By: Max Jarck
I produced a video of iMessage conversations between Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and then between Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. The original intent was to recreate ‘Cabinet Battle #1’ but as a sort of introduction I adapted the end of ‘What’d I Miss’ into an iMessage conversation as well. For some messages, I used the lyrics as they were with no changes but in most instances for the conversation to make no sense I had to make small edits. The conversations were between two people so in both songs I was eliminating characters and therefore tweaks had to be made. These tweaks remind me of changes made in Ashanti and Ja Rule’s cover of ‘Helpless’. In that too, they eliminate characters. In addition to these small changes I added lines based on historical facts discovered in readings for our previous project and from genius lyric facts. I got to throw a few extra “burns” into the conversation. I recorded the conversations by using the screen recording function on my iPhone and then using that and an older iPad to send messages from a script I had written.
The bulk of the work was editing this rough conversation down to a watchable length. I edited 18 minutes down to 8 mins. At 18 minutes it was hard to sit through but at 8 it’s the right length to tell the story. I cut long gaps in between messages, typos, and other unnecessary content. I purchased several instrumental versions of Hamilton songs. I matched the backing of ‘What’d I Miss’ with the Washington and Jefferson segment which is a segment from that song. The ‘Cabinet Battle #1’ backing plays behind Hamilton and Jefferson arguing and then ‘Room Where it Happens’ finishes the video. I ended the video with ‘Room Where it Happens’ because it tells how the deal that put Hamilton’s financial plan(what they just debated) into place happened behind closed doors. The songs represent a progression and ‘Room Where it Happens’ seemed more like a logical next step.
Technical difficulties hurt any chance for peer review but I already knew some of the big things that had to be done. This is when I cut the video down from 18 minutes to just 8 minutes. This adaptation shows how two cabinet members may debate something today. I opted to keep it serious because at the times these debate were very serious. It illustrates how communication has changed and offers a unique way to digest these two songs.
