I'm traveling at the speed of light
January 6, 2014 6:08 PM Subscribe
Starting at age 15, on New Year's Day in 2011, Matt Perren took a shot of himself every day lip-syncing to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". 1100 days later, at age 18, the video is ready.
Via. (Simulated) timelapse aging previously.
Via. (Simulated) timelapse aging previously.
His hair is killing me.
posted by elizardbits at 6:16 PM on January 6, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by elizardbits at 6:16 PM on January 6, 2014 [4 favorites]
Not even any teen goth I knew had that much commitment to wearing black t-shirts.
Goths, maybe not - dudes who want to wear what works every day and not think about it, definitely.
It's not commitment so much as inertia.
posted by louche mustachio at 6:22 PM on January 6, 2014 [11 favorites]
Goths, maybe not - dudes who want to wear what works every day and not think about it, definitely.
It's not commitment so much as inertia.
posted by louche mustachio at 6:22 PM on January 6, 2014 [11 favorites]
That was just great.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:25 PM on January 6, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by lazaruslong at 6:25 PM on January 6, 2014 [3 favorites]
Aaaaand it's blocked due to copyright. Great job!
EDIT: looks like you can view it using the "via" link.
posted by Madamina at 6:51 PM on January 6, 2014
EDIT: looks like you can view it using the "via" link.
posted by Madamina at 6:51 PM on January 6, 2014
Wow. Remarkably well-adjusted kid for apparently living inside a wind tunnel.
posted by psoas at 6:52 PM on January 6, 2014 [15 favorites]
posted by psoas at 6:52 PM on January 6, 2014 [15 favorites]
It's kinda weird how much his features change during that growth spurt the first summer.
posted by notsnot at 6:52 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by notsnot at 6:52 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]
Aaaaand it's blocked due to copyright. Great job!
For whatever reason, it works on desktop but not on mobile. It will also work if you have YouTube inline playing activated on MeFi.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:55 PM on January 6, 2014
For whatever reason, it works on desktop but not on mobile. It will also work if you have YouTube inline playing activated on MeFi.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:55 PM on January 6, 2014
Kid planned this all out from the start. Once the film gets to about 1100 days/frames it starts counting back down. Each day he did two shots, equidistant from the last day that was in the middle and got his mouth into the proper phoneme.
Take a bow kid. That is some serious execution.
posted by ursus_comiter at 7:15 PM on January 6, 2014 [16 favorites]
Take a bow kid. That is some serious execution.
posted by ursus_comiter at 7:15 PM on January 6, 2014 [16 favorites]
Each day he did two shots, equidistant from the last day that was in the middle and got his mouth into the proper phoneme.
Surely he just filmed himself singing the song every day for 1100 days and then cut it together, right?
posted by crossoverman at 7:36 PM on January 6, 2014 [4 favorites]
Surely he just filmed himself singing the song every day for 1100 days and then cut it together, right?
posted by crossoverman at 7:36 PM on January 6, 2014 [4 favorites]
I'm pretty sure he recorded the entire song each time. And, actually, he may have recorded it TWICE each time at the beginning of the project -- it took me a couple viewings to realize it, but, towards the end, the little inset video that pops up presents him lipsyncing the chorus, instead of the main vocals. Amazing planning.
posted by orthicon halo at 7:39 PM on January 6, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by orthicon halo at 7:39 PM on January 6, 2014 [3 favorites]
Uh, he didn't finish it. I'm gonna withhold judgment until he does.
posted by monospace at 7:47 PM on January 6, 2014
posted by monospace at 7:47 PM on January 6, 2014
Nah, just lipsync the entire (first minute and a half) once, then jump to the appropriate frame number for that day, and mimic what his face looked like in that frame.
