A team of Ball State alumni and students recently produced a music video for the Indianapolis-based band The Easthills.
Paul Symons, a 2008 telecommunications production alumnus, is a freelance writer and director in Indianapolis who directed and produced The Easthills’ music video for the song "Georgia Pine."
“I wrote a treatment based off of a loose outline revolving around the main idea that Tim [Bradley, the co-producer] had about a single mom who is a wrestler,” Symons said. “I wrote the script, cast the actors, produced, directed, edited and colored the video.”
The video stars Ball State senior theater major Gracie Barnes, who also does commercial work in Indianapolis.
“Every style is very different. In commercials, you have to be very happy. A music video, [it depends] on what they’re looking for — some are very weird, some are very realistic, … but it also gives you that style of you are playing off of the music that’s going to be playing above you but you don’t necessarily hear it on set,” Barnes said. “[Symons] contacted me; … he had seen some of my work that I had done here, … and he said, 'I’d really like to work with you on this role.'”
Barnes spent two days on the shoot and got to learn basic wrestling moves for one scene in the video from two seasoned wrestlers in Indianapolis, one of whom is Barnes’ character’s nemesis.
“The routine itself was about five minutes long, I’m pretty sure, but we only get to show like 30 seconds of it maximum. It’s interesting to get to see the finished product and be like, 'Oh, but there was a really cool monkey flip in there but you missed when I did this,'” Barnes said. “I’ve never, ever done something like [wrestling] before. … [Filming] was bloody, it was long, but it was magical and that’s the joy of it.”
Another scene involved the crew going onto a downtown Indianapolis bus to film a scene as it was traveling along its normal route.
As the camera battery was dying and the filming was nearly complete, the bus hit a figurative speed bump.
“At the end of the last take, the bus driver goes, ‘Can one of y’all from the back come up to the front please?' and they kicked us all off,” Barnes said. “It was not the craziest thing I’ve done while filming, but it was definitely up there.”
Barnes attended the video premiere and no one knew who she was at first. As the video began to play, Barnes looked at the screen to see which takes were and weren’t used.
“I realized the people around me just start slowly, slowly looking and recognizing that, 'Oh, that’s the girl who’s on the screen,'” Barnes said. “At the beginning, I was completely ignored and by the end of it, people were clinking glasses with me, telling me good job and it was crazy. It was really crazy just being there and having that experience.”
Symons also attended the video premiere and enjoyed seeing the audience’s reactions as well.
“We had a standing applause at the end of the first screening, and ended up playing the video several times that night," Symons said. "It's very fulfilling seeing people getting authentically immersed in a story that I created and being entertained. It's why I'm in this business."
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