No lo tengo: One Uninterrupted Take

No lo tengo is a Señor Wooly Spanish song and music video for teaching direct object pronouns, school supplies, and school subjects. A student moves from class to class without the things she needs, getting into deeper and deeper trouble each time she forgets her supplies. It’s a simple, repeating story for beginners, built around lo, la, los, and las.

Without a doubt, No lo tengo was one of the most challenging projects I have ever attempted. I had wanted to make this video for years, but didn’t know if I had the skill to pull it off.

Doing a one-take video is always a daunting prospect, particularly when you’re determined to work with actual Spanish students, not professional actors.

In fact, our lead performer, Sylvia, seen in the picture below, had never acted or sung in anything prior to this project.

A Spanish song for direct object pronouns and school supplies

If you’re looking for a Wooly video suited to beginners, No lo tengo is definitely for you.

The story is perfect for teaching Spanish direct object pronouns, school supplies, and school subjects. It’s repetitive, uses very simple Spanish, and is exceedingly comprehensible. In fact, you could use this song on day one of Spanish 1 and give your students a story they can follow.

This was one of my earlier songs, and I was deliberately trying to come up with a fun, light little story that brought those familiar classroom topics together. This one just came together nicely.

What I like about the combination is that the direct object pronouns have a reason to be there. Each class brings a different missing item, so no lo tengo becomes no la tengo, no los tengo, or no las tengo as the story moves along. If you’re working on school supplies, school subjects, or direct object pronouns in Spanish 1, those threads are already woven into the song.

Watch a sample of No lo tengo

One uninterrupted take.

The song existed long before there was a video. But the story is incredibly simple, and I felt that if we were going to film it, we needed to do something fresh with it.

So we put it on a real theatrical stage, with theatrical lighting and scenic flats lowered into place using the theater’s fly system. We locked the camera in a single position and decided that we weren’t going to cheat: the entire video would happen in one uninterrupted take.

The song is exactly two minutes and eighteen seconds long. Every actor had to hit their marks and their beats. Every flat had to come down at exactly the right time and land in exactly the right place. One person out of position could mean doing the whole thing again.

We rehearsed for about a month in advance. Then, when we finally got on set, it took about 25 takes to get it right.

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