Hours before facing the Falcons at Rice Stadium, Upper School students, bedecked in red and black, gathered in the Lowe Theater to watch the annual Kinkaid video. Directed by seniors Ella Piper Claffy, Virginia Carolyn Crawford and Ava Oliver, the 36-minute video left students excited for the big game.
The video featured the five football captains getting ready for the game when all of a sudden, they were accused of vandalizing the athletics facilities, resulting in a mass interrogation of all the fall sports captains.
The captains were then framed and suspended, but they fought for their innocence until the true culprit—the Kinkaid falcon—was caught.
Read about a few major scenes below:
Teachers’ Pastimes
This scene featured a montage of security footage, “exposing” teachers partaking in their favorite pastimes.
“It was a ton of fun,” Claffy said. “But it was also some of the most embarrassing moments of my entire life.”
Ryan DePuit, Upper School physics teacher, was one of the first features: instead of reading up about quantum mechanics, he served snacks and drinks at a tea party with stuffed animals and princesses.
“I’d never spoken to Dr. DePuit before,” Claffy said. “I cold emailed him and thought he might block me.”
Other featured teachers included Upper School Mathematics teacher James King, who practiced basketball in his classroom and Upper School Mathematics teacher Alice Fogler (‘10), reminiscing about her years as a student at SJS. Yet, one teacher stood out to the crowd.
Gara Johnson-West, Upper School history teacher, was “caught” broadcasting a speech about plotting a revolution against the most recent uniform bottoms mandate, among other school-related regulations.
“I loved the clip and thought they did such a great job,” Johnson-West said. “I was so pleased by the crowd’s reaction.”
Dean Duncan’s Takeover
One scene that humored the crowd featured Bailey Duncan, Upper School Dean of Students, “impeaching” Michael Murphy, senior football captain and head prefect, and taking over as head prefect.
“We really wanted to play off of the fact Michael is head prefect,” Claffy said. “We don’t get that chance every year.”
As the new head prefect, Duncan established a stricter set of rules among the student body, including banning free dress.
“Dean Duncan is such a funny guy,” Claffy said. “He got so into it and loved this scene.”
Liv and Maddie
Another humorous scene involved the football captains, seniors Michael Murphy, Peter McGary, Stephen Gill, Barrett Mossman and junior Cole Allen, replicating the Liv and Maddie theme song.
Liv and Maddie is a popular Disney show that narrates the lives of identical twins. The show’s theme song depicts twins Liv and Maddie getting ready in the morning, along with their family.
“We brought a robe and girl’s shaving cream,” Claffy said. “When I gave it to Peter, he didn’t even know how it worked.”
As the football players danced, lip synced and freshened up to the familiar music, the crowd roared with laughter.
“Boom, Dynamite!”
At the annual pep rally, the cheerleaders always perform the famous “boom” cheer. However, in the video, the admissions faculty performed it instead, under the direction of Coach D’Hania Hunt.
Oliver approached Hunt for the idea, and although with little cheer experience the admissions faculty practiced for only five minutes before filming.
“They picked it up quickly,” Hunt said.
Students always anticipate the “boom” cheer, where cheerleaders crouch in a row and stack on top of each other until forming a pyramid. At the end, they all drop down to the floor at the same time.
“I am honored to be in the Kinkaid video,” Hunt said.
In the bloopers reel, Tahra Peterson, Associate Director of Admission, held an impressive handstand in the pole vault pit, and Nikki Vlasek, Associate Director of Admission, made “snow” angels in the grass before filming.
Prefect Afternoons
One aspect of the Kinkaid video depicted the interrogation process, in which the captains expressed how they spent their afternoons to prove they didn’t have time to vandalize the athletics center.
For Mossman’s scene, the directors wanted to feature his background in wrestling. The directors coordinated schedules to record footage of wrestling captain Nico Sturgis, Mossman, and other wrestling members. Yet although the directors showed up with a prepared script, wrestling captain Sturgis proposed another idea: a fight scene.
Parallel to many classic Mafia movies, the wrestling team donned black, ominous suits, rolling each other over and slamming each other down onto the facility’s mats.
“The captains were not self-conscious and were willing to put themselves out there for a good laugh,” Claffy said.
Another scene featured Murphy lip-syncing to “All of Me” by John Legend.
“That was probably the craziest day of my life,” Claffy said.
The original plan was that Michael would voiceover scenes of him singing on the football fields. Yet because his voice was strained due to engaging audiences throughout the football season, they decided to feature a lip-syncing montage of Murphy instead.
“We were going to start the video off with just 15 seconds and see how it goes,” Claffy said.
Yet as Murphy enthusiastically lip-synced the audio, the directors decided to include the full song.
