Princeton University is famous for many reasons, but its funk scene has never been one of them. But today the Princeton Footnotes may have changed that with the release of their music video cover of the hit song Uptown Funk. The video features the singing Footnotes—decked out in colorful, albeit somewhat stereotypically Princeton, outfits—dancing around Princeton’s campus with members of both the BodyHype and diSiac dance companies.
The collaborative video was the brainchild of Jacob Schatz ’15, a member of the Footnotes since freshman year. Schatz said that he came up with the idea of making a music video around Thanksgiving, just when the Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars song blew up.
“In the last two weeks before winter break the Footnotes decided we were going to make a full court press to make a video of Uptown Funk,” Schatz said, explaining that he arranged the song over winter break with the help of Casey Kolb ’15 and Chris Snyder ’17, the musical directors of the a capella group.
While arranging, Schatz realized that the video would benefit from the inclusion of other performing arts groups on campus.
“Over winter break I had the idea to get BodyHype and diSiac involved so we wouldn’t have to do all the choreography ourselves and also to showcase some of the other performing groups on campus,” Schatz said.
By the time the group got back to campus for reading period, they immediately began recording the song so they could film the video before intersession.
“Our recording was due to the dance groups on Dean’s Date,” Schatz said jokingly, explaining that they needed to get the audio recording to the groups as quickly as possible so they could begin choreographing.
Eamon Foley ’15 choreographed and directed the BodyHype segments while Colby Hyland ’16 and Angie Chiraz ’16 arranged and choreographed the diSiac segments. Nonny Okwelogu ’15, with the help of members of the Princeton Film Productions, filmed and edited the video, which was shot over the course of just six days during finals.
“Without any of them, this would have been a boring old, singing-to-the-camera music video. But with their help we made it something more,” Schatz said. “The collaborative aspect of this project definitely fueled its success.”
Schatz hopes that besides being catchy and enjoyable to watch, the video will shed light on the talented students at Princeton and serve as a catalyst for future collaborative projects.
“It shows the untapped potential of the art community at Princeton because we have so many talented people but everyone sort of keeps their heads down and keeps to themselves,” he said. “And if you pick your head up you might end up doing something like this.”