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California Dreaming came true! 

July 2008

Originally the song "California Dreaming" was written and performed by the "Mamas & Papas" and became their most famous hit. If Denny, Cass, John and Michelle (= Mamas & Papas) hadn't done it before we would have had to write this song. To sit in cold and rainy weather while it is sooooooooooooo beautiful in California: That's what we felt too!

The winter scenes were no real problem for us here in Austria. We have limp leaves, bald trees and secluded churches well enough. What a fortune that we could spend our 2008 vacations in sunny California again. We simply had to take the chance and realize our version of the Californian dream!

Now, you have to imagine our vacation this way: Our Dad and his camera came with us at every turn. (Well, of course we didn't get permanent-monitored, we only talk about the video shootings.) In return, everything that you can see in the videos is real - no fake! As you will notice we did an incredible lot of things. Of course you need a whole bunch of footage to realize such a video. So, it wasn't always so easy like it looks in the film, it's rather work than holidays. Since we didn't have an exact script yet (there was no time besides school), we wanted to shoot various takes. And so there often was more than one "clapperboard".

Film Shooting in California
 

Motorboat Scene

First of all some friends of ours, who own a great motorboat,  invited us to Castaic Lake that we could do some video shooting there. Castaic Lake is a very large reservoir, about one hour car drive north of L.A. It has plenty of motorboaters and jet-skiers there. We tried to do some "wakeboarding" for the first time in our lives - that's more or less like snowboarding on water. But tooling along on the huge red airbed was much easier. Our friend Dirk did some extra circuits with us that our Dad could film us.

Riding Scene

Another day we filmed in the Wild West ... (strange - it looked exactly like Griffith Park/
Burbank). While Dirk's son Kilian is a very good wakeboarder and guitarist his sister Sadie is an excellent rider who had earned many prices yet. That's true, we couldn't find her indoor furnishing under all the pennants and flags ;). She had an important tounament (she carried off a price again) and was pleased to have us watching and cheering her on. Of course we were raring to ride too and Dirk advised us to go to an adjacent riding farm and rent some horses there.
 

We borrowed two of them and we also got assigned a riding companion whom we both instantly called "Zorro". He simply looked and behaved like him. With his casual Western gear and his spotted horse he looked like he had jumped out of a film setting.

We told him that we wanted to do some shooting, and after he saw that we have an understanding of riding, he showed us a big nice place where we started to ride on Daddy's mark. We changed from trot to gallop and streaked past our father and the camera. He was delighted and happy with the successful takes. And it really was beautiful there: the light was great, the surrounding was wonderful and the horses were very pretty (and so were we "smile*), we rode the horses well ... everything was perfect!

We repeated that game several times - walk, trot, gallop. After a while the horses turned sour when they gallopped in the direction of the stables and then had to turn round again. But they obeyed us well, though. However we had a great time and it was funny that Mona lost her hat always right in front of the camera :) (Needless to say that Zorro brought it back again, as is right and proper ;))

 

Beach Scenes

What would be more "California-like" than beach, sun, sea and waves? Thus we went for a trip to the world-renowned beaches of Venice and Santa Monica. We slipped into our bikinis and plunged into the floods.

That's how one would imagine work, right? - Simply jumping around in the sea while being filmed. We "worked" for about two hours and did all kinds of scenes from many different perspecitves. We only had to take good care of the video camera in order to not get it wet. Whith those huge waves it wasn't easy to keep things dry. However we had lots of fun and we disliked to pack and leave the fine sand in the evening.

On the other news-pages you can read about our beachmusic activities. We mainly played at the Laguna Beach boardwalk, about one hour south of L. A., and at Venice Beach. You will see a scene of Venice in the video - a black rapper, fully dressed in white, sings and dances to our song.

 

Whale Watching

One of our most impressive experiences took place due to another valuable hint of our friend Dirk. Of course, we eventually wanted to see dolphins and whales in the wild and also have them on our videos.

So we went to Ventura (about one hour northwest of L.A.) from where the boats left offshore to the Channel Islands. We spent the whole day on the water (in the evening the car and the bed swang) and were fascinated by the shoals of dolphins. There were - no exageration - hundreds of these elegant beauties fooling around in the waves of our boat. In between there were lazy sea lions drifting by, warming up their fins on the water surface and we also got to see some whale flukes and water plumes. Such things are undescribable and unforgettable!

 

Hollywood

Of course, a California video would never be complete without Hollywood. Like we played on beach boardwalks we did that on Hollywood Boulevard too. But without amps there was nothing to hear anymore, it was just too loud. In return we got some funny pictures in front of Kodak and Chinese Theatre. Actors run up and down the street, made up as famous movie characters and give some awesome good photo motifs.

For some last takes we went up the Hollywood hills to come as near as possible to the famous nine white letters. It was very romantic up there and we had an amazing overview over the lighted Los Angeles (with which this video ends).

 

Film Shooting in Austria

Back in Austria it soon was time for school again. From August till November 2008 we recorded the three California songs in our studio. And before too long winter knocked on the door again and the weather suited perfectly for the second part of the video - the grey and cold one, that we intended to shoot in Austria.

So we slipped in our thick winter jackets and gloves and did some shootings in our village. The beautiful large church we found at the Viennese central cemetery in which and around which all church scenes were made. There were shoals of brown leaves and even some snowy places too. At the end of the day we were totally exhausted but happy to finally have everything "in the box".
 

Daddy Universal Genius! *kiss*

No doubt - most of the praise for these videos goes to our Dad. He was shooting, cutting and synchronizing for days and he even let himself in for the horses, despite his allergy!

While we were sitting in school again he was spending many more weeks to combine film and tone as he did not only make the videos, but also the recording and audio engineering of the songs. And above that he practiced and played the bass in all three songs. We are endlessly thankful for all that, and we don't take it for granted that we get three videos from our own Dad for which others would have to pay millions.

Though the videos are something special for us because we have experienced everything personally we hope that you will like them as well. If yes, please forward the links to your friends!

Have a nice day, Mona and Lisa

 

And here are the other two making-of's and videos:

> San Francisco
> Hotel California

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