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President Biden signed a bill into law banning TikTok nationwide unless the Chinese company that owns it, ByteDance, sells its stake in the app within a year. What do you think?
“And with that, Chinese influence over our economy comes to an end.”
Rowena Marriott, Topiary Clipper
“But I haven’t finished radicalizing!”
Lochlan Robin, Tanning Bed Technician
“Now the youth will return to the true center of taste and style: Paris, France.”
Asma Harding, Weight Estimator
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Can the music content you post to Reels or TikTok create a sense of instant immersion?
That’s the subject of today’s installment of Why It Worked.
In the previous Why It Worked, we looked at Jon Poppii’s minimalist take on acoustic bedroom covers, and why his videos go viral.
Today we’ll be examining a very different approach: Marc Scibilia’s maximalist, daredevil, live-looping performance videos. Specifically, his stunty TSwift mashup of “Anti-Hero” in the style of Folklore.
This video is a music-promo masterclass in combining:
Despite being 8 months old, it KEEPS showing up in my Instagram feed with a growing like-count (132k+), thousands of comments, and thousands of shares.
Why does this content continue to have algorithmic traction long after it was posted? Let’s check out the video. And then scroll down for my take on why it works.
Ummmm, no!
I got exhausted just imagining the patch cables. Nevermind the arrangement, performance, camerawork, and (the most difficult part) keeping the studio uncluttered.
Unlike the Jon Poppii video, which was deceptively simple, Marc Scibilia’s content draws some of its appeal by showing off a dream studio many independent artists assume is beyond their reach.
It’s like HGTV for home recordists. A wishlist for producers suffering from synthesizer envy.
Knowingly or not, Scibilia is presenting a musical lifestyle brand. He’s an artist sitting literally at the center of his own studio universe.
And though I’ve used the term maximalist a few times already, the video really benefits from a tension between maximalism and minimalism. Between unlimited options, and the way a solo performer needs to build a looped arrangement sequentially. Between an arsenal of gear, and the way in which he can only use one instrument at a time. It’s maximalism, pared down.
And even if you can’t match the studio setup, the production quality, or the performative pyrotechnics, there are lessons here to incorporate into your own videos.
Here’s why I think this “Anti-Hero” video works:
It’s a production mashup. He’s daring you to judge whether or not he succeeds in performing this familiar song in a different style.
Whether he wins or not is somewhat besides the point. Or rather, it’s the last point. You’ve already watched to see if he could pull it off.
This implicit dare draws in artists and producers, as well as general music fans.
The other stunt aspect of this video is, of course, the live-looping.
You watch to see if he can build an interesting, dynamic arrangement without those redundant moments of downtime that often accompany looping performances.
IMO, he nails it.
The rapid shifts from one instrument to another also have a feel of risk. It COULD be sloppy. He MIGHT mess up. Even though the results are crisp, that sense of danger adds to the appeal.
People really enjoy unpacking the mysteries of the creative process, whether it’s cooking tutorials, time-lapse painting videos, architecture podcasts, or… looping a song into existence.
This video has a lot of “how it got made” energy.
Not only does this video clarify a process, but by watching it unfold in real-time, you feel like a voyeur to his creativity.
Again, he’s encircled by his environment and tools. He’s at the center of his world. And you’re a welcome guest.
Which is not exactly participatory, but close enough for TikTok.
One other benefit to a looping video is you get to see lots of different instruments.
In less than a minute, there’s something for everyone: guitars, synths, drums, voices,…
The invitation, the implicit dare, the process… it all kicks off in the first moment of the video with striking camerawork the captures our attention.
A big zoom at the start, and then dynamic camera motion throughout, emphasize the energy and dynamics as Marc hops from instrument to instrument.
The camera is never still. It’s restless, like the arrangement and action.
Despite the dramatic camerawork, there are no edits. This is all one shot, one take.
That makes it feel real, risky, spontaneous.
“One camera, one take” is a pretty good rule for most performance videos you shoot in 2024.
A Taylor Swift cover song may’ve gotten a lot of attention on its own.
But the mashup, lifestyle, and stunty aspects of this video widen its potential audience far beyond Swifties.
If you do a cover song video, ask yourself: What ELSE can this be? Who ELSE can this be for?
There’s a story here: Of a guy trapped at home because of traffic from the nearby Taylor Swift concert. So why not stay home and record a Swift song?
