As the Romans Do

Being able to have my name as the creator of the first music video for my group is a great honor, and this entire process that was in the back of my mind. We did not have a large plan going into this of what we wanted the final product to look like, but we wanted something that honored the group before us. That opened the door to asking all the alumni of the Chips to send in anything and everything they have: videos, photos, anything that can help us with creating this time capsule of a music video of the highlights of our group. We were sent droves of files, spanning back all the way to 1997. Little tidbits of the old guys having fun together, concert videos, photos of their trips they went on together. Curating this and seeing everything in one place gave me such a nostalgic feeling and a greater sense of pride for the group as a whole.

We decided to go with showcasing these past Chip's memories while combining them with some of the stuff we shot as well. Since this was still in the middle of COVID, we had to do a lot of the video in "Zoom Squares" where we each individually shot in our bedrooms and compiled that together. There were a couple of times though where we were able to see each other in the filming process, and we used some green-screen shots because of that as a way to work in more memories from the past. The hardest part of the editing process definitely came down to narrowing what content that we were sent was to be featured in the final video. We obviously wouldn't be able to use all of it; sitting down and sifting through it all took almost 12 hours. Once we found what was usable and what wasn't, getting it all together was a lot easier.

This video was made for the International Competition for Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA). In 2021, the competition took a different form since it was still unsafe to sing in a performance hall. Having a competition that featured the arts was a struggle to host, so it took the form of multi-round music video submissions instead. This was the Chip's first-round video, submitted for the Quarterfinals round. While other groups in the competition had been working on their videos for months, we put this together (learning the song, audio recording, mixing, storyboarding, filming, editing) in only four weeks. At competition, we won 1st place out of the 10 groups in our region, outstanding mix, and outstanding videography, on top of moving onto the Semifinals round.

Directed by:
Eric DeVore

Archival Director:
Clayton Markham

Drone Operator:
Adam Neves-Quinn

Song:
As the Romans Do - Theo Katzman
Performed by: The Buffalo Chips
Soloist: Ben Samalin
Mixed by: John Bologna

Performers:
John Bologna
John DellaContrada
Eric DeVore
Zack Farnam
Clayton Markham
Adam Neves-Quinn
John Perdue
Matthew Pestinger
Adam Rakeicki
Nathan Roberts
Ben Samalin
Ryan Storto
Simon Wu

Special thanks to:
Michael Jankowski
The Buffalo Chips Alumni Association
The University at Buffalo