What on Earth compelled you to make an hour-long dance mix based on a 10-year-old cartoon?
Fittingly enough, it came to me in a dream! During early lockdown, I dreamt of a Gravity Falls-themed party held in a big secluded cabin. The DJ strung together remixes of songs by Vance Joy and Of Monsters And Men — songs the fandom latched onto in its heyday.
I looked for similar remixes for kicks after waking up, and not only do they exist, but there’s an entire subgenre with the same sound! Then I realized I had all the programs needed to make what I’d heard in the dream a reality — and in time for the show’s 10th anniversary. Two years and a lot of pulled hair later, here we are!
How did you make the mixset and accompanying video?
All the songs and sound effects were arranged, spliced, tempo-shifted, and bass-boosted in GarageBand. I’d never really used it before, but YouTube tutorials taught me everything I needed to know!
All the show footage was screen-recorded from Disney+. (I’ve bought the boxset, it’s fine lol. I would’ve used that instead but my Mac doesn’t have a disk drive. Also somehow the tech they use to block screen-recording didn’t kick in for me until I’d finished everything, I still can’t believe my luck tbh?) I cut as much of it into loopable segments as possible to save memory, then arranged it all in time to the music in Photoshop.
Finally, I made the audiovisual bars from a template at Vizzy.io, then layered them over the Photoshop render. (The site’s capable of way cooler effects, but it’s also very fickle with videos over a certain length. I really wanted the footage to shake with the bass like this, but in the end I had to render the bars separately, and even then in short chunks.)
How did you choose which songs to use? Are there any that didn’t make the cut?
In a very happy coincidence, Gravity Falls' initial run lined up with a boom in indie folk bands on the radio. Many of their songs happened to match the show’s themes (and the style of Brad Breeck's background music), and the fandom went to town with AMV’s and song-comics galore. Later, some of these songs got club-worthy remixes, either at random or as part of the folk house/folktronica subgenre.
Excuse the history lesson — basically, I chose songs that’d gone through this pipeline to form the bulk of the mixset. Then I brought in different-sounding songs to reference certain episodes or fandom in-jokes (more on the second one below). Finally, I added two remixes of songs from the actual show.
I have a very long list of songs that were cut for various reasons. Some had tempos I couldn’t work with, and some didn’t have enough bass, but most of them I just left out because the mixset was getting too long. My favorite has to be Swamp Thing by Pegboard Nerds; I wanted to pair it with clips of McGucket dancing and the Gobblewonker chase. Honestly, I might still make it as a standalone video. Maybe I can add the screen-shaking effect this time, too!
Any content warnings (naughty lyrics, frightening visuals, etc.)?
The entire mixset contains a single swear word that’s mostly obscured by a drumline (and a sound effect I added).
Some of the songs used are themed around paranoia, and are paired with some of the show’s more body-horror-y scenes. If you’ve watched the show before, you should know what to expect and what you’re comfortable with; please listen and watch with caution.
I included two songs in reference to the fandom’s humorous side, but the specific things they reference are outdated and not quite safe for work. (One was a YouTube Poop, and the other was a fanfiction. If you know, you know.) The songs themselves are completely clean.
And finally, without giving much away: the mixset follows the structure of the show’s two seasons, and in turn the video shows footage from later episodes as it progresses. I don’t know why anyone would read this far if they hadn’t watched the whole show already, but just in case: Beware of major spoilers. You have been warned.
Why are you using Tumblr as a home page?
Back in the day, Tumblr was basically the site for GF fans (sorry, Mystery Shack forums). I lurked here for most of the show’s run, but it was almost over when I finally made an account. GF was one of my favorite fandom experiences ever, but I never really got to contribute to it; I guess this is my way of making up for that.
Why did you make a side blog instead of using your main?
So you can read this without digging through a hundred Sonic the Hedgehog posts first lmao
Do you plan on using this mix at a real event?
My original plan was to time-travel back to when Cipherhunt was solved in 2016, rent this place that’s across the street from Confusion Hill, and throw the GF-themed party of my literal dreams. But since that’s probably impossible...
Follow-up question: Can I use this mix at a real event?
Sure, why not? All I ask is that you send me footage of the party as proof! Hit me with that FOMO!
Why don't you post the full video on YouTube or [insert video-sharing site here]? Can I post it for you?
Thanks to copyright law, I can’t post it to YouTube without it getting blocked worldwide. (This is also why the sneak-peak is so short 😭) As for other sites, Dailymotion has a too-short time limit, and I'm not paying Vimeo monthly just to keep one video up at constant risk of a DCMA.
If there’s a better site out there, please let me know! In the meantime, I ask that you refrain from posting the video anywhere, especially without my permission. Aside from being just plain rude, you’ll likely run into the same issues I did.
I noticed a visual glitch at [insert timestamp here]. Do you plan on fixing that?
Gonna be brutally honest here: no, I don’t plan on it. Any visual bugs you find, I can guarantee that I tried to scrub out and nearly bit something when I couldn’t. Also, rendering the video nearly killed my Mac and took an absurd amount of memory and time. I’m unhappy with the bugs too, but it was honestly the best I could do.
Do you plan on making more dance mixes in the future?
Maybe? Nothing nearly as long or complicated, that’s for sure! If I ever make anything similar, I’ll probably post about it on my main. Speaking of my main, I actually prefer making fanmixes! Here’s a list — it’d mean the world to me if you checked them out. (There’s some GF onesss 👀👀)
(Last updated: June 5th, 2022. Thanks for reading!)
