AMUSIUM - Favorite Game [Official Video] Released!

Russell Huiskamp, better known by his stage name AMUSIUM, and I collaborated on a new music video for his upcoming EP "Favorite Game." (Available 04/24)



I believe this song is perfect for people like me that grew up during the "PlayStation Generation." As children of the modern world, we've all dealt with the emotions, both good and bad, inspired by video games. Just as the generation before discovered with television, and the next generation has with social media, we have discovered the possibility of escapism within every new cartridge or disc. "Playing the pain away" is something that we've all done, be it amongst friends or alone.

Without a doubt, this was the easiest video project I've ever put together. Russell and I continually discussed the phenomenon of how the pieces seemed to fall together. Everything from the Laundromat location, to the rental of the dolly and track went so smoothly, we almost couldn't believe it.

Therefore, to say that anybody "made" this video seems like an overstatement. It's almost as if the pieces of the video were simply waiting to be guided into place, which is strange because both mine and Russell's respective concepts were quite nebulous at the start.

The way in which the video was made was quite a departure from any of my other projects. The Laundromat, Hair Stylist and Tollbooth locations were all filmed first. Russell and I then put together a rough sketch of the final video in Adobe Premiere during lunch. We used different colored solids to represent the different locations and used an additional colored solid to represent video game footage that we would capture later.

With this rough outline in mind, we captured footage from StarFox 64 by pointing the camera at Russell's parent's HDTV and using a Mac-based emulator to play it while upscaling it to fit the HDTV. The StarFox footage was then dropped into the timeline of our rough outline along with several pre-selected clips we wanted projected on the wall. This was then exported to be fed to the projector in our final location.

Using various dolly speeds, we then filmed several angles  of Russell singing the song and a few special insert shots as well. Therefore, the video you see, is really two videos. One being projected on the wall within the other.

I have so much more I could say about this song, the video, and the process of making it but I'll simply leave you with one closing remark.

It's often said that "the best things in life are free" and while I agree with that sentiment I must now also believe that the best things in life are easy. When something is meant to happen, it will.