Over the spring break for Whitehorse schools, the open art studio, Splintered Craft, will be filming a music video.
By no means a small undertaking, the community studio — a Skookum Jim Friendship Centre program — is pulling in all the help it can get, which means everyone is welcome to pitch in.
They began with an open call for aspiring filmmakers to join them in a brainstorming session.
I sat in, and got to be in on the ground floor as the music video took shape through our ideas. I even got to offer one: the robots should look like they’re fighting, but really they’re dancing…
The end result is going to be an original music video; Yukon favourites Old Cabin are generously donating one of their songs for the project.
Every part of the music video will be conceptualized, designed, built, performed, and filmed by artists in the community, utilizing their diverse skillsets.
The music video that Whitehorse built.
The brainstorming session was energetic and inclusive; almost everyone’s ideas were somehow woven in. After two hours, with a short juice-box break, we had our concept.
Here it is: Two young artists will walk into Splintered Craft where Jona Barr from Old Cabin (who helps run Splintered Craft in real life) will be some sort of evil villain. He’ll show the artists the back room, which — surprise — is actually a wormhole. The artists will find themselves sucked through a series of various other worlds in a spaceship that is being built out of cardboard at Splintered Craft right now.
These artists-turned-pilots will be sucked into a robot world, a cartoon world, and a reverse world, before they have learned what they need to make it back to Earth. Each dimension will allow for plenty of inventive set-and-costume design.
The music video will also feature Yukon Educational Theatre’s Yeti effigy — before it’s scorched at Burning Away the Winter Blues on March 21. We’re still unsure which world the Yeti will show up in. Set-up will be the priority until March 20. Drop by to help with set or costume design.
Filming will take place the second week, from March 23 to 27, with Splintered Craft dedicating all of their open hours (noon – 8 p.m. each weekdays) to the music video.
Friday, April 3 will be the big reveal. Splintered Craft will host a show, screening the new music video in all its glory. Old Cabin and Sarah MacDougall will perform. There will also be a cake contest.
This event will have a by-donation admission fee and will double as a fundraiser for Skookum Jim’s teen parent centre, to give six girls grad dresses — a program that recently saw its funding cut. Help and participation are welcome at all stages of production — if you show up during filming you might just get cast as a robot.
