It’s not every day that your convention has its own hype video, but that’s exactly what we have with “EXPO Moves to Miami”! Recorded by DJs Josh Fiore, Michael Davis and produced by DJ Platypus, this song and video are next-level! Read all about how they put it together, but before you do, check this thing out!
ED: Who wrote the lyrics and the music for this song?
JOSH: We each wrote our own parts, and used the instrumental of “Move To Miami” by Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull.
MIKE: As soon as we decided on what song we were going to do, the opening lyrics “We’re moving to a city for the comeback of the century” were the first words put to paper which I think really captures exactly where we were as an industry and the direction we were going to go because after 2020, there needs to be a comeback in a huge way and we wanted to produce something that would help give it that jumpstart.
ED: When did you decide to put this song together, and how long did it take from start to finish? Where did you record it?
MIKE: In the spirit of wanting to make another song to go along with EXPO, as has been done for the past couple of years—and with some suggestions of others in the industry that Josh and I do a song together—I reached out and he agreed.
JOSH: Since we both make industry-related parody songs, we felt like it was time to work on one together. Mike reached out to me with a suggestion of a song, but then I threw out this one as an idea and said “You can do the Enrique parts and I’ll do the Pitbull parts” and the rest is history.
MIKE: And this was roughly a month or two ago.
JOSH: We recorded it at Planet Platypus Studios here in Miami. Mike flew down from Ohio for a couple of days and we got in the studio, and since we already had our parts written we were able to record it in one night. I also did the mix. The video shoot took one day as well.
ED: Who handled the videography? Who handled the editing?
JOSH: DJ Platypus did the filming and the footage was edited by Mike.
MIKE: Yeah ever since he (Plat) heard of what we wanted to do, he said “I want in” and of course we couldn’t think of a better person to shoot this. He had an incredible vision. That’s how he acquired the name “Platypus Scorsese.” He knew all the great spots to go, and so here we are in Josh’s car driving around to various locations in Miami with different costumes, a Bluetooth speaker, and Plat’s phone and gimbal making this happen. Such a great time. It took me about two days to fully edit.
ED: For the video itself, where were your locations? We can see Tootsie’s in the video, but where else did you shoot?
JOSH: We filmed in the Wynwood Art District, South Beach, and of course Tootsie’s. We got to use the VIP suite Drake hangs out in.
MIKE: If you’ve never been to these places, like Wynwood, it’s incredible. It’s just blocks and blocks that the city brought artists in to paint these amazing murals on the buildings and it’s so colorful and brilliant. I really enjoyed seeing that. And of course, there’s really no better place than Tootsie’s. I mean, c’mon. Drake’s VIP, and the club itself, and the girls … wow. So awesome.
Mike: We also want to thank everyone for checking out our video and our biggest hope is that if anyone was on the fence about coming to EXPO this year, that this pushed them over the edge. We can’t wait to see everyone in Miami!