Exclusive Premiere: Jennifer Grassman's 'Haunting' Is Scary Good

Exclusive Premiere: Jennifer Grassman's "Haunting" Is Scary Good

By Jef With One F Thu., Jun. 14 2012 at 9:00 AM

"The Haunting" has a lot going for it -- great costumes, a full-on group dance number, and an intriguing, distinctive look. Plus, you always get high marks here when you end your video by having everyone fall to the floor like Riff, Magenta and Columbia just finished singing "Time Warp."

That being said, like "Bedroom Doors," the video slants just a little too long. The characters' progress moves very slowly, something much more noticeable with the jumping tune. Too many people let the length of their song dictate the length of the video, and it shows in "the Haunting" by dragging a bit by the time you hit the three minute mark.

"You just have a short attention span," replies Jennifer. 'The Haunting' was originally two songs. There was 'The Haunting,' and there was 'A Perfect World.' I wrote them both on the same day during a sort of creative downpour.

"They were like sisters," she adds. "In fact, they were like twins, each finishing the other's sentences. So, I grafted them together and that was that.

"When it comes to dictating the length of a song or film, or really any creative project, you have to let the art breathe," Jennifer explains. "If you chop things off too early just so your song will fit some bureaucratic industry ideal for the perfect cookie-cutter, 'radio-ready' track, you end up doing a disservice to the music and your listenership."

To recap, my only complaint about the video is that there is too much of it. Check it out below.

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Tags:

Islands, Jennifer Grassman, Rocky Horror Picture Show

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Candace

Great review! However, the comment about the length of the video reminds me of the film "Amadeus," where the king tells Mozart that his composition was too long because there are only so many notes the royal ear can tolerate. When told there were too many notes, to simply cut a few and it would be perfect, Mozart cuttingly replies "Which few did you have in mind, sire?" I would echo Mozart's character in my response, "I don't understand. There are just as many notes (minutes) as are required, neither more nor less." Kudos, Jennifer and Kaitlin on a phantastic video project.

Daniel Luthi

Another fabulous chance to see what pops out of Jennifer and Kaitlyn's right sides of their brain...good work

Steve Steele

About the comment, "Too many people let the length of their song dictate the length of the video".. I can understand that. However, take the Queen music video for Bohemian Rhapsody, which is 6:07 long. It has 41,264,124 views on YouTube. Jennifer Grassman's "Haunting" is 4:32, and it's a great song. Perhaps Haunting, being a new and unfamiliar song, might make the video seem excessive. The Queen video is not especially that amazing. It's just some edited live footage mostly. But we watch it because the song is legendary, and watching Queen is always entertaining. So if your a fan of Grassman's song, as I am, then it really comes down to whether the song is a good candidate for a video, or if the video itself is good or not (which is a personal opinion). Artists today, because of the freedoms of DIY technology making any production possible, they must be really picky about what they release, because they/we have no one else to help manage quality control, other than ourselves. I'm not trying to draw any conclusion here, other than to make the point that the video's length is of no consequence if you enjoy it. Right? Now, was the length of my comment excessive? Probably!