“I feel like people need to dance right now in this crazy world” - Minton sparks, Making of “Back of the Bus”

Minton Sparks is one of Nashville’s favorite poet/performance artists. She recently came to Little Hollywood Creative looking to make a video for her song “Back of the Bus.” She needed a bus and dancing! Click here or scroll to the bottom to watch the full video.

Please tell us about the inspiration behind the song.

Back of the Bus is a snapshot of the Wild Alive that overtook a girl's basketball team after a big win.  Whether you rode the basketball bus or the pep bus, the party was on after the game.  For some girls it was the highlight of the season. 

You specifically were inspired to include dance in this video. Will you tell us a little bit about that? 

Dance makes the world go 'round and Sally Jaye was a fantastic choreographer.  I feel like people need to dance right now in this crazy world.  It's stressful out there. 

What were the challenges of bringing this vision to lie? 

Little Hollywood was the brainchild of how to bring this vision to life.  Scot and SJ are wildly creative, and we all decided to get together and play at the highest level.  Originally we were going to shoot it all in the studio and then Sally Jaye called and said she'd found an actual bus!  The owner of the bus was pure delight.  Becky, I think,  ended up shooting some footage on her cellphone.  

The main challenge was the Tennessee heat.  It was humid and 95 degrees at night when we were shooting.  The bus didn't have AC. The fans we had  kept blowing a fuse or something. They weren't working. We were in a full sweat.  Also, I think one of the cameras ran out of batteries.  We danced on. 

Why did you choose Little Hollywood Creative to collaborate with on this video?

Little Hollywood was the perfect production company for this video. It seems like their mission is to make affordable videos in extremely creative ways. So you don't have to have a huge budget to make something compelling.  Scot is a brilliant polymath in the ways of creative life. He brings all that to bear on the process. Both he and Sally Jaye are funny and brilliant. The dancers had so much fun shooting this.

Do you have any specific favorite moments or stories about the making of this video?

My favorite moments were watching Sally Jaye teach the dancers the steps in a little back room while holding basketballs. The unchoreographed dancing in the bus was off the chain. I died laughing through a lot of that.  

I loved finding the goggles just lying around to wear as part of the  bus driver costume.  My overall favorite part about making Back of the Bus was that we were just playing and playing hard in the sweltering summer, and I loved the video we came away with.