Happy Flag Day everyone! To celebrate this joyous occasion, children's music artist Billy Kelly and I made a very special video. It also stars my son, Casey, playing the role of a young Billy. So that makes it a Fusco Family Film, too!
This is the third video I shot for Billy (the other two can be seen here). When Billy sent me an advance copy of his new CD – The Family Garden – to see if any songs jumped out at me for a possible video, "That Old American Flag" was one of two. Maybe we'll get around to shooting the other one. We'll see.
In "That Old American Flag", Billy sings about the day he helped his dad plant a flag pole in front of his house, when he was a boy. I figured for the video we'll just recreate the memory and mimic the lyrics. Since a third of the song takes place in 1976, Billy had two roles to play: his dad in the flashback scenes and modern day Billy in the present day scenes. Billy's real-life dad would then play himself in the present day scenes and Billy's sister, Colleen, would also have two roles: playing Billy's mom and herself. For the role of young Billy I enlisted my son, Casey, because a.) I've worked with him before so I knew I could direct him, and b.) he was cheap – he got paid in wrestling action figures.
Luckily for me, and the production, Billy's parents never got around to remodeling the basement – perfect for a flashback scenario. And when I needed an authentic '70s car for a scene, my cousin Joe came through with his 1970 Chevy Nova. (Too bad I didn't need a shot of the exterior...it's sweet.) I think you can see in the video we had a lot of fun shooting "That Old American Flag". We even got the rest of Billy's family to join in and my friend Kevin's whole family, too. Special thanks to everyone who made this video happen, especially Billy and his dad.
USA! USA!!
Visit TheBillyKellyShow.com for more Billy Kelly info.
©2011 FUSCO FAMILY FILMS
