Owl City.

Back in 2009, myself and Steve Hoover were asked to shoot a music video for a song called Fireflies by a new artist at Universal Records who went by the name of Owl City. I had no clue who he was. We wrote a treatment and were awarded the job and went on to gain over 500 million views. We went on to shoot four more videos with Owl City following this. The idea for Fireflies - the musician is playing in a bedroom set when all the toys start to come to life. We built a small bedroom set in the middle of an enormous sound stage in Pittsburgh, PA.

With the help of our amazing art director at the time, Merissa Lombardo, we had the most fun ever shopping for this job. We hit up flea markets and toy stores to gather unique toys to add to the set. The photo you see of the back of a minivan is the result of one of those trips. Additionally, our friend Jay Morrisey took an old electric organ and rewired it so that when keys were hit, lights he installed on the top would light up.

We had all hands on deck before each take. Everyone would run on to set winding up and turning on toys and then on action lay them down and run off set. My favorite part is when the blimp comes out of the closet. The closet went directly into the studio and the clothes were just hanging off a c-stand. We had someone from our crew back there just shoving the blimp into the set and Steve was controlling it with a remote.

Movie magic. Ha.