33 1/3 Street Sound and Video

07/17/2025

We're at the 40th annual St Johns Mint Festival Pageant as their official archival videographer.
We have produced audio and video for 25 of those 40 pageants.

06/30/2025

My, my, my... Isn't *this* interesting?
And we thought the vinyl record revival was fascinating.

20th Century retro meets 21st Century tech in this gorgeous tape player

06/08/2025

Congratulations to our amazing client, Alissa's Dance Elite on another outstanding recital show!

Bravo!!

05/14/2025

Sometimes, a simple song has a lot more depth to it than there seems to be at first listen:

Billy Joel found himself in a casual conversation in 1989 with a 21-year-old friend who remarked that the world had become a much worse place than it had ever been. Joel, who had grown up witnessing wars, political scandals, and cultural upheavals, immediately pushed back against the idea. His mind raced through the countless chaotic events he had lived through since his birth in 1949. That conversation planted the seed for what would become one of his most ambitious songs, "We Didn’t Start the Fire." Joel decided to capture the relentless momentum of history in a song, using a rapid-fire list of events to show that turmoil had always been part of the human story. The construction of "We Didn’t Start the Fire" was a methodical process rather than a flash of inspiration. Joel began by listing every significant event, pop culture reference, and political shift from 1949 to 1989. He pored over old newspapers, historical timelines, and his own memories to ensure the accuracy of each mention. The song’s structure took shape around a tight, relentless beat, reflecting the nonstop nature of historical events. Rather than crafting a melodic ballad like many of his earlier hits, Joel focused on fitting as much information as possible into the driving rhythm. When Joel entered the studio to record the song for his album "Storm Front," producer Mick Jones, known for his work with Foreigner, encouraged a hard-hitting sound to match the density of the lyrics. Joel’s piano took a backseat to the drums and electric guitars, creating a sense of urgency that carried the song forward. Joel later joked that "We Didn’t Start the Fire" was more of a history lesson set to music than a proper song, but the way it resonated with listeners proved its impact. As the lyrics sped through events like the Korean War, Elvis Presley’s rise, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Watergate scandal, audiences found themselves reflecting on both personal and collective memories. The song avoided giving opinions or blaming anyone for the turbulence it described. Joel remained committed to simply listing events, allowing listeners to draw their own conclusions. This neutrality gave the song a timeless quality and helped it connect across generations. When "We Didn’t Start the Fire" was released, it quickly shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Joel’s third number-one hit. Fans scrambled to dissect each reference, with some radio stations even running contests to see who could name the most events mentioned in the lyrics. Teachers across the United States began using the song as a creative tool in history classes, asking students to research the events and create their own versions covering more recent history.

- 70s 80s 90s Nostalgia Jukebox

05/12/2025

It's "free ad production" contest time again! 🙂🎬

Four years ago, during the slow economy caused by the Covid pandemic, we conducted a contest within the St. Johns business community to award free ad production of a 30 or 60 second radio (audio) or TV (video) ad - the winner's choice.

The winner was Old Crow Antiques in St. Johns.

We'd like to have another contest! If you operate a business in the St. Johns community and would like to have an audio or video ad produced at no charge, just comment below here on the 33 1/3 Street page or the St. Johns Community page, sharing with us a little information about your business and what kind of ad you'd like by June 30th. On July 1st, we'll put all of the names into a actual hat and draw out the winner.

We're not going to list a lot of contest rules...
We'd just like to work cooperatively and informally with whoever the winner is to put together a nice 30 or 60 second ad. As you can see by the Old Crow ad, we have a drone and can include drone footage with video ads. If you would like a video that is formatted to be a wide page banner rather than formatted for TV broadcast, that can be done, too!

This will be fun! The contest winner's ad will also be provided to the community's pages for you to see (or hear, as the case may be) at a later date.

05/10/2025

Congratulations to Jamie and Kenneth!

Thank you for asking us to be the videographer for your big day!

(Shown - Bride dancing with her father.)

04/26/2025

We're at Johns City Park today, providing deejayed music and announcements for the 12th Annual Superhero 5K Run, Walk, or Fly - which supports CASA, the "voice for the children of Clinton County", providing advocacy for children in troubled life situations.

04/11/2025

We're in Charlotte, MI today at the historic former Eaton County Courthouse... not to video record but to *act* as members of the jury for a law firm's television ad.

We're very impressed by the capability and professionalism of the video crew hired to gather video footage.

04/06/2025

Small video production studios like ours are able to take advantage of modern computer technology to create special effects that 50 years ago required lots of money and skilled modelmakers to create for major motion pictures.

In the mid to late 1970s, George Lucas (Star Wars) and Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind/ET: The Extra-Terrestrial) led the way, with Lucas even making use of early computer-controlled mechanics to guide his spacecraft for the battle scenes.

Margaret Weitekamp of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum shows us this detailed model used in Close Encounters, as well as a few hidden "Easter egg" facts about it.

While we don't produce epic blockbuster movies here at 33 1/3 Street Sound & Video, we do have many of the traditional video production tools like green screen, HD video cameras, and computer video production software, as well as an affordable hourly production rate, to affordably produce video projects for you.

Give us a call or send us an email and tell us about your project to find out more about what we can do for you.

03/08/2025

We're at St Johns High School doing sound production work for their cheer/dance team's annual Prince and Princess Tea Party fundraiser.

The 1,100 tickets for the three shows this weekend went on sale in December and were sold out in five hours.

02/27/2025

Well, well, well....
Today is an interesting coincidence.

It's "Throwback Thursday", "National Retro Day", and the 20th anniversary of this Clinton County News article about St. Joseph School, whose first grade classes visited our studio to learn about sound and audio recording.

02/24/2025

We're at the Michigan State University Extension Agency's Agricultural Bioresearch Center in Saginaw to video record their Wheat Program's annual winter conference.