Admin Rudolf Wagner
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Hello Jung,
Whoops, sorry that it took us a while to get back to this. Good thing is, our legs had more than enough time to recover since 😛
“what aspect of its production is the most difficult or time consuming? Is it in the pre-film prep, actual film day filming/process, or post film production in the studio, or all of the above equally?”
There isn’t really one answer as it always depends on the project.
We often try out a lot of different ideas and storyboards, effects and looks before we decide on what to go with. So the pre-film prep and planning can often be the most time consuming part overall.
Then for videos like “nothing is in vain”, “I wanna kiss you” or even “the wide wide land” it was definitely the post production that was the most time consuming.
Simple studio videos of us recording a song are usually quite simple and fairly straight forward to both film and edit. So really, it totally depends. We often get inspired by techniques we see being used in a different context or when a new piece of equipment or software comes out.
We usually follow the motto of not wanting to repeat ourselves, especially when it comes to our bigger productions (with the exception of things like our Duo Sessions Series). But even when we keep things simple, we don’t want to feel like we’re getting into a creative trot or like we’re playing it safe. So the workflow also changes for each of these projects 🙂
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I can totally relate, Mike! I got a red drum set the same year that Lisa got her guitar, which is something I’ll never forget! The parcel was huge, of course, and as soon as I spotted it next to the tree, I got butterflies in my stomach!
I found the clip of me opening the parcel, it was Christmas of 2004. I was 10 years old at the time …
What I remember about this drum set even more specifically, was when Dad and I assembled it the day after. There was an overwhelming amount of screws, drumheads and hardware for a 10-year old, and I was so in awe when the whole thing finally stood there. For me, Dad was an absolute genius for knowing how to assemble it!
One other present I can remember freaking out about was when we were surprised with the fact that we were going to the USA for the first time. That must have been Christmas 2006!
Michaela and Dad put the flight tickets under the tree. It didn’t look like much – two white envelopes. But when we opened them we just about lost our marbles. 🙂
By then we’ve become a little obsessed about America and what we imagined it to be like. Together with a school friend of ours I would study the American map, memorize all state names and fun trivia. Again, little did we know that the videos we would end up filming there a year later, would mark the beginning of our video/YouTube journey.
Mona
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Hi Mike,
Best Christmas present ever, hmm? Receiving my first ever electric guitar when I was about 10 definitely was a highlight 🙂
I think my face says it all!
I was just starting to take lessons and “only” had an old, rusty acoustic guitar at home to practise on. The kids with an electric guitar were uber cool 😉 Playing an electric guitar was uber cool! 😉
Holding this guitar in my hand definitely marked the beginning of something we hadn’t had a clue would happen later. Music and playing guitar became everything. And funnily enough, this guitar, despite being a rather cheap “beginner” one bought at Aldi, was perfect to start out with. Dad and I set it up properly and it sounded and played beautifully. I remember polishing the heck out of the fretboard!
Funny Christmas stories … well, as we sing about in “All I Want Christmas To Be” we always did swear that we spotted the “Christkind” (changed to elf in the song) dangling its feet from the kitchen shelf before disappearing into the night. Magic was real back then! 😉
♥
Lisa -
Hi Rick,
We usually don’t think of songwriting and chord progressions in “chord shape” terms. Being able to use a capo or transposing songs (like we often do) it’s really not about the specific chords you use but rather the sequence. When Paul talks about A D and E, he means using the I, IV and V progression if you look at it on a key chart . It’s the most basic blues chord progression that a lot of songs are built upon. For example, our song “Won’t You Listen Know” is in the key of A, so you could play along to the verses using these chords.Paul learning the “B7” chord would have allowed him to play blues and rock n’ roll songs in the key of E, of which B7 (or a regular B) would be the “V” position. In this case E, A and B (or B7) being the I, IV and V progression. So he could now play along to blues and rock songs in two different keys, A and E, both of which are commonly used 🙂
I hope that made some sense!I guess what I’m trying to say is that they had a completely different approach to starting learning the guitar back then, as they couldn’t just google a list of all the possible chord shapes and basic music theory. They were “hunting” chord shapes, which now makes for an awesome story 🙂
Unlocking the mysteries and possibilities of the guitar bit by bit, teaching themselves and most importantly learning by listening to all these great old records. A very different approach to how most people start learning guitar these days.
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I see you already posted it in the “General Discussion” forum which is totally fine 🙂 Cute reindeer antlers!!
Happy Christmas ♥ -
Hi Jung!
Sorry that I didn’t reply to this question much earlier. Halloween has long come and gone now but I’d still like to answer your questions. Thanks for your patience! 😉
When we were kids, Halloween was just beginning to catch on in Europe. Prior to the 90’s it wasn’t really celebrated in Austria but with the influence of American culture rising, “Trick or Treating” and Halloween parties started popping up when we were in primary school.
