$1700 at Dream The End, beginning May 14

Its funny how they push these cheezy old tracks on us… usually I’m pretty detached but the Ridin’ Solo track totally grew on me, especially for the heart-breaking way it starts and how uplifting and hilarious it turns out to be. I can’t help it. Just look at Jason’s own sassy moves. The man can dance!

From the other 3, Hello Good Morning is the only one I kind of liked even back in the day when it came out for its “Let’s Work!” hook, but still I find it has a more serious feel.

… so seriously

Let’s Work!

I am the little rabbit minding my own business and one evening I get a phonecall from my producer VIOS asking me whether and when I sold copyrighted images I filmed during an event in 2010 to an international event and branding agency, Sopexa/La Prod… It turns out, La Prod had ripped off one of my videos, cut it into little pieces, made their own remixes (yes they used my footage in 4 of their videos) and took all the credit for it!

Now, I do get copied a lot and I am a advocate of open source creativity. If you’re an artist, I give you my full permission to use any of my images or music anytime! I encourage you to copy me and remix me in any way you like as long as you credit me. If you’re a little pirate sitting in front of your pc in Russia and you copy my videos as they are and upload them to your own Youtube channel, I like you very very much. To me, you are part of my distribution network!

On the other hand, if you’re a TV network, a corporation or a for-profit organization and you do the same thing, I have news for you: you’re breaking the law and there is something very American inside me which will sue your ass for the rest of your life. Meet your karma, baby!

Isn’t it a twisted form of recognition to come and steal my work when all your life you pretend that I don’t exist? You make me time-travel back to 2010! You think I don’t remember what I filmed? When you want to use something of mine, you ask politely and you pay for it!

In less than 24 hours I managed to take down 4 videos infringing mine, but for the purpose of illustrating our little story I’m posting the original video made by me in 2010 and the most recent one LaProd was trying to use for their visual identity opening and closing with my feather sequence. To make matters a little worse, not only is the footage copyrighted to VIOS, but I the little rabbit, am the person appearing in that shot. Yep, not only I direct videos, but when events get boring as hell, I put myself on the line, creating my own mise-en-scenes, saving the world from disaster again and again and again!

The little rabbit is a superhero! Don’t mess with the little rabbit!!!

my video:

La Prod’s:

This routine signed Frenchy Hernandez is quite complex and you can’t just do the moves without being a thousand percent behind each and every one of them. So far I’ve deleted all takes involving a human. The human mind thinks too much which interferes with the smooth performance of such a routine. In a choreography where lyrics, music and the moves themselves can spark up so many emotions, the mind really has to stop analyzing deciding how things should be, by say trying to mute vulnerability.

I seriously wrote an essay on this one which I intend to keep for a later post, the one where the human steps in ! ok, lol, because for now, I’d like you to enjoy these breath-taking characters and don’t forget to turn up the quality to 1080!

Styling: Mondor & Material Girl, Silk Tie, Consenzo Uomo (and my very own SmartWool socks, had to be wool socks or I was spinning too fast and off set) End Credit Music, Victory Dance (explicit version) by Wick-it The Instigator, just came out yesterday and can be downloaded at http://soundcloud.com/wick-it/victory-dance. The Heminguay font is free downloadable font of the month on veer.com), oh yeah, and that pumpkin filmed at Atwater Market on Halloween is courtesy of Vins Grand Sud. Gameplay visuals and music rights of We No Speak Americano belong to Harmonix.

WIth regards to the controversy of whether or not we should use green screen to place human dancers inside the game, I’m like totally whatever… but if you want to dance next to your avatars and feel like part of a troupe, a little effort has to be applied. I’ll start giving green screen tips from next week mostly of what ‘not to do’ presenting you with gaffes I learned the hard way. And at the same time, I can’t wait to get out of that green screen. Luckily I’ll be busy with MJ The Experience from the end of May and that game already puts you inside the game! Yay ))

This routine is choreographed by Nick DeMoura @Harmonix, rated 6 or off-the-hook difficulty. Music by Timbaland. Gameplay visuals, property of Harmonix. All other visuals are property of Rossita Dove/Melody Swan and include courtesy footage of Paris, France by VIOS and Amaluna, Cirque du Soleil. Styling: Juicy Couture and Canada Mittens; End credit music, Primavera Cumbia’s Mixtape by Copia Doble Systema 2012

And I cheated, merging take 14 and 17 because a reshoot of this will be the end of me. I got away with extreme laziness this time, but frankly, once you’ve danced this routine, you’ll get to the essence of what a ‘couch potato’ really is. In our case, its a reclining potato with a MacBook Pro and 3 remote controls. Yin and Yang, people!

Rossita Dove/Melody Swan