Making the IslandReefJob video - Part 1

If you didn't catch me singing my heart out in a cleverly reworded parody of Coldplay's "The Scientist", here you go...


If you haven't seen the Coldplay video for "The Scientist", it's worth checking out...


I wanted to provide a little info on the process of making the video...

First, came the idea. I think it came to me one night while lying in bed. I had seen the Coldplay video some time back, and I wondered if I would be able to reproduce a similar concept. It kept me awake for way too long just thinking about it. Subsequent nights I had trouble falling asleep, as well, while the idea was still ruminating, thinking of the possibilities and trying to come up with lyrics.

I was able to find a MIDI version of "The Scientist" (which is basically a text file telling a computer what instruments to simulate, along with the notes and durations). In the file I found, there was a guitar playing the vocal melody part which I didn't want, since I was adding the vocal part myself, as well as a drum track I didn't like. I was able to find MIDI editing software with which I was able remove the tracks I didn't want. If I recall correctly, I believe I also used some other software to speed up the tempo of the song, in order to be able to fit in all the lyrics that I wanted within the one minute maximum for the video.

--- Download the instrumental MIDI file for my version of the song. ---

Once I got the background music worked out to my liking, I then worked on recording the vocal track. For this step, I played the music to myself through earphones while recording myself singing to it through the microphone hooked up to my laptop. I used Windows Sound Recorder for recording. It took me many takes, along with some eventual lyric enhancements, to get a version I was relatively happy with. Listening to the results, I'm very aware that I'm not a singer. Even the final take had some pitch problems, but I was happy with it (and worked in a related comment into the official version of the video via the onscreen text).

I used Audacity, a pretty decent multi-track audio editor I found (after some searching), to remove background scratches and pops, as well as audible breath-taking, from non-singing parts of the audio track. I also used it to combine the background and vocal tracks into a single music file that I later imported into the video editing software I used.

--- Download the vocals without background/instruments. ---

--- Download the final version with music and vocals. ---

Since I had to sing the words of the song backwards for the video, in order for the words to appear to be sung normally when the video was reversed, I reversed the music using Windows Sound Recorder and saved a copy of the song in reverse for me to practice with. I also recorded short portions of the song, first forwards and then three times each in reverse, onto a portable tape recorder, so that I could both practice using it and sing along to it while recording the video.

--- Download the full song, vocals only, in reverse. ---

--- Download the practice version, vocals only, with song clips played both forwards and reverse. ---

If you really like Coldplay's "The Scientist", you can download it (or a couple other versions of it) via Amazon or iTunes, below.





By the way, the top 50 applications for the job have been shortlisted. No, I was not selected. I haven't viewed all of the top 50 videos, but there looks to be some pretty impressive applicants/videos. Voting for the wild card applicant continues at IslandReefJob.com for the next 14 days.