http://fdgm.us/iShredSale

“This video was filmed unannounced on Friday October 8, 2010 aboard the New York City B Train, over the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn and edited from 3 iPhone cameras. All footage is performed 100% live and executed in one take.”

Also: “Directed by Benjamin Espiritu. Produced by Atomic Tom and Benjamin Espiritu. Edited by Reid Carrescia.”

Carrescia is an independent videographer. You can see his stuff at reidcarrescia.blogspot.com

I don’t know who Ben Espiritu is, but the guitarist for Atomic Tom is Eric Espiritu. My guess? He doesn’t work for Apple, and they have nothing to do with this video – yet.

Sucks that their equipment got stolen (presuming that is true). Good job turning the tables on misfortune, though. (Again, presuming it is true.)

If they didn’t, expect them to sue somebody for using their iPhones in an unapproved application.

Good call on the lack of ambient subway noise…unless they were so loud as to drown out the rumbling, clacking, and other racket (in which case I shudder to think how loud they were).

I wonder how they amped it for the rest of the car to hear it though…those phones can’t possibly be loud enough…The drummer is resting his phone on a laptop, so maybe all the audio is going into that, that may be the final mix we’re hearing. There’s a couple points where the singer yells and the sound of his voice changes from mic’ed to much more “ambient”.

Not sure I would enjoy this. Almost as intrusive as the mariachi guys. But the mariachi guys have the benefit of being mariachi guys.

I’m willing to believe that it’s edited down from performances actually done on a train (though probably one populated with extras) with touch instruments. But it’s a sponsored music video, not a documentary. Take it with the appropriate-sized grain of salt; I would suggest a 5-pound block is about right.

http://pumpsessions.blogspot.com/2010/10/atomic-tom.html

No idea how they actually sounded on the train, since clearly quite a bit of editing went into it. (It is a music video after all.)

Also no mention of said stolen instruments on the band’s twitter feed: http://twitter.com/atomictom

I did see a comment on gizmodo where someone said something along the lines of if their instruments weren’t stolen, and that is just a lie to try and get the video to go viral, that 4chan should go and steal their iPhones… hahaha. I don’t condone stealing of any kind, but that still makes me laugh.

And yes, I obsess over silly things…

The sound quality is too good so it’s more than likely pre-recorded audio with them lip-syncing on a train. Like a music video directed by a music video director.

My question is, what subway were they on? All the ones I rode when I was in NYC a couple weeks ago were underground, and never spent more than 2-3 minutes without stopping.

Absolutely not unless you go shopping at the local pawnshop.

This is a wonderful video and I like this version better than the studio version.

i’m actually surprised they actually got through the whole song without someone smashing their phones, which lends to the thinking that this was totally edited together in post (well that and nyc trains are noisy as all hell and you really don’t hear them at all).

You pointed out that there were cuts in the video, but there are also clearly (at least) three people filming on phones (which defeats your ” very limited space” issue). At around 0:50 you can see the second camera (dude with iPhone 4), and at 1:15 the third camera (appears to be another phone-holding stance, and person has different sleeves to 2nd guy) closes in for the cross cut, which follows at 1:18.

As to the mic/more-equipment etc: as we can also hear the ambience of the train well, but not badly, I’d suggest that the singer is singing into the phone in-the-spirit of what the band were doing and that whole session is being recorded on an external mic. The instruments are likely all plugged into some sort of portable amp, otherwise everyone else on the train will just hear the singer.

The thing is, they don’t say that they don’t have more recording equipment, just “Sights and Sounds by iPhone”. Which is cameras and instruments. Also, they don’t say “our instruments were stolen on the same occasion as we performed on a train”, just that the instruments were stolen (back story; true or not).

While I can’t attest to the money behind the vid, or the intent, your points are not as you seem to believe. Too many ‘definitely‘s for me.

Personally, I’m just not a fan at all of the media, i.e. iPhone performances. I taste a little bit of throw up every time I’m subjected to it.

Drums?
Guitar?
Piano/keyboard?