I presume people were simply adopting what they saw on television so that’s what we did – we dressed up as witches or ghosts and would walk around our village asking for candy and then return to whoever was hosting the party and eat it all! How we didn’t get sick is a miracle to me, but 8-year olds have surprisingly strong stomachs when it comes to sugar 😀
Personally, I’ve always loved Halloween simply for the fact that I really enjoy dressing up and putting on crazy makeup 😉 Both of us have only ever dressed as something scary. It’s only recently that I’ve found out that in America, the UK (and maybe Canada too?) people don’t necessarily stick to just “spooky” costumes anymore. Apparently it can be anything these days?
We actually have a separate holiday in Austria when we dress up, which has a much longer tradition. It’s called Fasching (carnival) and we celebrated it every year in our village when we were kids. I think the “Fasching Season” starts on the 11.11. (November) at 11.11am and ends the night before Ash Wednesday in February (I think). To be honest, I’ve never completely understood the origins and exact rituals and I think they vary greatly from region to region.
But I remember that the village would organise a get together every year where all the kids would dress up in different costumes. We’d play musical chairs, cops and robbers, hide and seek … all the classics.
I dug out a picture of when I went as a parrot and Lisa went as a cat (2002)!
🙂
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Great that you spotted that! Thanks for letting us know, we fixed it and replaced the files.
Close To You on Uke?? We’d love to hear that! -
Hi Angelo!
I usually use regular Hohner “Blues Harp MS”s for most common keys, I think it’s also what I used for the Starman recording. There are a couple of Marine Bands and Pro Harps in my collection but the regular ones with the wooden core sound perfect in my opinion so I tend to stick to those.
I have been playing a bit more on them recently and have been messing around with new sounds, so I’m thinking about playing one in an upcoming Duo Session early next year. 🙂
Have a groovy evening,
Mona -
We tried our hand at creating our own logo quite a few times but it never turned out quite right. So we decided to let a professional do it whose handwriting doesn’t resemble that of an 8 year old 😉
The logo was done by a graphic designer called Stelian Vasile https://stelianvasile.com/ whose work we found online. It actually took us quite a bit to find the right person and a design we were all happy with but in the end it turned out how we envisioned it.
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#1 It’s funny that you brought up favourite Christmas Ornament. That question brought back a lot of memories of exactly that – choosing our favourite things to put up on the tree and looking forward to placing them on the prettiest branches every year.
For example, we had one blonde little paper angel with a super cute face that reminded us of the little sister of one of our friends from kindergarten. We called it the “Tamara Angel” named after the sister. It is what inspired the line on “All I Want Christmas To Be” … Small paper angels were waving at me …
So yes, I’d say the “Tamara Angel” would have been my/our favourite little ornaments.#2 Favourite Christmas Treat? Our grandma (Michaela’s mum) makes heavenly cookies called “Linzeraugen”, a typical Austrian recipe, but uses rosehip jam instead of the usual redcurrant or apricot jam. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. She even sends them to the UK every Christmas 🙂
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Hi Tony,
Welcome to the MLT Club, we’re glad you joined us! We had a nose around your website – it seems like you’ve had an exciting, music-filled life in different shapes and forms, that’s wonderful.
We’ll try and tune in to a show one week! Thanks a lot for playing our music and those of other independent artists. If ever you’ve got a particular show lined up for which you’d like us to tweet out the streaming link, please shoot us an email or send us a tweet! 🙂
We appreciate the support and hope you’ll enjoy your time here!
Groovy greetings from all of us!
Mona
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Oops, fixed it! We created an extra post there by accident with a wrong headline, but it’s all sorted now!
Hugs,
Team MLT
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Hi Paul, hi David!
We are so sorry you never read your birthday email, what a bummer!
We just checked our “sent” folder and saw that we did send out a birthday surprise to both of you on the right day, so maybe it landed in your spam folder? Could you please check and let us know?
For both of you we sent it to the email address that you use to access the Club.
If many people get their special email in the junk/spam folder we’ll definitely have to figure out what to do about it!
What a shame that our birthday surprise didn’t work out but thank you so much for mentioning it here so we are aware of it. If you can’t locate the missing email we’ll resend it to you straight away – hopefully it will still make you smile. 🙂
Lots of groovy peace & love from us (and now, a belated Happy Birthday!),
Mona & Lisa -
Servus, Jürgen!
I will keep my reply in English so everyone else can read along, too, but it’s really nice to hear you are from Germany! I had never heard of Moers but I just googled it – the closest we’ve ever been to was Cologne when we took a trip many years ago to see Paul McCartney live in concert …and check out “Musikkeller Dorsten” for our red Vintage Höfner bass and Framus …).
Speaking of Paul … The Beatles brought a lot of us here together, so you are in very good company! 🙂 Lisa and I for once, probably would not be musicians today, if it wasn’t for us falling in love with their music in our teens. What a legacy!
I loved your post, thank you so much for all of the very kind words and the insight in your life.
Have a groovy time here and thank you for the support,
Mona
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Hi Ian 🙂
Welcome to the party, we are glad you joined us at the MLTC Club and say a big thank you!
We’ve never been to Durham unfortunately but from visiting a few other places around we know that the northern area of the UK is beautiful!Groovy greetings from the opposite coast of the island! 🙂
Mona & Lisa