The caption says:
Since @taylorswift shut the city down and I’m stuck in my studio…figured I should make “Anti-hero” but in the style of “folklore”
It couldn’t have been that off-the-cuff, especially since Marc explains in another post how he spent all day programming Ableton loop-queues and mutes to execute the arrangement properly.
But the story of spontaneity enhances our sense that what we’re seeing is happening right now. It makes you feel like you’re witnessing something not entirely premeditated.
Okay, here’s one that might be controversial: I rarely believe these types of videos are “live.”
And that’s not a specific accusation with Marc. He posts studio/looping stuff as a regular part of his social calendar, so I’m sure he’s got his process dialled in and probably IS doing these videos live, especially if he programs all the queues in advance.
BUT… you might not have the same practice, skill, or gear. There’s also a wisdom to capturing great sound and great video separately, especially if you don’t have a video production team and lots of time. You can worry about sound first, then work to “perform” the track on camera.
This might sound contradictory, but for the video to work at all, it can’t look pre-recorded — in which case if you can convincingly lip-sync, why not pre-record the audio?!
Just wanted to mention that since Marc’s videos set a very high standard. Don’t be a purist if faking the live performance makes a more entertaining video. The point is to move people.
Last, but most importantly, all the things happening in this video would fall flat if you turned up the sound and hated what you heard.
Marc is a great musician, producer, singer, and engineer. There’s immense talent and impressive attention to detail.
Watch any one of his videos and you’ll see both.
So, should you now feel the pressure to build the world’s coolest home studio?
That’s not what I want you to take away from this breakdown. But rather:
It might not be a live-looping video or a studio performance like Marc’s video, but if his work can inspire you to create a sense of in-the-moment participation and risk, you’ll be onto something good.
Happy video-making!
Check out more from Marc Scibilia on Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok.
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Chris Robley
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French President Emmanuel Macron has a few theories as to why riots have spread across France in the wake of the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old delivery driver: TikTok, Snapchat, and video games, mostly.
The teenager was shot on Tuesday, June 27 in the Paris suburb of Nanterre during a traffic check, according to the Associated Press. Nahel, who has only been identified by his first name, died at the scene, and his untimely death exacerbated rising tensions between French police and the residents of the Nanterre neighborhood and beyond.
Videos shared online over the last few days of riots show police firing tear gas at crowds and protestors lighting cars on fire, burning garbage, and looting. AP reports that as of Friday, 875 arrests were made within the last few days (a third of the arrests for one of these days were reportedly “young people”), with Macron refusing to declare a state of emergency and instead sending 40,000 more officers into the streets.
Macron said that social media networks are playing a “considerable role” in fueling the ongoing unrest, and he pointed to both Snapchat and TikTok as examples. He laid out plans to work with tech companies to remove “the most sensitive content” shared, saying that he expects “a spirit of responsibility from these platforms.” And French police are reportedly looking into the identities of those who post rallying cries to continue the protests on social media.
“Violence has devastating consequences, and we have zero tolerance for content that promotes or incites hatred or violent behavior on any part of Snapchat,” a Snapchat spokesperson told AP. “We proactively moderate this type of content and when we find it, we remove it and take appropriate action. We do allow content that is factually reporting on the situation.”
But Macron doesn’t just think it’s those dang phone apps that are to blame for the ongoing protests—he also turned his attention towards video games. “We sometimes have the feeling that some of them are living out, in the streets, the video games that have intoxicated them,” he said. It’s not, of course, police brutality, an increase in housing and income inequality, or the fact that race policy in France is just “be colorblind.” (Nahel was Arab.)
Protests centered around police brutality are not new in France: Citizens protested the 2020 police killing of George Floyd en masse, and in 2005, riots broke out after two young boys died while running away from police in the Clichy-sous-Bois commune in Paris. During the 2005 riots, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin declared a state of emergency.
Using video games as a scapegoat for violence is not new—they’ve been lampooned as the cause of mass shootings since the 1999 Columbine massacre, and Fox News trotted out the excuse after the 2022 Buffalo, New York mass-shooting. But scientific research does not point to a connection between the two.
As psychologist Dr. Rachel Kowert told Kotaku in June 2022, “We’ve been studying [the connection] for 20 years, and there’s been no consistent findings that would suggest at all that they’re in any way directly linked, whereas we have a whole wealth of research linking, like pure delinquency, and low frustration tolerance, and previous exposure to violence, and all of these things that are very well established in the research as predictors of violent behavior, but we ignore that because those are confusing societal problems.”
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Alyssa Mercante
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