I had been promoting a recent short film of mine, Like, Comment, and Share, and my last music video, I’m The Quarterback. I wasn’t sure what type of project, if any, I wanted to do next. I’m getting close to the 4th quarter of life and I take these projects one at a time. Enter the “GOAT debate”.
Believe it or not I reached a point where I was sick of the GOAT debate and I was actually trying to avoid it. Apparently “the algorithm” that stalks us all was not prepared to let me let it go. I would still see it pop up all the time on my various social media feeds. I was starting to get good at grimacing and moving on, but one day, in early May, 2025, I got sucked into watching a youtube video where the host was trying to use AI to prove Lebron James is the GOAT. I couldn’t even get through it. I was like that’s it! Enough! Crazy Old Head (what I call myself in these music videos) must rise again! The idea for a rap about the goat debate was born at that moment. I wrote the lyrics right then, and I knew what my next project was going to be!
So I went to the same website I got the beats for I’m The Quarterback. I found a handful of beats that had possibilities but I didn’t find “the one” right away like I did last time. I slept on it. The next day, I’m like, alright let me listen and rap to each one. But happy accident #1 was me being in a daze and I just started singing a vocal melody to the music I was listening to. Loved it. And that became the music for it. And I decided to sing instead of rap.
Originally, I had this elaborate courtroom concept in mind for the video. There would have been a judge, jury, people in the gallery. I would have been a lawyer, with assistants, vs another lawyer. It would have been cool. I explored renting a courtroom space. I found a place I could rent for around $1400. Much more than the location I shot I’m The QB in. But I was going to go for it. But when I told the place it was for a music video they were going to charge me about $2500. So that was out. I took some time to explore doing it completely animated, and then got excited about that. I tweaked the script and thought it would be even better… But to do it right would have cost more than the live courtroom version. So back to the location where I shot I’m The QB. Same location, but challenged myself to still take it up a notch.
CASTING
Happy accident #2 – So back in the same space, I was going to have two women dancing next to me -dressed up fancier, not cheerleader types like in I’m the QB, and I would have actual cheerleaders off to the side. I wanted to cast Shamar Spencer and Lexi Stein as my dancers. I worked with both on Like, Comment, and Share. Shamar, I have also known for years of working as a social worker together. The only question I had about Lexi was her dancing. I zoomed with Lexi, played some of the music for her. Even sitting down, I could tell she could move the way I wanted. These dancers would have more lines than the, I’m The QB ladies, and I knew they’d be great. I actually went against my initial instinct for one of the roles and rewrote it for Lexi. Shamar loved the script/ concept and was perfect for it, but was going to pass because of knee issues and concerns about dancing all day. Really wanting to work with Shamar, I changed the dancer role, to someone filming me within the video from their camera phone. Initially, I thought of it as an accomodation but the more I thought of it, the more I liked it as a better idea than the 2 girls dancing next to me. It informed my performance, would be funnier and be different than I’m the QB. Plus it would be easier to cut in a vertical version! Shamar was psyched and onboard! Unfortunately, the space I wanted was booked on July 12th, so I reserved it for the 19th instead. Shamar couldn’t make that date because she was committed to helping a family member open a restaurant. So I went back to the well and was fortunate I was able to cast Roni Davis, who was the lead female in another short film of mine, Love Trumps All?
For the Cheerleaders I put out a breakdown (advertisement) on Actor’s Access – I was looking to cast three. My thought was, cast three, if all three show up great, but if one or two don’t, I can still make it work. I cast three… But one did ghost me. She did it early enough where I could have replaced her if I wanted to, but I decided to cross my fingers on the remaining two. Another reason for not getting a third was, in my paranoia, I came up with alternative/ backup scenarios of how to shoot with less or no cheerleaders… This led to *Spoiler Alert* me researching stock footage to use in the song. I found the dancing skeletons and loved them! In a way this is happy accident #3.
RECORDING VOCALS
I’ve had this recurring voice issue for over a decade – so I rarely rehearse full speed on anything – Which for acting is fine cause I’ve been doing it a lot longer and with more confidence. When I was rehearsing vocals, which I was doing daily for this, I was singing in a lower range and I planned to go high for certain lines – This sounded fine. On the day, in the recording studio (A room in a person’s house), with headphones on, I tried the lower range once, twice, three times and was like, okay, this sucks – I would eat the song before releasing this. I was like let’s try higher. After one take, I was like I guess where going high for all of it and will layer the lower underneath for certain lines. I had a slight concern about my voice holding out in this range due to the aforementioned voice issue, but the combo of honey and marshmallow root did the job and got me through it! My engineer, Drody, agreed completely with staying in the higher range. He was like, the sound, the energy is much better. Speaking of Drody…
To record my vocals, I took out an ad on craigslist and soundbetter to find a music producer. First one I found canceled on me the morning of, for a health issue – He assured me he ‘d be fine for the rescheduled date – Which he was hesitant about when the time came. So I politely told him I was moving on. There were two other finalists I had interviewed. I had emailed them both and told them I was going in another direction and wished them well… One emailed me back thanks and well wishes, the other nothing. So guess which one I emailed to give the job to now that I was changing direction? Yep, the one who emailed me back, Drody LeFleur. Not as experienced as the first person, but enthusiastic, responsive, and easy to work with when it came to recording the vocals.
