PJ Olsson's Rock Camp 2010

Hey Everyone -

Here is a great little video written, directed, and shot by creative genius and Rock Camp instructor Kenny Stahl. Oh, let’s not forget it also stars Kenny Stall.  The Rock Camp is all about creativity and trying out new ideas and this is a great example of both.  Enjoy the video and check out the production notes by Kenny below.

- Todd

Production Notes by Kenny Stall

The video was for my Film Appreciation Class.

We had three days to film and edit the project. We were not allow to talk in the film as part of the assignment so I had to call myself and play back a voice message because then it is considered a sound effect.

We had to choose a specific “type” of story to film, ours was “man loses something, then finds it“.

I thought it would be funny for me to lose my band before a show and then I would have to go find them. Well, we then go on the idea that since I am a songwriter/engineer that it would be funny to have me find myself (as in I am my own band). We wanted to establish that I find myself or who I am in the most odd places.

The song itself existed before the concept as a demo and is still in need of some touch up work as far as I am a perfectionist when it comes to engineering. I was really proud of the tune in comparison to other songs I have been working on so I though it must be in the video.

The odd part about my style of writing is the words usually are the last thing I care about. I play guitar and open my mouth what ever comes out is generally what I keep. Let me tell you the downside to that, you get quite a bit of frustrated, angry, young adult messages. I sometimes miss the big picture in songwriting which makes me seem a little immature.

Glory, Glory was a song for me about frustration. The main idea is that I don’t much like to argue with people because it never leads to anything positive. I tend to be the guy who just accepts that somethings are just going to happen or be. Therefore the message is I don’t want to win the argument, but apparently you really do so you can have it.

With that being said I have played the song for people who have interpreted it as being religious, political, nothing … etc. I was fortunate enough to have something come out of my mouth that is general enough for people to establish their own meaning to it.

As far as what context that puts on the video, I came to realize that the two concepts (the video and the song) would make it seem like I am in a constant argument with myself.

If I had more time I would have finished editing the song and shot the video in a higher definition format, I think that the idea but I am an engineer so I want it to be crispy clean.