Video Star

We went to the CATV video music awards the other night, and it was a nice program they put together with a lot of good music. DC with Yellow House Media was the emcee and he gathered together some amazing local music for people at CATV to put to video. I didn't realize the range of music from local musicians, you just don't get to hear this stuff, and a lot of it is really good. Either way, the impetus behind the contest was to pair local musicians with local video makers to give the songs some exposure and the filmmakers a chance to put the tunes to video. A great concept if you ask me.

A and N decided to make a video of a song she wrote, thus getting around any sort of creative issues with between artists, sibling rivalries not included in this logic. She sat down with R and N and mapped out the concepts, storyboarded the progression, and then went to work. Her guitar teacher EE has a recording studio so she recorded the song and then went about filming the video, with N on camera. For the record, and I'm being totally objective (of course) about this, but I think he did a stand-up job on the cinematography. R took them around town to scout out locations, and when they finally decided on a place, we check-out a camera and did the filming. I was the roadie so I packed lunches and dropped them off. Being out and about gave me a chance to do poster-boy work, leaving them to film. It's really cool to see them at work, they take it very seriously and work very hard. Plus, I am completely out of the loop except for support, so the project is really theirs and theirs alone.

After finishing the filming, A downloaded the footage and set about editing the piece. Again, she worked very hard, logging in many hours at the studio to finalize the piece by the deadline. One complication was that with the deadline looming, she wasn't completely happy with her song. On the day she recorded it she had a cold, so she thought she sounded a bit stuffed up. We tried to get some studio time but EE was all booked up until the Friday morning that the video was due. How's that for going down to the wire? To add to the fun, mom was away in Santa Fe so I was the only support available, so I had to wear many hats that day.

Whatever be the case, I'd just like to say that I am impressed with A's confidence in her abilities under duress, because there were complications. There always are. The plan was to go to the studio in the morning, re-record her song, then take the music file to the TV studio and incorporate it into the video, doing all the final edits, as well. Then when she was done, she could submit it then and there. The file was too big for a thumb drive so EE put it in her DropBox and she retrieved it online. Boy, technology is an amazing thing.

She got it all done and turned the video in. The re-recording session worked out nicely because she re-did the guitar track and it sounded great, and then she worked on some of the backing vocals and the end-product sounded better than the first run, in my opinion. Then again, what do I know?

On the night of the awards ceremony, the entries were awesome. People did a really nice job on their pieces, and A and N actually won first prize for their age group. It was a fun evening, and her buddy MS came along to support her. Actually, she didn't really have a choice because she was sleeping over and going to A's hockey game the next morning, but it was still nice to have a friend along.

There wasn't much time to bask in the glow of artistic prowess because we had to drive to Middlebury the next morning for a weekend hockey tournament, but it was fun while it lasted.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Rachel for the pic.