Bees Buzzin

I wrote this song to be fun while sharing information about the importance of bees.”Bees Buzzin'” was created in a digital animation style. I researched and made sketches of my vision for the puppet and brainstormed ideas on the flow of the video. Special thanks to my friend Lionel Morise who created the digital Lanie puppet and the acoustic guitar that is a replica of the one I play. I then created a little bee puppet and a background with movable clouds. I am very thankful to the kids who contributed their drawings of bees to add as a picture gallery that rotates throughout the song. They make me smile every time I look at them.

There was a learning curve to the animated movement of the character as well as lip syncing, but I am quite happy with how it turned out. Something that wasn’t crucial but fun, was trying to line up the actual chords with the left-hand movements of the puppet playing along to the song. I had fun making the little bee buzz around the puppet, pictures, and the text throughout the video.

It is my hope that people will sing along to the catchy tune. Those who might not be able to learn the words could buzz along during the chorus.

My friend Adam Plante brought the song to life by adding extra music and sound effects such as buzzing, boinks and bees doing construction. It really sounds quite fun.

Why Dinosaurs Went Extinct

For this song I decided to try creating a video using stop motion animation with paper. I do love trying new things. I had been playing around with some stop motion animation of three-dimensional things around the house for a while and decided that I was up to the challenge of making a music video using paper dinosaur puppets. My friend Jayne Bourgeault created the dinosaur puppets as well as the paleontologist, trees, bones, sun, and rocks out of paper. She also painted the background landscape with mountains and a little pond. A am very grateful to her for her help and appreciative of her artistic skills. My friend Adam Plante added dinosaur sounds and roars and a bunch of effects to this song as well. He is so creative.

I created a storyboard with the various scenes that I wanted to shoot and then, using the song, calculated how long each scene needed to be. With the help of Mike Bourgeault, we set up the camera above the table so I could shoot straight down at the scene. I hooked the camera up to the computer and used a program called Stop Motion Studio Pro. There is even a free version of this program if you wanted to give it a try. The process takes quite a while, but some short clips can be created fairly quickly. There are over 3500 images that were created for this short music video. I can hardly imagine how many photos are taken for full-length films that Laika Studios creates. It is time consuming, but the reward of the finished product is definitely worth the effort!

I would love it if you would check out my videos and would be so grateful if you pass them along to your friends and share on social media. I am already working on the next one (Road Trip) where I will be using a multiplane system (like Disney used with multiple layers of glass). I even had a group of children sing on this one and am so excited to complete it so I can share it with you.

Visit the Lanie and Friends YouTube channel and consider subscribing to see future videos.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope to see you again soon!