(Ya might recognize a certain redhead. ;) )
Ever want to feel nervous?
Go and tell a world-renowned conductor like Dr. Craig Jessop (former director of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir) that you would really, really, really like to put on a flash mob with The American Festival Chorus because ya know…FLASH MOBS ARE AWESOME!!! YAY!!!!
(I know.)
(I’ve worked with him for 4-years and I still can’t quite believe I had the guts (insanity) to ask.)
Luckily, he is the best sport in the world and he agreed.
WE DID THIS IN TEN DAYS, people.
Well, the idea was pitched three weeks prior to Black Friday.
Then Dr. Jessop picked up the phone and called an INCREDIBLE arranger, Kurt Bestor, to specially arrange a royalty-free song for us. Then we had The Britian War Requiem to produce. THEN I started working on the behind the scene and gathering an INCREDIBLE team together. By a week out we knew we had a location, a film crew, a choir and that was IT, other than what I kept seeing in my head. (Which is a fat lot of good if you don’t have someone help you execute that vision.)
Thank goodness for our choreographer (Stephanie R. White). She came in with only 6 days to call dancers on a holiday weekend and put it all together. THEN we had to work with everyone, logistic the mall and the needed crew and equipment for the sound, figure out the placement, figure out the recording the music, figure out the…the…EVERYTHING. ALL IN THE WEEK BEFORE THANKSGIVING. And pray very hard it would all turn out.
I love it.
And I did NOT do it alone. Everyone knew someone that could, and wanted to help that was KEY in this production. It would not have happened otherwise, period.
It was more work than I care to explain, but let’s say this…if you ever think “Hey! It would be super fun to put together and be in charge of running a flashmob!” Do yourself a favor. Get on a train. Then throw yourself off the train. Then get run over by a tractor. Then have your mutilated body kicked by the irate driver of aforementioned tractor. But if you STILL want to put on a flash mob and know a lot of insanely talented people that will get up at 6am and drive in the bitter cold to practice bouncing up and down in a mall? GO RIGHT AHEAD, DUDE! Because you will need to be that committed.
And?
I had the time of my life.
Please consider sharing this with your family and friends.
We learned something ANNOYING. Views from video embedded on Facebook do NOT count as view on Facebook. And views are ESSENTIAL in a project like this. So, a big, huge favor…can you use this link if you are sharing on Facebook, consider not having a thumbnail available ? Or if it is easier, just send them here to this post? (It’s a long story but it basically those are the only certifiable fixes on the Google help forum where everyone was having a moo-cow about this issue like I was.)
(AND YES… I am blatantly pimping and begging for shares here but I feel zealously responsible to make sure it is flung far and wide. I’m sure you and the tractor driver appreciate my commitment, at least. :) )
I would be remiss not to end this with some thanks to those whose time, energy, generosity and good will was donated to this production.
Dr. Craig Jessop (Who has an AWESOME Hitchcock-like cameo…see if you can spot him), The American Festival Chorus, Kurt Bestor, WhySound, Klepticenter Productions, Stephanie R. White for her amazing choreography, Irishfre Dance Company, Music Theatre West dancers, The Westminster Bell Choir, The other 5 talented singers who stood in a recording booth and recorded track after track with me an hour after getting the music and last but NOT least, A huge, huge, huge, huge shout out to Preston Parker of MultiMediaWise Productionswho was as passionate about this project and donated all filming and editing. (Which is a bigger thing than you can imagine.)
It was such fun.
Love to you all and happy holidays!
P.S. DID I MENTION I WOULD LOVE YOU FOREVER IF YOU SPREAD THIS AROUND TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW?
P.P.S. Because I so would.
P.P.P.S Or, you know…at least feel very friendly towards you for the afternoon. :D
P.P.P.P.S. One more thing. They may jump of the screen, glare at and possibly bitchslap you, but PLEASE at least attempt to ignore the FIVE FEET OF ROOTS ON MY HAIR. I didn’t have time to eat, sleep or breathe…let alone make friends with Miss Clairol.
;)
I’m helping head up the social media efforts for AFG…if you would like to keep tabs on us (because we have many great things in store) please find us on Facebook and follow us on The Twitter!) And ya might be talking to someone you know from those account, so the more the merrier!
So, so fun! It turned out great so all your work (insanity) paid off, methinks.
I thought I recognized Stephanie White in there for a second but wasn’t sure it was her with her hat on until I saw the credits. It’s been years and years since I’ve seen her. I loved watching her dance back in the Jane Eyre days.
I think its rough to pull one of these together in malls where it’s going to create a bottleneck, and Cache Valley looks to be one of those places.
The fact that you did and it didn’t get tripped up by shoppers-you all captivate that audience! Bravo.
