Check out what we did!

The making of our new Candy Cane Jane video

Producing a music video is a big job. It takes lots of people, lots of time, and lots of money to make just one video (let alone an entire DVD!) Laurie's label, Two Tomatoes Records, is a small company working out of a one-bedroom apt on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. We have always needed the help of partners like our distribution record label (Razor and Tie) and other companies we’ve worked with in the past (Nick Jr., Seventh Generation) in order to produce and make these videos available to you.

Recently though, after countless requests for more from so many of you (that makes us very happy to hear!) we decided to take matters into our own hands and produce our own music video IN HOUSE.

Laurie wanted to put out something fun for the holidays, and since she already had the holiday song “Candy Cane Jane” on the Rocketship Run CD she had an idea…why not make this our first animated holiday video?!

So over the past month, our three-person office here at Two Tomatoes Records jumped into the pool of production school (the internet) and learned all about producing an animated music video. We felt just like the little engine that could... or the little Tomatoes that could.

Here’s what we learned it takes to make an animated music video:

1.    Help from our friends: David Stott over at Match Productions volunteered his time to help Shannon in the office in finding the right illustrator and animator (see below for more information on these great people). He also oversaw the video production from start to finish.

2.    Patience: Candy Cane Jane and Gum Drop Joe went through many stages before we got them just right.

3.    Finding talent close to home: We recorded Shannon doing some dance moves that became Candy Cane Jane’s dance moves in the video.

4.    Teamwork: We all worked together to watch the various versions of the video as it came to life and made sure that Candy Cane Lane was a fun place!

5.    Help from our marketing and online office Tomatoes: to make sure our fans knew about the video (grassroots style, of course).

6.    Help from our fans: Now that the video is out we’ve been working to let all of our fans know about it. Through Facebook, email blasts, our website and more we’ve been finding new ways to reach out and get the video to all of you for the holiday season! You can see it on YouTube and download it on iTunes.

Special Thanks…

Our animator, David Gregg, was amazing! And illustrator, Nancy Lee, (who also did some of the illustrations on the Party Day DVD) stepped up to create the looks for Candy Cane Jane and Gum Drop Joe. Here at the office, we had a great time seeing the different stages of our loveable characters and watching it all come together. Who says you need a big production company to make things happen?