Ball State University students are completing a music video for Virgin Millionaires, an Indianapolis band signed to Universal Records.
Ian Nixon and Joe Backe created the video for their final project for the Digital Entertainment Option Pilot. The pilot class was a year-long immersive workshop for theater and telecommunications majors to give them hands-on experience in digital media and storytelling.
"This is part of a larger project to do corporate projects with professional musicians," Chip Warren, content developer for the Institute for Digital Entertainment and Education at Ball State, said.
Backe, a theater major, said he wanted to do a video for Virgin Millionaires after he helped book them for Carmel Fest, a concert in Carmel last year.
"We wanted to work with a band that has had a little bit of a following," Backe said. "We didn't find out they were signed to Universal Records until afterward."
The video for the song "For a While" features theater students from Ball State. The story follows a boy at different stages in his life.
"It's a story about the things that happen to you as you grow up," Nixon said. "We really wanted other people to relate to the video as they watched it."
Nixon and Backe have been working on the video since the Spring Semester.
"We had complete creative freedom," Nixon, a TCOM major, said. "We were able to write and shoot the video basically anywhere we wanted."
Although the two were in charge of the video, they had help from other students and professors.
TCOM student Griff Partington helped film swooping shots on a Jib crane.
"I didn't know what to expect going into the project," Partington said. "I was expecting more of a student project, but it was really like working on a professional shoot."
Rodger Smith, director of the Institute for Digital Entertainment and Design, said the student's work on the video aligns with Ball State's "Education Redefined" motto.
"The students were involved in a piece that will be in a professional situation," Smith said. "They made this video with their own knowledge and skills as a result of the training we gave them. That's education redefined."
Backe said the video is in the final stages of editing, and the group is waiting on the final version of the song from the band and special effects to be added on to the video before it is completed.
"I think the project is the best thing we've done so far," Nixon said. "We're really proud of it.
Nixon and Backe said they are working with Ball State to form a production company, Red Club Productions, to continue their work after they graduate this summer.
"We're looking for regional acts that could pay for promotional videos or music videos," Backe said. "We hope that Virgin Millionaires will be ready to release the video soon so we can show potential hires what we can do."
Virgin Millionaires is keeping the final release of the song and the video under wraps and plan on having a national release, Backe said.
The original version of the song can be heard on the band's MySpace page.
"Potentially, if the band gets big, it could be on MTV or other video sites," Backe said. "We just don't know."
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