The Beatbox Nativity has been an instant hit on YouTube.
Check out the competition version here…
Check out the extended version 2.0 here…
What is the Nativity Factor?
This Christmas, ITN and Jerusalem Productions launched an online video competition based around the nativity. Contestants were asked to create a 3-minute video that retells the story of the nativity as creatively as possible. The competition closed on Monday 5th December with public voting to select the finalists up until 9th December. The winner was announced on 14th December. Judges included Michelle Williams from Destiny’s Child and Julie Etchingam, presenter of ITV News at Ten.
“A fantastic short film full of wit and humour – perfectly formatted. The rap was pure genius, and stayed close to the story from Luke’s gospel without losing any of its impact. If there were ever a way of breaking the Nativity through to a new generation, then this is surely it. My kids watched it over and over again – we loved it in our house.” (Julie Etchingham, ITN News at Ten)
The Nativity Factor’s website can be viewed at: http://www.thenativityfactor.com/
What is The Beatbox Nativity?
The Beatbox Nativity is a video written and produced by Revd Gavin Tyte (aka TyTe) and combines two of Gavin’s loves – The Bible and human beatboxing. The lyrics come from the Beatbox Bible – a rhyming version of Luke’s gospel – written by Gavin. The Beatbox Nativity is designed to look like a 1980s drum machine complete with buttons, but on this drum machine the sounds are produced by three mini TyTes each in a separate window!
(click to view larger picture)
“Part of the reason for the ‘beatbox’ idea was that I wanted a format in which the lyrics could be displayed like subtitles for the hearing impaired.”
All the beatboxing and rapping was recorded live on the video - no miming allowed! The video was all filmed and edited at home using an Apple Mac and a DSLR camera.
What is human beatboxing?
Human beatboxing is urban vocal percussion – making drum and instrument sounds with the mouth. The term beatboxing comes from ‘beatbox’ which is another name for a drum machine, so a human beatbox is a human drum machine. All the sounds on The Beatbox Nativity were made vocally.
Who is Gavin Tyte?
Gavin has been beatboxing since he was about 8 years old, and is one of the pioneers of beatboxing, having created the worlds first beatboxing videos on the Internet. He has been a regular judge of the UK beatboxing championships and was editor of the international website HUMANBEATBOX.COM. Gavin is also the part-time vicar of Uplyme and Axmouth churches. The Beatbox Nativity brings together Gavin’s skills as a writer, performer, sound designer, beatboxer, graphic designer and videographer.
How was The Beatbox Nativity made?
“The first thing I did was to imagine the final result, visualising it in my head. I had already written and memorised the rap so I knew I could perform it. Because the production was quite complicated, I worked out the storyboard on paper – i.e. how it would look and sound and in what order the film and graphics would need to be produced. For example, in the full version the default characters would need to turn their heads at a specific point in the timeline when the first Bible character was loaded.
Secondly, I created the graphics – the design for the drum machine and subtitles. I did some calculations for how big the video screens would need to be if I filmed the separate videos in 4:3. I then produced each graphic in Photoshop Elements a frame at a time. There were 74 different graphic frames that I needed to produce with transparent windows for the film!
Thirdly, I created a backing track of the music – not that this would be used in the final video, but I needed something to keep time to as I had to film the three separate parts with live audio and they would have to synchronise together. I had to slot in some audio cues like “Shepherd’s line coming up” or “get ready to sing on this note” to remind me when to come in!
Fourthly, I filmed the three parts plus the intro default character parts. I used a NIKON D5100 DSLR camera with a 35mm lens and the filming took place in a walk-in cupboard with a black backdrop. A lamp was balanced behind the camera to provide ambient and non-direct light. I had to wear headphones to hear the backing track with one ear on the cues to know whether to beatbox, rap or sing! It was a case of quick costume changes and I can tell you that it was baking hot in the shepherd’s costume!
Fifthly, I stripped all the audio off the three video takes and edited them in some sound editing software (Final Cut Express). Because each of the three takes were filmed independently (i.e. not locked together) at 25fps they wouldn’t synchronise! A silly mistake but one I won’t make again. But it was a relatively easy job to synchronise the audio from the three takes and produce a master audio track.
Sixthly, I recorded the sound for the intro sequence – all vocally – and created this as one audio file.
Finally it was a case of building the HD video in video editing software – dropping in the sound first, then the graphics and finally the video for the three characters. I added a few final touches of lighting and any effects I wanted. You could say that it was a labour of love!”