for the conclusion of our video shooting for our submission to the Great Big Sea Karaoke Contest! In addition to solarbird and myself, we had mamishka, sutures1, and technoshaman, with surprise bonus tereshkova2001 as Jareth the Goblin King!

Dara has been a GODDESS for this effort, people. I had a few initial ideas for the script, sure, but the visual and sound and general arrangement of shots, not to mention the technical work of actually shooting said shots with her digital camera? That’s ALL been on her. Really, my contribution to this whole shebang has pretty much ‘sing lead and yoink video snippets into iMovie’.

Many thanks must also be given to Meems for primary wardrobe contribution, in order to build a shot which will remain unidentified until the video goes live. But trust me, you’ll know the shot when you see it. ;> Ellen and Glenn also contributed a few wardrobe bits, as did sksouth. Separate kudos to Glenn for shooting assistance both yesterday and today, and Ellen and Meems and Glenn all together for prop and script wrangling!

spazzkat has also come through marvelously, both with initially pointing me at iMovie as the tool to use to pull all this together, AND with building us credits in Flash that I can plug in at the tail end of the video.

And finally, thanks to Torrey for going to the trouble to costume up very nicely for what will be a pretty short shot, in the eventual shipping product.

Now comes the editing like mad in iMovie! We’ll get this done as fast as we can, y’all, and we look very much forward to showing you the final video!

I would be quite remiss if I didn’t post about the fun solarbird, technoshaman, mamishka, cflute, and I have been having putting together the audio track for our contribution to the GBS contest in progress!

And by “audio track” I mean “actual audio track”, not just whatever audio Dara’s digital camera might pick up. Dara’s already got considerable experience recording and engineering herself for Crime and the Forces of Evil, and she is pulling out all the stops doing it for this. She’s also got considerable experience with her own singing work, and she’s been cramming that into my and Glenn’s brains, too!

Props must be given to grian_ruadh, who supplied Dara with an awesome set of vocal exercises for singing. Thanks, Andra! Dara spent a good chunk of Friday and yesterday working with me and then Glenn on these–and we discovered that HOLY JUMPING GODS I HAVE A FOUR OCTAVE RANGE. To wit, WHAT?!

I’m also discovering my first real appreciation for how much hard work actual, proper singing is, when you’re able to slide seamlessly between your chest voice and your head voice. This is a huge challenge for me right now, because the song we’re doing, “Nothing But a Song”, has a vocal break for me right smack dab in the middle of the verse. And given that I’m singing lead, we cannot, cannot have me sounding weak on the verses. (Fortunately, I’ve just heard Dara do some pretty awesome remixing of my current recorded tracks, so we may not have to re-record me after all. Here’s hoping!)

Meanwhile, Dara got a hell of an impressive bass rumble out of Glenn for the harmony in the bridge. Let me put this in perspective for you, y’all. Those of you who’ve followed me on LJ for a long time may remember that when we attended the 2003 Vancouver show, the first time we saw Murray Foster with the band, he totally blew us away with the stunning low note he hit on the final note of “General Taylor”.

I am not kidding when I say that what Dara got out of Glenn for low rumbly notes made her AND me have a similar “WHOA” reaction. So big, big props to both Glenn and Dara on this!

Today, Mimi and Callie came over to contribute higher-level harmonies. I wanted Meems’ harmony support on the choruses of the song, and she laid down a kickass tight harmony on top of what I was singing. It is very telling that in fact when I think of this song right now, Mimi’s harmony is even overriding The Doyle’s vocals in my brain. Seriously, do you guys know how hard it is to dislodge Alan Doyle’s singing from my brain? That there is a mighty achievement. MIGHTY, I tell you!

Then Meems and Callie both threw in some very, very nice high harmonies for the harmony brick we’re assembling for the bridge–both singing by themselves and then joining Dara and me on a four-person track where we sang the dominant notes of the bridge, split up by octaves with Meems and Callie on the high octave and Dara and me on the lower. If I do say so myself, I think Dara’s done a stupendous job filling out the aural spectrum of the bridge. And I can’t wait for you all to hear it!

Now I need to start figuring out how to put together a video that’ll be worthy of this Awesomeness. If anybody out there has iMovie or QuickTime tips to share, now would be a very, very good time to drop a comment!

Oh, and just for posterity’s sake:

Anna in the Studio