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“I listened to all the songs provided by Yellow House Media from different area musicians,” Connor said in an email earlier this month. “Brian’s song Rainbow Farmer really clicked with me. The ideas it expressed fit with the contest theme of unity and it also left room for many creative ways to interpret the song.”
Connor, her husband, Fred Lee, and their children Audrey Lee, 15, and Nicholas Lee, 13, set out to craft a story to fit the song.
The video they created, available online through CATV’s Vimeo account, follows the path of a note reading “You are loved” through the hands of people in a variety of places around Hanover, including Lou’s Restaurant and Bakery, the Howe’s Little Free Library and the Dartmouth green.
As Cook sings, “I’ll plant a rainbow for you,” the video gives the sense that the note, which is written on colorful paper, is spreading love and kindness around town. A traffic cop opts not to leave a ticket after finding the note pinned to a car’s windshield wiper. A diner leaves the note with a tip.
Cook’s video was one of nine entries in CATV’s 2016 music video contest, a collaboration with Yellow House Media, a Quechee-based promoter of local music and musicians.
This year’s contest, the third annual, is now underway. The theme is “tell us a story.” Submissions are due Tuesday.
Music Video by Fade to Black from CATV 10 on Vimeo.
“The idea is to bring local musicians and local filmmakers together to showcase and highlight their work,” said Sophie Bodnar, CATV’s assistant director in a phone interview late last month. “I definitely see this want from musicians to have their music be represented visually.”
Bodnar said her favorite part of the contest is seeing artists who work in different media collaborate and see their own work in a new light.
“That’s really exciting for me to witness,” she said.
For Cook, the chance to see a visual interpretation of his work was “such a thrill,” he said in a recent telephone interview.
“Something I never expected would happen,” he said.
He first saw the video on the big screen at a premiere of all the videos last winter.
“Had I made the video for Rainbow Farmer it would have been very different; not nearly as good,” he said. “Somebody else brought their own interpretation (which made it a) far more meaningful experience for me.”
Cook, who grew up playing music, began writing songs in college and has been performing on and off since the mid-1990s. He performs original blues-rock music with Sturdy Lad and covers of old favorites with The Brian Cook Band.
“It’s been really satisfying to see the music scene in this area grow,” he said. “CATV’s contest just became this great big part of it.”
The contest has attracted eight or nine entrants each of the past two years and appears to be on track for a similar number this year. One question Bodnar hopes to answer with this year’s contest is, “Is this something that we’ll continue to do?”
“It’s certainly really fun for us,” she said. “Is there a need or a want?”
CATV is a small organization with an annual operating budget of $440,000, five full-time employees and one part-time staff member. Bodnar said she is trying to determine whether this contest is the right use of CATV’s limited resources. CATV also sponsors a Halloween-A-Thon horror movie contest, a 48-hour film slam and summer video camps.
Through creative efforts such as this contest, there’s no reason the Upper Valley can’t become better known for its art and music, said Dave Clark, a veteran musician who runs Yellow House Media, at a kick-off meeting for the contest late last month.
“There’s so much talent in this area — the Upper Valley and beyond,” he said.
For Connor, who is not entering the contest this year, but is still making videos, last year’s contest was “such a positive experience,” she said.
“It’s a lot of fun to work with really talented people of all ages and connect with local musicians,” Connor said. “I love the creativity, and the fact that it can help promote the bands. I can’t wait to try it again.”
To tell viewers a story, as this year’s contest requires, members of Hartford High School’s film club have laid out a story about refugees and acceptance to go along with This I Know by Kristina Stykos, a Chelsea-based songwriter, music producer and audio engineer.
One chilly afternoon last week, Hartford sophomore Morgan Merrill gazed into a patch of woods in Hartland.
As Merrill posed, Hartford junior Quigliey King coached her to look frantic.
“You’ve lost your home,” King said. “The only person … you have left is your sister.”
King aimed the lens of her Nikon D3100 at Merrill as Merrill performed the role of a refugee displaced by a disaster.
Merrill, who lives in Cornish, and her little sister, Emily, 2, will be the main characters in the film club’s music video. King is the film’s cinematographer. Hartford juniors Clara Posner, the director, and Elise Boyle, an actor and set designer, stood with King behind the camera.
The group gathered in Hartland last week — all except Emily — to get some shots of Merrill in the snow-covered woods and fields on King’s family’s land.
“Our music video follows the path of a young woman and her little sister as they travel through the countryside seeking refuge after disaster strikes their hometown,” King wrote in an email following the filming session.
“Hartford Film Club is hoping to shed some light on the very serious refugee crisis that is currently going on,” she wrote. “Attempting, through artistic media, to encourage people to think before they judge or deny those in need of a safe and stable environment.”
As they put together an outline for their video, the girls became initimately familiar with Stykos’ lyrics by listening to This I Know about “500 times,” King said.
By transforming the lyrics into a story all their own, the students are accomplishing one of CATV’s primary goals.
“That’s really the beauty of the contest,” Bodnar said. “It’s an opportunity for artists to be seen in a new way.”
Entries for this year’s music video contest are due on Tuesday. A premiere is scheduled for the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction on March 5 at 4 p.m.
For more information about the contest or to view entries from prior years, visit catv8.org/2016-music-video-contest.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
