The Resurgence
2003 iMac
Two years had gone by without a single video being produced by "I Like To Play With Toys" Productions®. The reason being was that Joseph did not have access to equipment required to make the quality videos he
had grown accustomed to. He focused on
other creative endeavors. In 2002 Joseph joined
the band IntraVenus which was undergoing several shifts in members. He also spent more time volunteering at the
local theater group. It wasn’t that he abandoned
the production company; he just didn’t have the gear or outlet to work on video
projects. Joseph took a few film classes
in college but they did not provide the same artistic freedom that he was
allotted in high school.
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| Swu performing drummer duties while Joseph was taking a potty break. |
While
collaborating with fellow IntraVenus band mate Matthew Swiatocha, he urged
Joseph to look into getting a computer that allowed for decent video
editing. Joseph’s research escorted him
to the latest iMac which came standard with iMovie. iMovie is perceived as a simple editing tool
but it was just what Joseph needed to create the videos he wanted.
One Step Away
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| The Chase Theory - One of the best indie bands in Florida |
Is She Really Going Out With Him
When someone
recounts their greatest success they customarily claim to know it would somehow
become monumental. There isn’t a soul who participated in the music video Is
She Really Going Out With Him by Joe Jackson that would have ever predicted it
going viral. In everyone’s defense it
was 2003 and YouTube had not been developed.
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| A still of the directors small cameo in the video. |
The video
stemmed from Joseph and his friends gathered together one evening with nothing
to do. He decided to make a quick video
to have some new content for editing. The
video concept was as simple as the song, a boy was singing about his ex-girlfriend
being with another guy. Joseph would have
preferred to shoot many of the scenes indoors but didn’t have time for proper
preproduction. The “storyline shots”
were taped at St Gregory the Great School and much like Photograph he filmed
off of his memory. They featured Mike
Cody as the lead character, Liz Hausdorf on guitar, Anthony Ardezzone as the
new boyfriend, and Bernadette Kahir as the girlfriend. The filming went quick but
was coming up short in the editing room.
Thus additional band shots were filmed a few weeks later with the Renda
Sisters helping out. Mike became the
lead singer in front of an all girl band.
Donna was on tambourine, Diana on drums, and Liz remained on
guitar. It was performed as silly as it
was written. Shooting wrapped, Joseph
cut the video together and it was all but forgotten.
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| Mike jamming out with his all girl rock band. There were talks of them becoming a real rock and roll act but they could never decide on what shoes to wear during their performances. |
In wasn’t
until 2006 when Joseph rediscovered the video and decided to post in on the “I
Like To Play With Toys” Productions® YouTube channel. It was shared with a few friends on MySpace
and forgotten about. From there the
video took on a life of its own and slowly began to grow in viewership. The Joe Jackson fans really appreciated the
videos silliness, they understood the humor and fun surrounding the video. The video grew to over 350,000 views but
sadly in 2009 Warner Music Group (WMG) and YouTube had a disagreement about
music rights and pulled the ability to utilize WMG music on the website, thus
the video was muted. Even after being
muted it still continued to garner views and has climbed to over 500,000
hits. “I Like To Play With Toys”
Productions® does not consider the additional views after the video was muted
as part of the videos virility.
Trying to
ascertain why the video was so successful has been a conundrum for the
production company. It has failed to
achieve the same level of viral success with other videos. This is in spite of more coherent works which
had more time and better production value invested into the projects. The only explanation from the peculiar
incident is that a website that has The History of Dance as its most viewed video must be primarily used by people who are fans of the post Bob Sagat version
of America’ Funniest Home Videos.
Senses
Senses is a
lesser known video but was groundbreaking for “I Like To Play With Toys”
Productions®. It marked the first time a
video produced by the company was written, directed, and edited by someone
other than Joseph. The story stemmed from an idea Matthew Swiatocha had. He wanted to create a video and compose an
original score around the compilation.
The concept was a man who wakes up outdoors and is confused about what
occurred. He gradually discovers he has
heightened senses that eventually drive him to the brink of insanity and passes
out, thus experiencing a continuous cycle or confusion and torment. Matthew developed the entire concept from
beginning to end and Joseph was the lead actor.
Matthew
Swiatocha was a super genius with degrees from the Ivy League schools
Providence and Columbia. Prior to
teaming up with Joseph, his main strength was science. Matt had invented a robotic arm while
attaining degrees in both physics and engineering. Coupled with his scientific mind was a true
artist, Matt became a guitarist for the band IntraVenus and ushered the band
into its most creatively successful period.
He was truly a gifted talent in both the hard sciences and the
arts. He challenged “I Like To Play With
Toys” Productions® to push beyond its typical functions into more fluid and
creative enterprises. Matthew was never
happy with just getting it done; he was a perfectionist and held the team to
higher standards.
The shoot was
one of the smoothest ever for the company.
Matthew was a well organized director and had a well thought out story
before shooting began. The only problem
that really occurred wasn’t discovered until after filming had wrapped. Joseph was diagnosed with mononucleosis a few
days later, which delayed editing of the video.
After Joseph recovered from his
illness Matthew arrived and began to edit his video. He spliced the takes together in under an
hour and recorded the work onto a tape.
Matthew planned to record the musical arrangement based on the tape and
would return to add the composition at a later date. About a year went by and Matthew had not
returned with his musical score. It was
unclear when he would return and the incomplete project was taking up needed
computer space. Joseph shuffled through
his music library and played the song over different tracks that ran the same
length of the video. He decided on Say
It Ain’t So by Weezer, the song’s melody matched the pace of the video. The video was burned to DVD and tagged as
completed. It is unknown if Matthew ever
completed the original score or if he is still trying to perfect it.
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| Swi is notoriously camera shy thus very few pictures of him exist. He can always be identified but his tall thin stature, sports car and well used baseball cap. |
Pregnant Death
In much of
the same vein as Senses, Pregnant Death was written and directed by Matt
Leabo. The video stemmed from an art
project Matt was required to complete while attending the School of Visual
Arts. It needed to be loaded with
symbolism, Matt proceeded to take the challenge head on and incorporate as much
nonsensical imagery that he could conjure in order to demonstrate the
ridiculously over analyzed artistic feats that people create. The story was about an elderly woman who gets
a visit from Death and during the visit Death goes into labor and has a baby. Matt Leabo recruited Swiatocha to play Death
and his grandmother as the elderly woman. Joseph was called in to be the
cinematographer. Joseph brought Alison
Glaser with him during the shoot as a spectator and she eventually ended up
working on the project as a production assistant. The shoot went smoothly enough and when
completed Matt made a tape to tape edit of the video because he was under a
project deadline. Joseph took the
footage and created his own version of the video and added the song Superstition
by Stevie Wonder to give it a light hearted feel. Leabo’s version was composed by Matthew
Swiatocha and was an eerie, ominous, frightful video. Sadly not many people got to see Leabo’s
director’s cut which is believed to be lost.
Anus
All the scenes opened with crotch shots zooming out to a large landscape of absurd homoerotic situations that were dubbed with illogical babble about what a man is. The shoot was as seamless as ever. Swiatocha had developed a smooth production process that was lacking in the earlier works. With Swi’s input Joseph edited the piece together and while not as successful as prior projects it was a groundbreaking talkie that lead into one of the most ambitious enterprises “I Like To Play With Toys” Productions® would ever produce.
Written by
Steve Rogers,
Writer
Christmas Snow,
Writer
Joseph Ammendolea
Writer
Christmas Snow,
Writer
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
