On Thursday Nov. 3, Keene film students and music video enthusiasts united in the Putnam Theater for an hour filled with laughter.
In the past few weeks, Keene State College film majors have been diligently putting together their own rendition of music videos. While participants were required to film their own scenes, they were allowed to use the musical artist’s voice, resulting in their own portrayal of a song.
Luke Stergiou / Senior Photographer
In a room brimming with viewers, the show began promptly at 10 p.m. It was hosted by the duo of Rachel Blumberg, coordinator, and Keelan Brown, media productions club president.
The two introduced every video before it started and gave recognition when it was over. Ten music videos were shown in under an hour.
There were an array of genres and musicians used, ranging from original rap songs to alternative rock and electropop remakes. Each music video was creative in its own way.
While some producers, like Patrick Byrne’s “On Top of the World” used stop motion, others, like Brady McNish, Sarah Avery and Kyle Kendall’s “What If” by Creed and Zach McCallion and Jack Callahan’s “Through the Fire & the Flame” by DragonForce, incorporated the use of horror and thrill or the theme of the ‘90s, respectively.
In Alex Thibault Miller, Jack Kelleher, Peter Kelleher and Nolan Rourke’s “Car Radio” by Twenty One Pilots, a series of flashbacks tie together a story of happiness and tragedy. The producers included multiple angles of the man’s life.
Patrick Taillon directed “Rambo”, a rap song sung by Jasz, a graduate of KSC. The video is set in a club where Jasz, decked out in silver grills, brags about his audacious and risque lifestyle with crude lyrics.
“Cosmic Love,” produced by Brooke Carlson, Cody Denegar and Rob Walsh, told a story of a girl finding her way through nature. The clarity and beauty of the scenery picked tied along with Florence and the Machine’s slow rhythm.
The last video, a horror film entitled “What If,” took an abstract approach. One scene involved one of the characters peeling the skin off her face after waking up on top of a broken mirror.
Luke Stergiou / Senior Photographer
One of the directors of this music video, first-year Brady McNish, commented on his work and said, “We definitely feel accomplished.
I think our video came out better than we expected it to. It changed so much… It’s really nice knowing all that work came out to this and it was really great to watch.”
First-year Sarah Avery, another one of the producers of “What If,” also said, “It was definitely an amazing feeling seeing everyone react to the video because we worked so hard on it. Brady and I were definitely excited to see everyone enjoy it.”
This event was coordinated by sophomore film production major Rachel Blumberg.
As teacher assistant to Production 1 Professor Lance Levesque, Blumberg was required to organize the entire event, which involved booking the theatre, advertising the event and reviewing submissions.
“It’s student work and everyone likes to see it, but seeing it all come together was like ‘this is really cool’,” Blumberg said.
From now on, media productions, in conjunction with Professor Levesque and his teacher’s assistant, will be putting on the Film Student Music Video Night every semester.
Alexandria Saurman can be contacted at asaurman@kscequinox.com
