Lauren Simpson says she does not make a habit out of clicking online banner ads.
“I usually don’t bother with banner ads because they’re usually just scams or a waste of time,” she said. “But I clicked on it anyway.”
Unwittingly setting into motion events that would drastically shape her immediate future, Simpson decided to check out this particular banner. The advertisement led her to mtvu.com, where she discovered a contest. The contest challenged anyone with the creative ability to pitch an idea for the next Motion City Soundtrack music video. The winner would get the chance to bring his or her vision to life and direct the music video for Motion City Soundtrack’s latest single, “It Had to Be You.”
“I was not a big fan of Motion City Soundtrack. I didn’t dislike them, but I just wasn’t all that familiar with their material to begin with,” Simpson said. “But I figured I didn’t really have anything to lose, so I listened to the song a few times through and just wrote down ideas that came to me. As I listened to the music, I had several very distinct ideas and pictures that began to form in my mind, and I decided that I was going to go after this.”
Several weeks later, after submitting her idea, the eager Texas A&M graduate student received an email.
“At first the message just said my submission was one of the finalists and they wanted to get some more specifics. All I had submitted was really just a sort of outline and some illustrations,” she said. “I was really excited. I didn’t even think mine would end up winning, but I was thrilled that I was a finalist.”
Simpson continued to correspond with the officials of the contest, as well as Justin Pierre, the band’s lead vocalist. Several more days passed as Simpson waited for the call that would inevitably change her plans for the next several weeks. Simpson said she was ecstatic when she was contacted with the information that her submission had been chosen.
“I was so excited. I couldn’t believe that my submission had won. The opportunity to do professional work that millions of people would get a chance to see was thrilling,” Simpson said.
With her newfound exuberance and energy, Simpson then turned to the arduous and painstaking task of making her music video. While Simpson’s creativity had won her the contest, it would now become somewhat of a burden.
“With the exception of most of the band’s footage, the video is shot in a stop-motion fashion. That is, we shoot the subjects briefly then turn off the cameras, move them slightly, and turn the camera back on, and thus create the illusion of movement,” she said. “It’s a very hands-on and involved process, and it takes a very long time to perfect. We took over a month to film an almost four-minute-long video.”
Simpson spent most of the next several weeks camped out in the architecture building with her crew.
“Everyone who worked on the video was so amazing; they were such troopers. We would spend hours on end doing nothing but filming and designing the video, going without sleep or food for extended periods. Most of us just slept on the floors or tables in the architecture building. It was hard work, but it was worth it,” Simpson said.
Simpson said working with the band was quite a treat.
“I had this image of them as stereotypical rock stars or celebrities that would be rude or aloof, but they were not at all,” she said. “They were very helpful during shooting and very down to earth. They kept saying, ‘Just tell us what you want us to do and we’ll do it, anything at all.'”
With the video completed and available now for everyone to see on mtv.com and mtvu.com, Simpson is moving on to be an animator at Pixar Animation Studios.