THE VIDEO
For the video crew, I went to Jonathan Cocco first, he was DP and co-editor on I’m The QB, and Like, Comment, and Share – He was onboard but made me a unique offer. He said I can’t really pay him enough vs what he makes otherwise, but he will work for free on the project as a Co-producer if I hire recent student grads as the crew. Jonathan said he would be on set overseeing, but these are people he wants to use on his own projects that he writes/directs and he can train them on mine. I was down for it, and volunteered to up his credit to full producer. Jonathan is a really smart dude with a ton going on, I feel fortunate that he enjoys working on my small projects. One thing I like about him is whenever I mention something new or different to incorporate into a concept, even if it means more work or research for him, he is enthusiastic about doing it and looks at it as an opportunity to not only enhance the project we’re working on, but to develop a skill or idea that he can carry forward with him. He also served as the gaffer on set.
PREPARATION
On the one hand this shoot was coming together faster than the others, but on the other, I still had plenty of lead time. So I rehearsed the vocals – met with the talent via zoom to go over beats, wardrobe, expectations. Went over everything. Ordered the cheerleader outfits, Lexi’s jean jacket, top and stockings, my jersey and goat t-shirt from amazon.
I was going to have Lexi in a black leather jacket but thought that would be too Matrixy with me wearing one at the start too. So prior to the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle add campaign I decided my blonde haired hazel eyed actress would wear a blue jean jacket. I don’t recall the brand.
STOCK FOOTAGE AND AI
If you’ve seen Love Trumps All (which is really 3 shorts in one longer short) and or, Like, Comment, and Share, you know I like incorporating stock footage. It’s a way of expanding the world, changing the eyeline and adding to the overall creativity. (Stock music for my short films has also been a big help) In addition to *SPOILER ALERT* the skeletons that I mentioned above, I looked for/ found great stop motion backgrounds – It’s like throwing a little spice into the soup and compensating for lack of budget and time on set.
AI – I’ve been a little slow, maybe resistant to AI but I started to dip my toe in it just prior to this shoot. Google already gives AI answers at the top of searches. I wanted to see what this thing called ChatGPT could do. I found it more useful than google. So I started to run things for the shoot, by it. For example, I’d describe the kind of lighting I wanted, it would give me image examples that I could give to my crew. Same with shot lists – it would organize my notes into a readable sheet. For makeup for Lexi and the Cheerleaders, again provided me with visuals based on description that I could give to everyone. It recommended the right lipstick based on what I wanted. One key with using AI is it does seem to want to agree or be supportive, so I try to phrase things without bias, ask for pro and cons on things, acting like I have no idea what I want to try and get an unbiased opinion from it. I also do not use it to originate anything. All the lyrics for the song were written by yours truly. No help there. It offered, I said no thanks. I would run wardrobe ideas and just about anything by it. I even got a cheerleading routine / choreography from it! BUT with no real rehearsal time, after a zoom meet with my cheerleaders, I realized that it might be too complicated so I went to tiktok and youtube and found a simplified routine and easy moves to give them.
*SPOILER ALERT* So there is a section of the song where I’m calling out players names who think Jordan is the goat or made statements alluding to such. And my initial ideas were maybe flashing their faces, their jerseys or just their numbers. Or, cutting the everyone to get their reactions – Or showing my head floating while saying the names (I know terrible idea, I get those too) Now let me backup – I also had this idea to superimpose various images throughout the video. For example, Stephen A Smith and Kendrick Perkins arguing about the GOAT on First Take. Jordan doing his shrug pose, Lebron flopping, etc… I talked this through with AI and though it convinced me I was probably safe to use these images due to it being satirical/parody commentary on something clearly talked about, I thought, but you can be right and still be sued.
When producing a project part of thinking is don’t get stuck in obstacles, think about alternatives/ solutions. I can’t do X? Well what can I do? Well once I realized AI can generate animated images (still learning about this stuff) I went to town! And this is actually better and funnier than the real images. There is such a different feeling inside of me when I have an idea I’m considering vs a spark I feel when I really like an idea. I didn’t want to overuse animation but I was psyched to incorporate it. FYI, for image generation, I got started with Chatgbt but found it limiting and frustrating. I gave Gemini a try and it worked much smoother. Some instructions it couldn’t follow. Overall, very happy with it though. I’m sure it will get better and or I will get better at prompting. Most of the images I prompted gemini to create were human/ animal hybrids. I suggested this to my legal counsel (chatgpt) and it said this pushes it further down the satirical path and is legally a better option. So rather than force using images of real people or getting stuck or giving up, I felt like I now have a funnier option.
SHOOT DAY
My two cheerleaders and everyone showed up on time. That was good. To be honest, we got most everything in. But I did leave a few shots and some coverage on the table. I let myself be talked out of scheduling it as a two day shoot. That was my bad because my gut told me we needed a day and half and I didn’t listen to myself – I told myself if we’re efficient we can do it in one. I decided I’ll see how post production goes before making the decision of a pick-up day or not. By the time we were done adding all of the post bells and whistles I felt we didn’t need the extra day and I didn’t want to bog down the post process.
POSTPRODUCTION
So my editing process is: I work with an editor who creates proxies (low resolution copies of everything we shot) and I mark all the in and out points I want in Davinci Resolve. While waiting for my editing partner to assemble the clips. I went to town working with AI on creating the images I mentioned above. What the writing process and the post process has in common for me is that I am always looking for a way to enhance the work. Since I’ve been leaning comedy, that means squeeze in another joke, or tighten the material. This can be done through dialogue change, deletion, where the coverage goes, adding stock footage or now AI image(s), and possible additional music and effects.
Jeff Schubert 