For example, on day 100, he jumps to frame 100 of the original video, checks how his mouth shape looks, and mimics it for that day's photo. (and then jumps ahead to the '100th from last' frame in the original video and does the same.)
posted by ShutterBun at 7:47 PM on January 6, 2014 [3 favorites]
For example, on day 100, he jumps to frame 100 of the original video, checks how his mouth shape looks, and mimics it for that day's photo. (and then jumps ahead to the '100th from last' frame in the original video and does the same.)
posted by ShutterBun at 7:47 PM on January 6, 2014 [3 favorites]
It breaks my brain a bit to figure out how to not only get the lip sync right day after day for three years, but to also reverse lip-sync the 2nd half of the verses a bit each day from the start. Mind-bogglingly awesome.
posted by mathowie at 7:59 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by mathowie at 7:59 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]
Not even any teen goth I knew had that much commitment to wearing black t-shirts.
Man at one point my closet literally looked like those scenes in movies/TV shows where they open the closet and it's row after row of the same outfit and it's a joke, you know? But it wasn't a joke. I was big and hard to fit, so when I found something I liked, I'd buy out the whole stock of them, so I frequently had a single style of shirt and a single style of pants and that was IT. If you've never been big/tall/both and hard to fit you've never really understood the horror of "Shit the one entire style of shirt this fucking store carried in my size that looks decent will never be carried again"
This is also a good "The horror show that's being a teenager" as he shifts from okay looking kid to his nose growing enormously and the rest of his face sloooowly catching up with it.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:17 PM on January 6, 2014 [2 favorites]
Man at one point my closet literally looked like those scenes in movies/TV shows where they open the closet and it's row after row of the same outfit and it's a joke, you know? But it wasn't a joke. I was big and hard to fit, so when I found something I liked, I'd buy out the whole stock of them, so I frequently had a single style of shirt and a single style of pants and that was IT. If you've never been big/tall/both and hard to fit you've never really understood the horror of "Shit the one entire style of shirt this fucking store carried in my size that looks decent will never be carried again"
This is also a good "The horror show that's being a teenager" as he shifts from okay looking kid to his nose growing enormously and the rest of his face sloooowly catching up with it.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:17 PM on January 6, 2014 [2 favorites]
great hair, no zits, discipline to follow through with long-term projects? He's an alien impersonating a teen, and doing so badly.
posted by skewed at 8:45 PM on January 6, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by skewed at 8:45 PM on January 6, 2014 [4 favorites]
The whole song? How many different mouth combos do you need to pass this? I'm thinking about, 5 myself.
You could then actually film yourself singing it to use as a model. Then go frame by frame and pick out which "mouth" to use on that day, from the frame in your actual movie.
Look when Freddy sings it, the guy had an incredible stage presence, and one of the reasons for that is the guy could make you feel the song - he's expressing with both his voice and what his, uh, mouth looks like. That kid didn't catch any of that.
posted by alex_skazat at 10:27 PM on January 6, 2014
You could then actually film yourself singing it to use as a model. Then go frame by frame and pick out which "mouth" to use on that day, from the frame in your actual movie.
Look when Freddy sings it, the guy had an incredible stage presence, and one of the reasons for that is the guy could make you feel the song - he's expressing with both his voice and what his, uh, mouth looks like. That kid didn't catch any of that.
posted by alex_skazat at 10:27 PM on January 6, 2014
And I gotta say, Freddy works that incredible overbite. Accentuate your imperfections is the lesson learned from that man. Well, a lot of things can be learned from him, if you're lookin' to be a showman.
posted by alex_skazat at 10:29 PM on January 6, 2014
posted by alex_skazat at 10:29 PM on January 6, 2014
I thought briefly about showing this to my impending teenager, to prove that you will soon grow out of the physical awkwardness that comes with the age, but I realized that was a horrible idea first. I like the rare occasions when my brain works faster than my mouth.
