How he pulled off the Beyonce homage the queen herself called brilliant.
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Beyoncedidnthave to go as hard as she does in the Countdown music video.
Brilliant, Beywrote at the time.
I learned so much by copying Beyonce, the now-25-year-old laughed recently.
And copying the editors that worked on that music video.
Its crazy looking back the video opened up so many doors, even to this day.
I feel like Im speaking to internet royalty right now.Oh my God, stop.
Is it fun for you to take a little trip down memory lane?
I dont know how often you think about it at this point.Thank you.
I mean, its kind of crazy because it does resurface every few months.
Its so funny because when it does, its kind of taking on a life of its own.
Sometimes I dont even know when it happens.
I get an influx of new followers and I dont even know where it came from.
And its like,Oh, it just popped up on TikTok.
In high school, we used to make videos for each other all the time, like for birthdays.
This one I delivered very late.
It was kind of an inside-joke situation, because at that time, I really loved my infomercial products.
Thats where the Snuggie came in.
That was the time of Bump-its and all that.
I was working on it sophomore year of high school, going into junior year.
I put it up, and then it blew up the week after.
The original Countdown video came out October 2011 and I think we started around then.
The intention was my friends birthday was gonna be that November.
And I finished … July 2012.
I wasnt even on Adobe Premiere back then I was on Sony Vegas.
So, I laid it out and made a very makeshift shot list.
Whatever was shot during that day went right into the edit.
Learn the choreo for that, boom.
Lets film it, boom.
Lets get it into edit.
Lets match it, boom.
It was very much like,Lets just move as it goes along.
Did you use multiple cameras for the scenes that are shot at different angles?
Or were you resetting over and over?Resetting.
For the multiple camera angles, it was multiple takes and just moving the camera around.
you might see how it was a super-long process, especially back then.
I was still learning a lot of what I was doing.
A lot of trial and error.
I was quite a diva.
Theres certain scenes where we did shoot it, and I was like, Hes not doing it right.
So, I reshot it with myself.
But its like, you know, no hard feelings.
But like, lets get the shot and its all in the edit.
There were some where I was like, Ugh, let me try and get this kick down.
I think that so many people werent expecting you to come out with these moves.
Theyre on point even the facial expressions.
Do you remember some of the moves?
But at this point when the song comes on, I think of theHomecomingversionand stuff like that.
Because its become such an essential song, I can seriously enjoy it.
There was a certain point where I was just like, Guys, dont play it.
But that song is just brilliant.
I read that you also used the Snuggie as a blue screen.
And I was like, okay, the Snuggie is basically a big old blue blanket.
Do you still have the Snuggie?Its in a closet somewhere.
The whole video has this DIY quality to it, but then the editing is slick.
What was the process of editing it?
My friends were always making fun videos with ourselves.
I would have to render, rerender, export, and use the exports to layer all of them.
What was it like doing the effects?
That was a nightmare.
Even with the end, at first I was shooting it point-blank with the music.
And then I was looking back and I was like,Wait, that doesnt look great.
How much footage did you have in total?I would say days, days.
When I was finally done, I was like, thank God.
Put it up and then honestly, could not have expected it to do what it did.
That was the reassurance that opened such a door in my life.
To this day, I think I got my first internship off of that video.
What was your reaction when Beyonce noticed it?I have a vivid memory of that.
I was at my friends place, the friend whose birthday I made the video for.
At that point, it was starting to blow up already.
I remember a few people were tweeting it out.
And then, next thing you know, Beyonce posts.
My friends dad came in and he was like, What is going on?
We screenshotted on her computer, I put it up on Facebook.
Beyonce is still, to this day, my everything.
I was like, You know Im a minor?
Do you consider yourself part of the Beyhive online?Absolutely.
And I was like, Yup, thats me.
