Shia LaBeouf (song)

"Shia LaBeouf" is a 2012 song by singer-songwriter Rob Cantor that portrays Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf as a cannibal. In 2014, Cantor released an expanded music video with a cameo from LaBeouf himself.

After a friend began "dramatically whispering" the name of actor Shia LaBeouf,^[1] Rob Cantor, a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter,^[2] wrote "Shia LaBeouf" in 2011, inspired by "nothing but the sheer silliness of imagining Shia LaBeouf, face and clothes smeared with half-dried blood, terrorizing helpless victims in a dark wood." The song describes an encounter and battle with LaBeouf, portrayed as an "actual cannibal" who lives in a forest and hunts people for sport. After writing the song, Cantor had hoped Funny or Die would be interested in using it in a video featuring the actor, but that arrangement never materialized.^[3]

On March 3, 2012,^[4] Cantor posted "Shia LaBeouf" to his SoundCloud page,^[1] from where one of his fans found and shared it on Twitter. By May that year, both Boing Boing and BuzzFeed had featured the song, though the eponymous actor had not publicly commented on the work, which was selling at Cantor's site for US$1 (equivalent to $1.33 in 2023).^[3]

"Shia LaBeouf" Live
Album cover for 2014's extended version, as published by Cantor at Bandcamp
Directed by	Scott Uhlfelder
Written by	Rob Cantor
Based on	"Shia LaBeouf" by Rob Cantor
Music by	Rob Cantor Greg Nicolett
Release date	October 21, 2014 (2014-10-21)
Running time	3:27 minutes[5]
Budget	US$20,000  (eq. $26,000 in 2023)

On October 21, 2014, Cantor released a music video for an extended version of "Shia LaBeouf", in which he and an ensemble of artists perform the song on stage. LaBeouf makes a cameo at the end as the only audience member, and gives them a standing ovation - referencing Charles Foster Kane's applause in Citizen Kane.^[6][7][8] The Los Angeles Times reported that the video—filmed at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center—was inspired by then-contemporary incidents where LaBeouf had behaved strangely in public,^[9] however Cantor later told MTV that he just felt that "Halloween was the right time" to fulfill his dream of making the video.^[1]

For this work, Cantor recruited 161 further artists,^[2] including the Argus Quartet, the West Los Angeles Children's Choir, the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles, interpretive dancers, and stage effects by Kinetic Theory Theater.^[9] Stacy Tookey choreographed the dancing troupe in the short film; she and her dancers were only able to begin rehearsing three days before the shoot. The aerialists were brought onboard with only two days before filming.^[5]

Cantor already knew LaBeouf was aware of the original song because the actor had tweeted the link on Halloween 2013. The songwriter contacted the actor's talent manager and laid out his plan for LaBeouf to be the only audience member for the production; LaBeouf agreed to the proposition in less than two days.^[5]

The stage performance took four months to plan and one day to film.^[2] Of the juxtaposition of 3D papercraft LaBeouf heads (which took 80 man-hours to assemble), professional performers in classical arts, and his absurd song about a cannibalistic Hollywood star, Cantor called the production bathos.^[1]

For the expanded version of the song, Greg Nicolett wrote the symphonic arrangement. He convinced Cantor to reduce a planned 50-piece orchestra to a string quartet not only for reduced costs, but the latter would increase the pretentiousness and therefore the absurdity in comparison to the subject matter. Scott Uhlfelder, a friend of Cantor's, served as the video's director and cinematographer.^[5]

Cantor's original budget was $12,000 (equivalent to $15,444 in 2023), provided by Maker Studios. When the production team continued "having more good ideas that we wanted to bring to fruition" like the aerialists and LaBeouf himself, Cantor provided the remaining $8,000 (equivalent to $10,296 in 2023). The Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center was "the nicest theater [Cantor] could afford", and artists began arriving at 6 a.m. The entire music video was never shot as one continuous performance, but was instead broken up into segments, the first of which began at 9 a.m. for cameras. LaBeouf's cameo was the last part filmed.^[5]

The Huffington Post called the production "more ridiculous than ever" and especially impressive given the limitations involved; they opined that the attention given to this release could serve to reinvigorate LaBeouf's celebrity.^[10] Five years after its premiere, the video had garnered 63.8 million views on YouTube;^[5] as of September 2024^[update], that number was 86.3 million.^[6]

• SHIA LABEOUF by Rob Cantor (AUDIO ONLY) on YouTube
• "Shia LaBeouf" Live - Rob Cantor on YouTube