Skyline College professor uses technology, creativity to produce unique music videos amid pandemic | Local News


Skyline College professor uses technology, creativity to produce unique music videos amid pandemic | Local News

When the pandemic broke everyone apart, a key challenge for Skyline College music director Michelle Hawkins was determining how her students could sing together without actually being together.

The director of the school’s acclaimed Soundscape vocal jazz ensemble matched technology with creativity to produce series of videos showcasing her students’ talents in the safest fashion possible.

Hawkins asked her students to record themselves at home using their computers or phones, and then matched the audio with video segments to create a series of unique productions which received critical acclaim at a recent virtual jazz festival.

“This is definitely something new and it was all an experiment to see if we can do this — would it be cool? And I think it came out really cool,” said Hawkins.

The ensemble is featured in a series of videos demonstrating its collective talent, singing original compositions as well as renditions of previously-recorded material.

Perhaps the most innovative of the videos is “Together Again,” which stitches together recordings that students took on their cellphones and submitted to Hawkins, who compiled them into a music video with the help of her husband.

The video, produced in June, featuring students rapping, singing, beat boxing, playing an assortment of instruments and riffing in a variety of fun and funky ways.

“Send me all your creative ideas and we’ll put it together as a collage,” Hawkins told her students.

With the raw material, Hawkins said she spent at least a week editing, arranging and perfecting the audio files. Then her husband Phil, a media production specialist, went to work creating a visual component.

The finished product showed students in windows of a virtual apartment building, each performing their solo act but compiled in a cohesive fashion as if the group was together. The production seems like a whimsical harkening to the viral videos of neighborhoods singing as one from their windows during quarantine.

The video was among five that was recognized at the Cuesta College Vocal Jazz Festival, which allowed ensembles from across the state and nation to perform and gain recognition for their creativity amid the pandemic.

Soundscape also compiled a video for jazz standard “The Nearness Of You,” in which students sang in front of a green screen Hawkins sent to their homes. Their images were then superimposed on a virtual stage, as if they were performing the song together in a theater.

And they performed a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s hit “Higher Ground,” in the style of a more traditional music video designed to inspire the courage to overcome the variety of social and cultural challenges encountered over the last year.

Some of the messages of the “Higher Ground” video align with the hardiness Hawkins observed from her students who have faced immense struggles this year.

“There is very real, challenging stuff that is happening that is heartbreaking to see but it is also heartwarming to see the resilience in students that have stepped up and they are still doing their best under these circumstances,” she said.

Hawkins admits she too has seen her share of turmoil this year, primarily around trying to teach an art form which traditionally relies on the ability to gather and perform together.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she said of the absence of live performance.

But there have been some silver linings, said Hawkins, such as the ability to continue offering valuable critique and feedback to students who are submitting recorded works in their classes.

She also admitted the technology leveraged to create the Soundscape music videos has granted a unique opportunity to work together with her husband.

“This is the first time we’ve made virtual videos together. But it’s been great because we can bounce ideas off each other,” she said.

Additionally, she noted that the videos have been a welcome challenge for a couple starved by the pandemic for the live performances that they traditionally enjoy.

“This has been where we channeled our energy,” she said.


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