WM Grads Place in They Might Be Giants Video Contest

By Desiree Parker Monday, August 22, 2011

Two twentysomethings were sitting around their Williamsburg apartment one day this summer with not much to do.

For some, this might mean a day of television, or a dip in the pool.

For Alexander Gillies and Thomas Baumgardner, it meant grabbing a camera and making a music video for a new song released by a famous American alternative rock band.

The two William and Mary film studies graduates decided on the fly to shoot a music video for a new They Might Be Giants contest. About 100 people entered the contest, and Gilles and Baumgardner were chosen as first runner-up. This got them some internet glory, along with a large pizza with extra toppings and praise from contest judge, actor and writer John Hodgman.

Gillies is a big TMBG fan. He heard about the contest through the band’s Facebook page a few days before the contest deadline. “I thought, eh, might as well,” jokes Gilles. He enlisted the help of his friend Baumgardner, who says, “I had nothing else to do, so we grabbed our cameras and went out and started filming.”

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Gillies’ main idea for the video centered on making rainbow fingerprints to the beat of the music (see the video above). “I’m a huge TMBG fan,” says Gillies. “What I love about their videos… is that they are all about the rhythm and feel of a song.

"Plus, that’s something I do when I listen to a song – I drum my fingers. So, I went with that.”

The two covered the hallway in their apartment with white paper to shoot the fingerprint scenes. “It looked like we lived in an insane asylum,” says Baumgardner, laughing. “We had to keep explaining to people what was going on.”

Beyond the fingerprints idea, the plan for the rest of the video was a little more vague.

In the song, called "Can’t Keep Johnny Down," Johnny “comes off as being a jerk,” says Baumgardner.

“And we had this cool clock and wanted to do something with it, so we went with Johnny’s killing time [as a theme].” Johnny becomes a bad guy in the video who is trying to kill time, while a supernatural force works to stop him.

The results impressed Hodgman, who awarded the men with first runner-up for “Most Stylish Cape.”

“I LOVE this video,” Hodgman wrote in his blog about the contest winners, announced July 18. “It took me completely by surprise. The young men involved created a completely unexpected interpretation of the song, and created their own universe in which to explore it.

“It’s one of the few to really and directly engage with the beats of the song itself: I get gooseflesh every time I see those fingers making those little rhythmic dots. Many of the shots are just lovely, and the editing and acting is often breathtakingly assured and winning.”

The only criticisms he had were that the fight scene could have been better choreographed, and the knife and the clock connection could have been clearer.

Still, Hodgman said, “these guys get extra toppings on their free pizza from me, and I hope to see more of their work.”

 

Gillies and Baumgardner were excited when they read Hodgman’s comments.

“We were nervous, with all the entries that had come in,” says Baumgadner. “We really appreciated his comments. We like positive feedback. We thought we’d do well, since we’ve been editing for four years and we were really able to cut the video to the music and stick with the rhythm.”

Baumgardner has worked on a few film pieces, the most recent of which is a 30-minute movie he made with Gillies that the two entered in the Virginia Film Festival. He and Gillies have also been working in a videography business (owned by Gillies and one of his other friends) for two years since they graduated college.

Gillies says, “I wasn’t so sure about our chances. There were lots of really cool videos submitted. But, we were really happy with the video we created, and we’re glad we did it.”

The two won a pizza with extra toppings for their efforts. They chose sausage, peppers and onions on their pie from Maurizio’s Italian Restaurant on Route 60, Gillies reports.

Placing in the music video contest marked the end of Gillies’ and Baumgardners’ film adventures together in Williamsburg. Baumgardner moved to New Orleans this month to start graduate school at the University of New Orleans to study film production. Gillies is moving to Seattle in January, just because he can. He’ll be moving the videography business, Silk and Silver, with him and working on it on the West Coast.