Hi Oi, Hola, Salut, and Здравствуй to all my followers around the world! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas (whether you celebrate it or not). The last three weeks of my life have been dominated by my health issues, my day job, and the wonderful project that I’m about to tell you more about: my music video of We Are All Made of Starstuff. 😃 (NOTE: To those of you that read my last blog re: the project inspired by the B🖤B, this is NOT that project!)
I’ve been a follower of @Starstuff for several years now, and I’ve been inspired by her sheer determination to become Pink. That’s true of other Hopefuls, too, like @Felicity, @Chroi, and @Avecalluna, but Starstuff’s journey struck a chord with me in a way that has caused me to stick with her even when she seemed to lose confidence and perhaps the will to continue - which is something I’ve seen many times. One girl, with whom I’m still friends with via Snapchat and offline, @lovelydemon, was one of those. She had the idea that becoming Pink with a single set and minimal involvement in the community was a common thing, which every paying member of SG knows is not the case. There are “InstaPinks,” yes, but those are few and far between, as they should be. If becoming a Suicide Girl was a walk in the park, then every girl with a nice smile and a tramp stamp would be Pink. Not so, thankfully.
So, this past July, I was struggling with insomnia, as I frequently do, and in the course of a weekend I ended up writing the essence of two original songs and recording the foundational tracks of this song project.. I was inspired to do so particularly by the fact that Starstuff hadn’t posted much of anything for quite a while, which made me wonder how she was doing. I shared the demo with a Hopeful who is also a musician, and she liked it, and that’s where the story paused...until November the 16th, Starstuff’s birthday. I decided to send her a little something from her Amazon wishlist, and she sent me a thank you, which started a dialogue about this song, and which prompted me to turn it into a complete project.
It took quite a bit of effort to get this done as quickly as I did. When one watches a music video or views a photo set, it’s easy to forget how much goes into it. In addition to finishing all of the tracks for the song, I then had to mix it, obtain the things I needed to make props for the video, create a backdrop, plan the video, set everything up, do lighting tests, realize I knew nothing about how to shoot a movie in a low light environment in such a way not to illuminate an intentionally black background and learn how to, build a mockup telescope from scratch, choose my outfit, do my makeup, etc, etc. My to-do list was about 45 items long, and in the end, you’ll notice I forgot to do my nails! 😑 Oh, well.
In the end, it was a labor of love with one true purpose: to help @Starstuff turn Pink! I had a lot of fun making it all, and it was great practice for other projects coming up this year. For those of you that haven’t seen my video yet, I encourage you to do so. Make sure to let it load all the way before you watch it, or it may freeze right at one of the best parts!
Speaking of the slow load time, it would be greatly improved if I could post the video on YouTube, but I will need help from the SG staff to do so. Uploading a video is a relatively easy thing - getting copyright permissions from two parties that overlap is much more challenging. I went to request copyright permissions from Moby to use his song, but since I changed the lyrics a bit, the standard services for this didn’t work, and the video contains pix from SG AND the SG logo, which means it has be sanctioned by SG in order to appear anywhere other than right here inside the site. However, I’m no dummy. I know that there are lots of people who visit the site from the outside who aren’t paying members, so with the setting for the video set to “public,” anyone and their cat, dog, rat, snake, or octopus can watch it anywhere in the world, it just won’t load as quickly as it would on YouTube. With that in mind, I included a disclaimer regarding its source material and a verbal invitation with the SG logo at the end with the idea that it can be on YouTube and appropriately direct viewers to our Most Excellent community. With the staff of SG onboard with the project and Moby’s permission to use his song (or at least the heart of it), this will be my debut project as a solo artist, as humble as it is. If not, then I’ll simply take it down and consider it a practice exercise for other projects. @Missy, @Teal, @Eirenne, @Lust, a little help here, PLEASE?
My favorite part of this song is the line that includes the words “Infinite Love,” at which I added something Moby didn’t do at all in his original version: 4 part harmony and a little special FX 😉... well, that and the bass line which is totally original.
And doesn’t the SG logo look SUPER COOL with stars all around it? I think so!
Anyway, I may never earn one red cent for all my work here, and that’s just fine. HOWEVER: Please don’t let my primary purpose be in vain. Go view @Starstuff’s latest set, 11:11 , and see just how much of HERSELF she put into it just for you. Show her the LOVE she deserves. Help a very special girl turn PINK!
Infinite Love, my friends!
♾💗,
- Dhyani
