Hammer Time at Studiobfilms
A few months ago Outside Lands Music festival approached us in search of a funny and engaging ‘announce video’. It is apparently common practice for music festivals to find an entertaining way to put all of the band names into a video and use it as a tool to announce their line-up. We got pretty excited for several reasons:
- We all love the Outside Lands Festival
- They said there was a good chance that MC Hammer would work on the video with us.
- It’s fun to try to be funny
So we got right to work and pitched a few concepts. The one that emerged a winner (as in Hammer himself chose it) came from the brain of Studio B’s Creative Director Aaron Barry. The video reveals the back story of how MC Hammer became The MC Hammer with the right moves, right pants and fancy tag line.
As you can plainly see, there were several production challenges along the way. They included, but were not limited to: creating a 70’s house set, finding a record shop to shoot in, casting talented actors to play MC Hammer as a boy, his Momma, the prom dates, construction workers and the record store boys, fitting wardrobe for all and — the icing on the cake — creating the perfect cake to write band names in icing of course! Oh, and we had to make it happen in like 3 days. Thanks to Stars agency for submitting such great talent and Rachel Speirs for her amazing cake decoration magic and all-around production coordination.
Since my house is stuck in time, the 70’s house location challenge was solved pretty easily with the help of some very creative art direction from Shayla Dopp. Director of Photography David Collier and the Red Epic brought down some gorgeous images. It was an all hands on deck project for Studio B and was super fun shoot day, even though it was pouring buckets for most of the afternoon. Fun fact, you can see and hear the rain in the construction scene.
And... if you’re wondering... the answer is yes! MC Hammer was a true pleasure to work with. Be sure to watch to the end of the video for the bonus hilarity with him in my kitchen!
See you all at the Outside Lands Festival!
Credits:
Creative Director/Writer: Aaron Barry
Producer/Director: Jane Selle Morgan
Director of Photography: David Collier
Production Manager/Icing Goddess: Rachel Speirs
Art Director: Shayla Dopp
Editor: Kevin Oliver
Cast:
MC Hammer: as himself
Record Store Boys: Michael Campbell & Griffin Skylark
Little Hammer: Kishaun Lewis
Mama: Tanee Osborne
Auntie: Ms. Lewis
Prom Boy: Jamany
Prom Girl: Taylor Jones
Construction Workers: Kevin Clarke & Chris “Tex” Fountain
Music:
Beck “Mixed Bizness”
Fun “We are Young”
Special Thanks:
Joe and Graham (70’s house)
Dave’s Record Shop in Berkeley
The entire production crew!
And of course, our clients at Superfly Presents/Outside Lands!
