School receives royalties for video

For a group of students at Laval, creating a song and a video was a pretty cool experience but to receive money for their work, royalties for their school, was an added bonus.

During the 2009 school year, students at Laval participated in a program with musician Colleen Power and filmmaker and writer Roger Maunder called "Behind the Scenes."

Communications technology teacher Barry Davis, who also taught music last year, signed up for the project so his students could get a good look at what goes on behind the scenes in the music industry, as the project title states.

"Colleen Power and Roger Maunder travel to different schools and show the students the process behind songwriting, what goes into writing a song and the students went through that process and wrote their own song. Then (Colleen and Roger) showed them how to record. They had a session on recording and then they had a session on creating a video. So with all three processes together, they came up with a video that the kids wrote themselves called "Fix da Holes."

The result has been posted to YouTube and with a short search, can be viewed there.

"They decided they wanted to do a little rap song about the condition of their roads in the town of Placentia. So they did the song and they went out then around the town and got some shots of the town and a few shots of poor road conditions," explained Mr. Davis. "Then Colleen asked for permission to submit it to various competitions and lineups that were on the go. So we said no problem."

The video was used in the Nickel Festival Reel Youth School Tour, said Mr. Davis.

"They used it and were showing our video to other schools who might be interested in doing the project."

The video went to school on the Burin Peninsula and in Central Newfoundland and now is being selected for part of the national programs.

"The success of the Newfoundland project, 'Behind the Scenes,' with visiting artists coming in and showing their stuff and getting the students involved in songwriting culture, video culture, that whole thing, I guess, has been adopted nationally and they are going to use our video as a showcase for schools that are going to want to get into it," Mr. Davis explained.

There were about 15 students involved in the project. Mr. Davis said it was part of the school curriculum and kids who participated were not necessarily in his class but were interested in the project.

"Students had to apply. It was done during school hours but some were pulled out of class for that whole day," he said. "We would like to continue with the program. I mentioned it to Colleen and although she is moving around with it, it may come back again sometime."

Mr. Davis said Colleen Power and Roger Maunder said the school would be receiving a royalty for their work.

"We just got the cheque that was in the mail," said Mr. Davis. "We got $100, which ended up going to the school program."

But, he noted, students who were involved in the project were thrilled to get a royalty cheque for their work.

The video has a link from the Laval School Page and can be viewed by visiting YouTube and searching "fix da holes Laval High school," or by visiting the Laval High School page at www.laval.k12.nf.ca and searching for the link from there.

editor@thecharter.ca