Jelly-Bean Art, Music, and My Karaoke-Singing Son

Today, for the first time, I present my son on video. But first, the back story.

Yesterday I wrote about being a ‘Favorite Uncle’ of my nephews.

When they were younger, I introduced them to a number of different things, but these days they are usually the ones teaching me about new things. When it comes to current pop culture, and popular music especially, I’m too busy to keep up with it like I used to.

And so, on our Thanksgiving visit, I was surprised that I knew of a popular music video that they had not yet heard of. The video is currently a bit of a viral hit, which makes it even more surprising that they did not hear of it before me. It must be all that studying they’re doing at college. Yeah, that’s it. Studying.

Anyway, what was more amazing was that they actually liked it just as much as I did.

The song, In Your Arms, is by a young singer named Kina Grannis. What makes the video particularly special is that it incorporates jelly-bean art using stop-motion photography and 288,000 jelly beans. Take a look:



According to the ‘Making Of’ video, Kina did not green-screen any of her frames, which means that she is the most patient person in the world.

When Kai saw the video, he loved it as much as the rest of us. He wanted to listen to it again and again after we got home from our Thanksgiving trip. In addition to just watching, though, he wants to recreate the whole thing. Kai got his bag of 30 Flavors Jelly Belly jelly beans and asked me to make the video. I explained that I did not have the time, skill, or patience to create something like this. Or, 288,000 jelly beans for that matter.

I don’t think he’s given up on the idea, though. This morning, he watched the video again, pausing it every time the scene changed, and tried to figure out which flavors were used in each frame. For instance, for one of the early scenes, he’s written down Orange Sherbet, Pina Colada, Green Apple, and Coconut.

We won’t be creating a stop-motion video with jelly beans, but I did take a video of him singing along as he watched a version that shows the lyrics. His personality really shines when he is happy, and there’s nothing like peppy music and jelly beans to bring out the best in him.