Are you a massive Smashing Pumpkins fan? Do you prefer Mellon Collie over Siamese Dream? Do you like creepy animated goth girls? Well I got just the video for you!

So I made another Adobe character animator music video with Beth Sorrentino of the indie pop band Suddenly Tammy. Check out my Adobe Character Animator tutorial here. The video is a cover of the classic Smashing Pumpkins song "Stumbleine" off "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", arguably their greatest album ever (fight me on that).

The concept for the video was simple. I wanted to create an animated character that would perform inside vintage TV sets within various rooms that looked very lived in. Beth's cover of "Stumbleine" fit the visuals perfectly. As a Pumpkins fan, it was a bit of a homage to an early video like "Thirty-Three". Here's a short interview with Beth discussing her creative process.

Beth Sorrentino of indie pop band, Suddenly Tammy!

RPB: Beth, welcome to RunPlayBack. We go way back to when I got my first job in New York City. Fast forward many years later and I'm gearing up to shoot my next short film. I reach out to you to do a Smashing Pumpkins cover song. What was going through your head when I sent that email?

Beth: I love doing covers especially if I'm not that familiar with the song. I knew the song but haven't heard it in so long. It just seemed like it was an interesting choice too. Just the lyrics and the feel of it. When I hear a cyclical repetitive guitar part I try to at least mimic that in some way on the piano. You can actually take that song and take the vocals out of it and it would still be a beautiful piece of music. I sense that it must be an important song to you. So just to try to get to the heart of the song was the most important thing.

RPB: You sent me a rough draft demo of the song which I thought sounded amazing and super raw and authentic. It didn't sound over produced. And you mentioned that you have the ability to play piano by ear. So how exactly does that process work because that's something I've always wanted to do.

Beth: Piano for me was my interest. It's where my ear went. We used to go to this mall where I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A big mall called Park City Mall and they had a music store. In those days there was like a guy in the mall playing the organ and I just thought that was the weirdest thing. And so I would go in and sit at the piano and while he was playing, I'd like hit the notes along with him. And the guys would just let me sit there. I started picking out whole melodies on my right hand at the music store and at friends' houses. I could hear what they were playing and play it back. That's when it started to occur to me and other people I could just do that. And I'm so envious of people that can read beautiful music and play it letter perfect because I can't. It's a real struggle for me to try to do that.

RPB: You also mentioned that you had an interest in film and animation. Did turning this music video into an animation spark some new creative inspiration for you?

Beth: It was just so cool! I loved it! I share it with a lot of people and some of my little students although I forgot to tell them that there was a curse word in there. A friend of mine that watched it was saying he thought it was so timely because we're all on screens right now. This is such an unlikely choice to have this little animated character and these different TVs. Whenever I hear that song that's what I'm going to see and that's a good thing. It's a different choice than I could ever conceptualize and it's so cool.

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