The awesome video thread

[dc20willsave]

Excellent!

I love this YouTube comment, too:

Leave it to Bob Dylan to write a song that perfectly encapsulates Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement. Waiting at the bus stop wondering which seat she can take, indeed. Her bravery allowed her to kick it in the front seat. Black and white, are we really so different? We all just want fun, fun, fun.

The comments are the best part.

I first heard this song at a bus stop in 1969. My brother just got raped by a homeless mexican and thought this was such a sad song to have such happy lyrics. My brother didn't want the weekend to never end because his butt hurt real bad. Nevertheless I bought him this record to ease his pain. He thought it was an awesome song, and true to bob dylan's style. we played this at his funeral in 1972 after he died from complications of the butt molestation. It was really sad. R.I.P. Billy.

[Missy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heeTNhUnC3U

[dc20willsave]

...huh.

[Guest]

I'm forever convinced that Jim Kosek grew up wanting to be a pro wrestling manager and just studied meteorology as a back up.

[Venneh]

Colbert, the Roots, and many, many others sing "Friday"

[Missy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t2RCUVMrog

[SuaveStar]

[Stavros]

This is my second year project for Video Media, featuring myself as Edward Deaux with this sites own Preston Nelson narrating. Thanks to James for letting me borrow the surname and Ian for providing the equipment.

There are small audio issues caused by the way we recorded the voiceover, which was my fault. Plus I'm a black hole of charisma. Aside from that I think it's pretty good!

[Venneh]

Hah! Well done, sir.

[George W.]

Tom, when you told us about this at the convention, I was kinda meh on it just on how you undersold it. Seriously, this is really good. Seriously, you and your co-producers deserve at least an A or a 90 or whatever weird British standard there is.

Because that was fun. And funny. And brilliant. Well done, indeed.

[Stavros]

Thanks man, I really appreciate it. I've been showing it to various people over the last week and it is getting the lolz in places, even from our notoriously stoic tutor. I'm handing it in tomorrow, with the public viewing party for our entire class in about 3 weeks, it's one of nine projects. Sorta waiting to see others before I gauge the curve they'll be graded on.

[KnightWing]

Brilliant stuff. Hilarious and awesome.

[SuaveStar]

I thought it was good, but nothing special.

Seriously though, you made me actually laugh out loud with the polar bears thing, and the trolley pushing thing was good, and the pointless documentaries he's made, and over use of Coldplay, and ending with Coldplay, nice touch. Also, the beard in the singing part, so it wouldn't come across as the car scenes were all filmed at once, or in a short time frame was a nice move,

Really enjoyable work.

[Molly]

1.) The Govenator Trailer is everything I hoped that film would be and more.

2.) Tom, you have some serious chops and this is coming from someone that writes stuff not unlike what you've come up with. Like I said, I'm honored to be a part.

[Stavros]

As I said on FB, we couldn't have done it with without the help of some really generous and talented people such as yourself Preston, it was greatly appreciated.

[dc20willsave]

[Missy]

[JackFetch]

[Dread]

ugh

[Molly]

I love at least six of the people in that trailer, and it still looks fucking awful.

[Venneh]

Jon Stewart's final tribute to Glenn Beck

Warning: Be sure to not eat/drink while watching this. Fucking hilarious, and tops all the other Beck coverage.

Oh, and BTW, sane people rejoice: Beck's leaving his show next year.

[slothian]

ugh

Pretty much.

[Missy]

How one Oregon lawmaker convinced his colleagues to ‘Rick Roll’ the state legislature

By Holly Bailey

Jefferson Smith loves a good political joke.

Early last year, the then-freshman Oregon House member from Portland was getting ready for bed when he and his wife, Katy, began bantering back and forth about what might be the ultimate political prank, something that could lighten the increasingly divisive political mood among his colleagues.

As Smith recalls, the idea came almost instantly. "What if we were to Rick Roll the legislature without anybody noticing?" he wondered.

And that was the seed for what may ultimately prove to be one of the most elaborate political jokes of all time: A nearly two-minute long video of members of the Oregon House of Representatives saying the lyrics of Rick Astley's ubiquitous '80s pop ballad, "Never Gonna Give You Up," literally one word or phrase at a time while in session.

As The Ticket reported yesterday, the video, which was posted to YouTube on April Fools Day, has quickly gone viral, meriting write-ups on dozens of blogs and even getting play on MSNBC.

The big question: Was it real?

The answer, according to Smith, "absolutely."

"I've been reading the online chatter," Smith, a Democrat, told The Ticket in his first interview about the video. "Were they actors? Were people's voices dubbed? The answer is that it's all real. Every second is real."

But assembling the video was about as tricky an undertaking as as one can imagine. First, Smith had to sell his colleagues on the joke--which wasn't as hard as he initially feared. Most of his fellow lawmakers--at the time, the legislature was split evenly, with 30 Democrats and 30 Republicans--knew of Astley's 1987 hit and understood the basic concept of a "Rick Roll," he insists. "I pitched the idea to a few members, and they liked it," he recalls.

But Smith--who developed the concept with his wife, a few colleagues and several friends, one of whom is video editor--had a few rules about the joke. The lines had to be delivered on the House floor during a lawmaker's regular floor speech--which is, under Oregon law, videotaped for public records purposes. And the lines of the lyrics had to be spread out, so as not to tip off the state House clerk or other observers to what lawmakers were up to.

"It was way harder taking words and spreading them out than simply manipulating them (on video)," Smith says. "There are some easy lines in there to say without getting noticed. 'You're never gonna' is easy. 'I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling' is easy. But an 'ooh?' That's tricky."

Smith wrote the lyrics down and spread them out piecemeal among his colleagues--with the Portland lawmaker himself taking on some of the more difficult lines that others didn't want to do, including "never gonna say good-bye" and "hurt you."

In the end, he says, only one fellow legislator--who he won't identify--"chickened out," while another lawmaker was filmed saying the Astley lyrics "unwittingly." The elaborate operation was carried out during a special session of the Oregon legislature in February 2010, when each lawmaker was allotted time to speak on the House floor.

The initial plan was to debut the video after last year's elections, but the process of splicing all the words and phrases together was far more time-consuming than Smith and his conspirators originally anticipated. First, they had to file a public records request with the state of Oregon to get a copy of footage from the legislative session. Then, they had to comb through hours and hours of film to find the lyrics lawmakers had snuck into their speeches.

In the end, it took a year and two months to assemble the video--which Smith pointedly notes was carried out "with no taxpayer funds." Just before the video was posted on YouTube, Smith hosted a viewing for his fellow state lawmakers--all of whom received a doctored photo of Rick Astley dancing atop the Oregon state House as a gift for participating. Each photo featured the phrase he or she said in the video and was fake autographed by "Rick Astley."

"That was the only thing that was fake," he insists.

So why did they do it? Aside from the obvious humor, the Democratic lawmaker says it was a project that actually helped bring legislators from opposing parties together at a time of "real partisanship."

"It's obviously a little silly thing," he admits. "But even just having a little fun together helped develop some professional relationships. Just a tiny spoonful of sugar to let the political medicine go down, so to speak."

The participants, he says, were amused at the end result, while some of his newly elected colleagues have asked him if he'll follow up with another video they can participate in. Asked about a sequel, Smith says, "I don't know. It will be my little secret."

But for now, Smith just wants to answering the burning question: "It was real, and it was really awesome ... Democracy is a glorious thing."

Source

And here's the video:

[dc20willsave]

[dc20willsave]