I've never done anything consistently for more than a weeks, beyond actions needed for daily survival, so I'm in awe of this guy,
posted by bibliowench at 11:16 PM on January 6, 2014
I've never done anything consistently for more than a weeks, beyond actions needed for daily survival, so I'm in awe of this guy,
posted by bibliowench at 11:16 PM on January 6, 2014
We're comparing a relatively ordinary teenager's conceptual youtube video project to Freddie Fucking Mercury and actually taking the time and effort to complain that the former is lacking with regard to the latter?
posted by treepour at 11:24 PM on January 6, 2014 [34 favorites]
posted by treepour at 11:24 PM on January 6, 2014 [34 favorites]
Nice try, kid, but come back when you've done Bohemian Rhapsody age 15-30.
posted by book 'em dano at 11:36 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by book 'em dano at 11:36 PM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's even more impressive when you consider how slowly time moves for kids. As an adult, three years is nothing. Three years can happen in a few months. But for a teenager, three years is a really long time. From his perspective, he's been doing this lip-sync thing forever. It'd be like, I don't know, maybe 10 years for me. When I think back to the time it took for 15-year-old me to become 18-year-old me, it seems like a lifetime in itself.
This is also a good "The horror show that's being a teenager" as he shifts from okay looking kid to his nose growing enormously and the rest of his face sloooowly catching up with it.
Funny, that wasn't my take at all. He seemed to go from young boy to good-looking young man overnight.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:25 AM on January 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
This is also a good "The horror show that's being a teenager" as he shifts from okay looking kid to his nose growing enormously and the rest of his face sloooowly catching up with it.
Funny, that wasn't my take at all. He seemed to go from young boy to good-looking young man overnight.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:25 AM on January 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
I loved the chorus insert so much.
We're comparing a relatively ordinary teenager's conceptual youtube video project to Freddie Fucking Mercury
I know! Man, if the worst criticism I'd ever received was "You're no Freddie Mercury," I'd have an ego as big as the Ritz. (Also, at fifteen even Freddie fucking Mercury was no Freddie Mercury.)
posted by No-sword at 4:42 AM on January 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
We're comparing a relatively ordinary teenager's conceptual youtube video project to Freddie Fucking Mercury
I know! Man, if the worst criticism I'd ever received was "You're no Freddie Mercury," I'd have an ego as big as the Ritz. (Also, at fifteen even Freddie fucking Mercury was no Freddie Mercury.)
posted by No-sword at 4:42 AM on January 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
Not even any teen goth I knew had that much commitment to wearing black t-shirts.
You know who did, though?
That is seriously impressive; I've thought of doing long-term photo projects (like photgraphing my now-nine-year old every day of her life or the analemma) but could never really commit to it. Good for him for sticking with it.
My only, very minor, quibble is that the numerical data in the frame is a little distracting. I would have liked it better without it, or at least with it much smaller.
posted by TedW at 5:10 AM on January 7, 2014
You know who did, though?
That is seriously impressive; I've thought of doing long-term photo projects (like photgraphing my now-nine-year old every day of her life or the analemma) but could never really commit to it. Good for him for sticking with it.
My only, very minor, quibble is that the numerical data in the frame is a little distracting. I would have liked it better without it, or at least with it much smaller.
posted by TedW at 5:10 AM on January 7, 2014
Too bad about the farting at 53 seconds.
posted by pracowity at 5:42 AM on January 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 5:42 AM on January 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
this is amazing on so many levels
posted by bitteroldman at 7:34 AM on January 7, 2014
posted by bitteroldman at 7:34 AM on January 7, 2014
Every gawky awkward kid should watch this. He morphs from nerdy to cutie in 1 minute. But when you're 15 you think you'll be gawky forever.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:57 AM on January 7, 2014
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:57 AM on January 7, 2014
He morphs from nerdy to cutie in 1 minute. But when you're 15 you think you'll be gawky forever.
I'm turning 43 next month--do you figure that will do it?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:49 PM on January 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm turning 43 next month--do you figure that will do it?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:49 PM on January 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I wonder if he still likes Queen. People's taste in music changes, especially in the teen years. Imagine spending every day for three years painstakingly recording a syllable from your favorite song, only to realize eventually that you really aren't all that fond of [Queen] [Nickleback] [Britney Spears] [Lady Gaga] anymore.
posted by bcarter3 at 2:12 PM on January 7, 2014
posted by bcarter3 at 2:12 PM on January 7, 2014
I'll bet he'll fucking nail this song on his first visit to a karaoke bar.
posted by Fezboy! at 2:51 PM on January 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Fezboy! at 2:51 PM on January 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
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