Friday, September 9, 2016

"Everybody's Wonder Womaaaaaaan!"

I guess most or all of us know what it's like to have a song stuck in our heads. Well, for a while, I've had a new version of a song stuck in my head, and a video to go with the new version.

Here's the old version of the song, the "Wonder Woman" theme song:



The new version follows the old version's orchestration. I'd like to have stronger vocals and brass and piano: stronger, ballsier everything, musically. But the major change is this: toward the end of the song, the lead singer and backup singers all sing together:

Wonder Womaaaaaaan! Wonder Womaaaaaaan!

and then they follow that by singing

Everybody's Wonder Womaaaaaaan!

over and over. Up until now, the video has been a conventional/boring video intercutting shots of the band playing live before a theatre crowd with shots of them playing in a studio in front of solid-color backdrops. (I'd prefer the look of a band and a live crowd who are mostly male, young and fit and somewhat grungy: denim, T-shirts, flannel. Female backup vocalists would be okay.)

Now, all the singers sing "Everybody's Wonder Womaaaaaaan!" over and over. Except for the repetition and the change in words, this line is going to sound exactly the same as the line "You're a wonder, Wonder Womaaaaaaaan!" in the original version. For the first two or three repetitions, the video shows the band performing live in the theatre, as they've been doing for much of the video already. But now, after they sing "Everybody's Wonder Womaaaaaaan!" two or three times, or maybe more than three times -- you should edit it different ways to see which way looks best. I'm thinking no more than two, but I could change my mind looking at actual footage -- we cut to a shot of the band on the same stage, but now everyone in the band is wearing a full Wonder Woman costume, except maybe leave out the tights. We stay on the band for one rep of "Everybody's Wonder Womaaaaaaan!" and then cut to a shot from the back of the theatre, including the stage and the house, and the band and everyone in the audience is wearing the Wonder Woman costume.

Stay on that shot one rep of the line, then cut for one rep each to various others shots in which everyone is wearing the Wonder Woman costume. There's nothing wrong with having some women in some of the shots, including but nor limited to the women in the band. I'm not opposed to children in wonder Woman costumes in some of the shots either. But the great majority of the people in all of the shots where everyone's wearing a Wonder Woman costume, from the audience shot on, should be men. These shots could include: a crowded check-out section of a supermarket; a gas station/convenience store with people gassing up their vehicles and other people coming out of and going into the store; a bowling alley; a crowded mid-Manhattan sidewalk; and a tracking shot of a very long line of people, ending with the shot pulling out to reveal that they're waiting outside a stadium which has a big flashing electric sign reading "Everybody's Wonder Woman!"

I repeat, and this is crucial: everyone in every one of these shots must be wearing a Wonder Woman costume. I assume that some of the crowd shots would be easier to make with CGI than with thousands of extras in Wonder Woman costumes, but maybe I'm wrong and this project simply isn't feasible with the technology we currently have. And I repeat: most of them should be men. Including a fair number of men who don't really pass as conventional-looking women. Lots of chest and back hair and five-o'clock shadows, some full beards, fat and/or muscular chests and shoulders.

I don't have a definite idea about how best to end this: we could fade to black from one of the crowd scenes. We could go back to the band and the live crowd dressed in their everyday clothes, and go back to the original lyrics from the end of the song. We could do something else. The main things are: cover the original song with all of its razzmatazz, but put in more raazmatazz musically; and go big, big, big with the Wonder Woman costume scenes.

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