(and is it okay that I still want to sing in a flash mob?)
Bravo! :-)
Well done! I sing too and know how difficult something like this can be – keeping in time, listening to everyone’s voices etc while you’re all trying to sing from different places. Happy holidays :)
Great job! Posted via the link you provided to FB.
How fun! I bet it was a hairy nightmare to pull off, for sure! Looks like a total blast, though!
TOTALLY wish you could have come! (Did you like the the janitor playing your brother? hehehehe)
Fifty flavors of awesome with a huge dollop of awesomesauce on top!! You are just the bravest and most ridiculously talented little elf for pulling this off so successfully. Brava.
Who is that drop-dead gorgeous and sexy redhead we see at 0:10 and 0:24 with that sassy look on her face?
Huzzah!
Very nice. Good singing, dancing, and bell ringing. The performance showcased talent with happy hearts. I’m sure it was work, but it looks like a lot of fun.
You’re looking good, Loralee.
P.S. Sweet cameo of Dr. Jessop.
P.P.S. Lex has the link, and I’ll see if Theo can put in on in England.
“Looking good?”
ONLY “good?!?!?” You need your eyes examined, boy.
And owe her an apology for slighting her.
Like
Joe, my eyesight is excellent. She does not love me, as my wife does, so I’m not going to grade young Loralee higher than my wife. :-)
Loralee has a sweet blog and a lovely family. She obviously had leadership and organizational skill, coupled with mad talent and bravery to sing about Merry Christmas in today’s political climate.
If she wants to say, “Apology accepted, Captain NaCly” [off screen thud] she can.
Nice job of filling in the hole, Cap’n Salty Dawg.
But…
You seem to imply that, while not rating her higher than your blushing bride, you may be rating her equal to, which in turn implies that you rate your bride as only “good.” (can you tell I’ve been around that track a lap or two?)
I adore you boys. :)
Oh dear, there’ll be no living with those two now.
Nah…we will just swoon at her feet, massage them, bathe them with warm water scented with orange blossoms. That kind of thing.
What, no home cooking?
You just can’t find any good men anymore!
(Hehehehehehe)
xo
How about this:
A DISH OF ODDIMENTS OF MEATS, WELL SEASONED WITH A SUFFICENCY OF
SAVORY SPICES, AND MESSED FORTH WITH INDIAN BREAD, USEFUL FOR FEEDING
A NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHEN THERE IS NOT A SUFFICENT QUANTITY OF ANY ONE
MEAT TO MAKE A MEAL
Or Spicy Meat Stew, if ya wanna short name……
Get your fire going and stoke it good so you will have a decent amount of coals to work with.
Might as well hang your kettle over this to start getting water hot, too.
While the fire is burning down, cut up your meat – beef, pork, chicken, lamb, whatever -
in about 3/8″ dice and dredge it in seasoned flour. Cut up an onion or two and crush & paste some
garlic (crush it with a knife, sprinkle it with salt, and use you knife to smear it into a paste).
By now you should have enough coals to work with, so pull some out of the fire – enough to make a
bed about the size of your dutch oven (12″ works good), but leave a space about 4 or 5 inches in the
center clear of coals. Set your oven over the coals. Add some grease of some sort – oil, shortening,
bacon grease, and get your onions going. When they are soft, but not brown, add the meat.
Stir it about some. Add powdered cumin, ground black pepper, a little ground coriander, chili powder,
and a little each of hot, sweet, bittersweet, and smoked paprika, and a touch of chipotle chili powder.
Stir it around some. Check and adjust seasoning. Add a little chicken stock, stir. Put the lid on
and put a ring of coals around the rim of the lid. Set a slightly smaller oven (10″) on top of that to start
heating up, throw some chopped bacon into that one.
Have the lid for the 2nd oven sitting on something clean and put some coals on top of it so it will get
hot. While it is heating take about 3 cups of cornmeal, one cup of flour, some salt, a little baking
powder, a little baking soda, and mix them together. Add one beaten egg and about 2 cups of
buttermilk – if you don’t have buttermilk you can use 2 cups regular milk clabbered with about 2 or 3
Tbs of cider vinegar. Mix this up into a batter. Make sure that the bacon in the 2nd oven has rendered
out a lot of the fat (you don’t HAVE to use bacon, you can use Crisco, butter, oil, but you need some
hot fat). Swirl the oven so the grease coats the bottom and at least an inch up the sides. Pour in the
batter and put the lid on. About every 10 minutes, give the oven a quarter turn clockwise and the lid a
quarter turn counter-clockwise, this helps even out hot spots. Cornbread should be done in 30 to 40
minutes. And the meat will be done about the same time as the cornbread. At some point about half
way through cooking the cornbread, you will want to check on the meat.
