POIGNANT PARODY FILLS A VOID
Updated: May 5, 2020
By confining us to our homes, the coronavirus prevents us from doing many of our favorite things. But it can’t stop us from spreading love, laughter and support.
That’s the message the Transitioners sent with a charming music video they created over spring break.
Performing like polished pros, the Transitioners – a.k.a. Katy Moon’s second-and-third-grade class at Seabury School – lip sync, dance and ham their way through a poignant parody of Celine Dion’s version of “All By Myself.”
The five-minute video is the brainchild of Kristi Simkins, a professional film editor whose daughter is a student in the class. Inspired by watching other musical parodies, Kristi and her daughter contacted fellow Transitioner families about submitting videos of themselves to produce their own parody.
Kristi assembled the videos over spring break, splicing the footage to make it flow, rewriting some of the song lyrics and hiring a singer through a network of freelance creative artists. Blending humor with melancholy, the finished parody entertains but also gives a nod to the emotional side of our distance learning journey.
“Social distancing has been really hard on the kids,” Kristi says. “As an only child my daughter has been especially lonely. I hoped creating this music video with their friends might help the kids feel a little closer and remind them we are all in this together.”
Kristi provided some direction, but most students and families thought up their own scenes. “The parents were really excited and said they had a lot of fun working on this with their kids,” she says.
This video is rated A for awesome. Two big thumbs up!
KRISTI’S TOP CLICK
EarthCam “This site contains webcams located all over the world, including many zoo animal webcams. It's fun to check out what's going on around the world while not leaving our house.”
WHAT KRISTI’S WATCHING
“We're not really watching any show on a regular basis, but we did just finish reading the book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH so we watched the older animated film The Secret of NIMH. It was fun to share the book and movie with our daughter and discuss the differences between the two.”