On the Filming of a Documentary about Hit Song Science in Virginia for South Korea Awesome!

by Paul Ottinger

Our  band, Virginia Coalition, was engaged by David Meredith, CEO of  Music Intelligence Solutions,  to take part in the filming of a documentary about Hit Song Science. A  film crew from the Seoul Broadcasting System, a media network out of South Korea, was lined up for a round of travel to the US with interview stops in Washington, D.C., Savannah, GA, New York, and Boston. I’ve never seen the weekly news program entitled “SBS Special” but I hear it’s South Korea’s answer to “60 Minutes”. I wonder who South Korea’s answer to Andy Rooney is? “You ever wonder why they call it the DMZ?”......I’ll assume, since you’re here, that you didn’t navigate to this site unknowingly, and that you understand what an Auddy is, that the Music Universe we live in is not some magical Marxist share colony, and that Uplaya.com is the interface of a new music industry business model in our ever evolving free enterprise system called Capitalism 2 point OH Oh Oh oh oh. Same page? Yes?

We were to film  a piece of the story focusing on a band’s perspective of how uploading to Uplaya.com was affecting their career. And furthermore, (pre Platinum Auddy) discuss our understanding of the substance behind a “hit” song.

There were a few minor hooks. It was all getting put together incredibly fast. We had to secure a venue to shoot and not a lot time to do so. We started to bounce around a few ideas for where to film. Local venues, 7-11, Mom’s house? Many phone calls were made to many different places in hopes something would be available on such short notice. The week is about to end, we have to film on Tuesday, and we have NO venue. It was in the frenzy of these final moments that Dave threw out the idea of finding a studio instead of a venue. This made a ton of sense. After all, the  producer of the documentary wanted it to be a familiar stomping ground for the band, and I could think of  just such a location in Northern Virginia. It’s a place we’ve pounded the compression waves of our chords into its walls. A room whose vibe had left an impression on us as we on it. As the clarity of this suggestion quieted the flurry of phone calls to too many relationships gone cold, I quickly started to dial, 7..0...3....., and waited........ a ringing, and....”hello!?”, Jeff answered the phone. As it always was without us being privy to it, IT was meant to be.

Jeff Jeffrey is the longtime owner of a platinum quality recording studio in Northern Virginia called Cue. Grammies adorn  the walls. You are just as likely to find Larry King and Bishop Desmond Tutu as you are Clay Aiken and Lyle Lovett . The room we chose is full of character and color, aptly named the Red Room. The sound is full and dark. It reminds you of all the great records with the signature drum recordings that have come out of California. The engineers assigned to us, Blaine and his assistant David, were a potent combination of competent and efficient. We were very familiar with the studio as it’s been kind of a home for us on very various projects. Perfect choice for a shoot! Enter the Korean film crew.

The nimble 2 man team of  Jaxon and Seonwoo Kim were prompt and professional.  a quiet demeanor that would almost belie the eruption of laughter triggered from their great sense of humor. You could tell that the group was going to click.

Jaxon, a mature 20 year old South Korean bor n, by way of Australia, Virginia Tech student, translated to Kim who would stare through you with his thick rimmed, army issue style, Woody Allen producer glasses. He had this instinct for spontaneity. Every answer we gave him during our interview session would inspire him to counter with an even more insightful question. I sipped my soy latte (yep I’m one of those) as we watched him almost foam at the mouth at the prospect he might be capturing the true nature of something or someone. It was very poetic. You could see why he was given a proportionally slightly larger than normal dome piece. It’s as if he was a walking caricature of himself, and one sight of him at work was pleasing enough to make any person happy that this man, was alive on this planet, doing what he was meant to do!

I had previously spoken to our glorious translator Jaxon  by phone.  As it turns out, he illuminated,  he had already found our  band on YouTube months back and was an enormous fan! I speculated that his Virginia Tech enrollment may have had something to do with the discovery. Other than that it appears to be a complete coincidence  (as if LOST really lets you believe that that even exists anymore)  that world savvy Jaxon discovers Virginia Coalition on YouTube, comes to take in, unbeknownst to him, the two highest scoring HSS songs from us (Sing Along and Sante Fe) as his 2 favorite tracks , and then this week,  get a call to translate for the filming of a South Korean documentary on hit songs that will include a day of shooting Virginia Coalition interviewing and performing in the studio,  his 2 favorite and highest scoring songs Sing Along and Sante Fe.  Wow!  The island has been busy!  (watch LOST and you’ll get that).  Needless to say,  Jaxon was to the moon. In fact he was so incapable of containing his jamming gestures that Seonwoo Kim  made him hide in the microphone closet during the performance filming because his youthful exuberance was getting in the way of the shoot!  Well, I guess he’s seen a lot of the world by 20 but, he’s still 20!

As the steady drum beat of questions slowed and the day rolled to an end, visions of Virginia Coalition in South Korea with hit songs and headshots on billboards, a la Spinal Tap (dude, we’re totally huge in SKorea),  began to dance in our heads.  I guess if you’re in a band, no matter how much time you’ve spent in the business, fighting for your share, losing sleep,  being told your first single sounds “amazing!”,  learning to be pragmatic.  You’re still a dreamer.  You still have this one life to live,  nothing to lose,  and a lot to say. On cue, as if by ESP,  Jaxon turned his head with one final question.... “Would you enjoy coming to Korea?”....to which we replied, “How do you say hello in Korean?”. “Ahn Neyong Ha Seyo” he uttered. “Well then,” we said, “Ahn Neyong Ha Seyo!"