If there is too much liquid you can either thicken it up with some couscous, roux, or cornstarch, or set
up more coals to put the cornbread on, add some coals under the meat and let the sauce reduce with the
lid off. Towards the end of the cooking, your water should be boiling so you can make your coffee.
Use your favorite method. Turn the cornbread out of the oven, cut it for serving, butter it if you want. I
like to crumble it in the bottom of my bowl and mess out the meat on top of it. And have a chunk of it
on the side with honey or molasses for dessert.
N.B. you will need to check your coals from time to
time during the cooking to make sure you keep your heat. If you have cornbread left over, split it in
half the next morning and fry it up in the fat from the bacon or sausage that you cooked for breakfast.
Good way to do biscuits, too.
Dude. You get to be head houseboy now. Also, I AM SO HUNGRY NOW! :)
very cool.
Very.
So awesome! The quality of the singing is so impressive…if I’d been there as a spectator I probably would have burst into tears. I welled up a bit just watching it from sheer joy in the melody.
I am glad I am not the only one with tears in my eyes over this!! I agree – pure joy.
Fantastic job Loralee. Magnifique :)
Loralee,
The most wonderful dancing in the world at a wonderful time of the year. Amazing effort and results by all.
What a great way to start my morning. Even if all of Lex’s lurkers are clicking on the link and sucking the bandwidth away before it gets to Coastal California.
I’ll be back and will forward your link far and wide.
It looked like great fun.
Regards,
Mick
Oh my! This kind of charitable beauty makes tears pop out of my eyes. Seriously.
So, so glad you shared your gift. That’s what it’s all about, right?!
So I was watching your tweets and updates as you were putting this together, but watching it??
THAT JUST MADE ME SO FREAKING HAPPY!!!!
Posting now!
xoxo
MOST excellent, indeed! I blogged it, Loralee.
This was amazing. Congratulations to all of you on a job very well done!
Awesome. Is the Dr. the fellow in the Utah State hoodie? That’s my guess as an uneducated [on those matters] viewer. ;p
That was awesome!! I would of LOVE for a Christmas flash mob to break out in song while I am shopping!! So cool!!
Your amazing event is now emblazoned across my FB wall and as I see, a few more :) I also linked back to your lovely little spot on the web, Loralee :)
Handbells! Dancing! Ben as a Janitor! Genius!
I may or may not have watched this video 15 times in a row. Then shared it on Twitter. And Facebook. And Google Plus. And on email. And texted the link to my besties. If I sent Christmas cards, I’d find some way to embed the video.
When you told me about the flashmob idea on My Fair Lady night, I was so excited. I knew you were nervous, but I also knew you’d totally pull it off. And you did. And now I wish that I’d driven up to Logan to experience it live.
Loralee – you RAWK. The AFC rawks. I need to move up to Cache Valley so I can be a part of your group. Not only do I love Craig Jessop, and I have been needing a quality choir to join….but I totally can see us having fun playing with our faa-laa-laas in a group together.
And. I couldn’t resist. I had to blog about it
http://www.cuteculturechick.com/2011/12/christmas-flashmob-ding-dong-merrily-on-high/
AWESOME!! MERRY CHRISTMAS.
Really really cool! You guys are AMAZING!
Loralee, I saw this a few days ago while reading on my phone and finally am on the real computer to comment. I LOVE this. You guys are so fun. I posted about it on my FB fan page. I wish I had been there in person. You are the best.
xoxo
Allison @ House of Hepworths
I MISS THEE AND THINE AWESOMENESS!
I am trying to come see Kim in Austin later this year. PARTYING MUST HAPPEN! xoxoxo
So very fun! Thanks to Allison @ House of Hepworths for sharing, too!
AWESOME!!!
Merry Christmas!
I must have watched it 15 times now, and I still get tears in my eyes every time. I love it!
It is an impressive event. Congratulations for pulling it off.
best thing EVER!
I love Christmas flash mobs. Putting it on my blog now. well after it finishes again. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!
come see me for Atlanta blog stuff. I’m new.
A friend linked me to this post. I love Flash Mobs, and I love this.
By the way, I went to your About page and notice that you like Air Supply. Yesterday, I found the Best of… CD that my husband bought me a few years ago. He thought it was a gag gift. He was horrified when I actually played it for a week until it disappeared (seemingly by his hand. I will have to do something about this…)
WOW! That was awesome! And the sound quality incredible too!
That was amazing! Is there a way to see the live version (live music)?
Oh, how this made me smile!
Being able to put this together? You rock, lady!
Wow! What a blast that must have been and you all sounded fantastic! :)