I can’t believe it’s the middle of February already.  It was a busy holiday season for us and one of the things that was out of the ordinary for us was the work we did on the short film Bound with Love. This was one of a series of films based on the works of Mike Royko, a Chicago Columnist. You can find out more about the series of films at Royko.tv.

On December 5th, we went into a recording studio and recorded O Tannenbaum in about as many different ways as you could imagine, Fast, slow, in German, in English, only on Oooo, on Oooo switching to Ah and… well, you get the idea. It was a great time and we enjoyed every minute of the time we spent recording, even when we left the warmth of the recording studio to go out in the back lot to record the ambiance of singing outdoors and believe it was very cold that night, but it was a great experience, all the way around and that was only the beginning.

We did our part of the filming on December 13th. There had been a major part of the shoot the night before as well and true to Chicago, the weather was very different between the two. The night before was cold with wind chill dropping to somewhere near -20 degrees Fahrenheit, but the night we filmed, it was near 40 degrees above zero and the snow was melting with standing water all around, amazing (you can see production stills from the shoot on our Sights & Sounds page). Once again, despite the weird weather, everything went pretty well, we actually lip synched to a small alarm clock/cd player for the shoot as well as did some live takes, that was interesting. Everyone was great to work with and a lot of that had to do with the person who was the driving force behind the project, Norman Skul. One of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet and one of those guys that you hope you’re going to get the opportunity to work for and with again. He made everything flow really smoothly and there was just a great attitude throughout the entire experience.

Sadly, we learned that Norman passed away suddenly and unexpectedly after the first of the year. I didn’t get to know him very well in that short time, but based on what I saw when I did get to work with him, everyone who knew him, loved him and he will be missed. Fortunately, we’ve been told that production is going to continue not just on Bound with Love, but on the whole series and Norman’s vision will continue. Maybe that’s the best tribute of all.