Behind the scenes of making silly musical thank you notes

I'm in New York this week and today I dropped in on Boing Boing pal and co-curator of Boing Boing's Virgin America in-flight channel Joe Sabia. Joe's in the middle of directing a series of short musical thank you note videos for people who request them online as a promotional campaign for AT&T's Facebook fan page. They're short and sweet, but I was surprised by how much there is going on behind the scenes here.

These guys are making about 30 videos an hour, it's a pretty impressive production line. Netziens request a song through a form on AT&T's Facebook page, then the staff here reads through them all and writes them on whiteboards for the band to perform in the sound booth. The music is prepared in advance with a few different variations, and the lyrics are all ad libbed by UCB comedians. Immediately afterwards, the videos are edited together and uploaded to YouTube. There are about forty people in the whole production line. Yesterday they made about two hundred videos, and today they'll probably make three hundred more. Silly songs are serious business!

They'll be making videos for a few more hours, so send one in if you want them to make one for you. Thanks Joe!

• [totally80s]

  These kids seem like they’re having fun and that’s what matters. I may apply for one of these videos and see if they use it

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  Slick how his eyes flick to his screen because he can’t remember our name.