Mount Si students literally climb mountain to film video
January 13, 2010
By Laura Geggel
NEW — 11:45 a.m. Jan. 13, 2010
Mount Si High School band students rock out on top of Little Si. From left are Kyle Seymour, Morgan Myers, Manoah Weber, Ryan Simpson (male wildcat), Meagan Capp (female wildcat), Abbie Grimstad, Evan Ellington and band teacher Adam Rupert. (Contributed)
Mount Si High School’s lady wildcat was looking for love.
She couldn’t find it in the hallways of Mount Si High School, in a classroom or in a boys’ restroom. Spirits dampened, she tried the band room.
It was there that the lady wildcat found direction in her search for love in a music video produced by Mount Si students.
Band members burst out of the band room and point the lady wildcat in the direction of Mount Si. Love sick, she climbs the mountain, meets a handsome wildcat guy and parties with a group of band students
“We have a lot of creative kids,” Band Director Adam Rupert said.
The band’s music video, “In the Stone,” by Earth, Wind and Fire was in response to a KZOK 102.5 FM contest. The radio station sponsored the contest, School of The Rock — Battle of the Bands, with the Wood-fired Pizza and Spirits restaurant. To enter the contest, the high school band had to record a rock song and film a music video starring their performance.
“We decided to have a story about wildcats, because they’re our mascot,” said senior Ryan Simpson, who dressed as the male wildcat in the video.
Senior Meagan Capp played the female wildcat.
Though the contest began in 2007, this is the first time Mount Si has entered it. If Mount Si accrues the most text message votes out of the 33 high school entries, it could receive up to $10,000.
If they win, Rupert said they would spend the prize money on installing lockers in the school’s instrument storage room, a project costing about $25,000. The room used to have cubbyholes for instruments, but they were removed after the 2009 flood damaged the room.
Now, students leave their instrument cases in a heap on the floor in a room with no lock.
Principal Randy Taylor, a saxophone player himself, said he would work to help match funding for the storage room if the band places in the contest.
“It’s too invitational,” he said of the unlocked room. “I would like to have it more secured.”
Rupert said “In the Stone” was a challenging song, especially since the audition-only, pep band just started playing it at football games this year. After much practice, the band recorded it in October with help from the audio engineering class.
“We used our own kids. We didn’t use parents or anything,” Rupert said. “This was developed, recorded and produced by all of our students.”
The students also climbed a mountain — Little Si — to record the video.
“There was a little bit of fresh snow, but the Valley was green and beautiful,” Rupert said. “You can’t talk about Mount Si (High School) without mentioning the mountain and the Valley.”
Seniors Tyler Christensen and Jeff Heidel, the cameraman and editor, respectively, even added a few special effects, including using Adobe After Effects to make it look like the wildcats leap off of Mount Si holding hands at the end.
“They are both guys who have been making short films since middle school,” Rupert said. “They’re both brainiacs and longtime devoted musicians.”
From now until Feb. 2, Rupert and his class are asking the community to vote for their entry so they have a chance at the prize money.
“Our band program really needs the money for the instrument storage room,” Heidel said.
“Do it for school spirit,” Simpson said.
On the Web:
See the video here.
Vote for the video by texting ROCK20 to 23400. You can vote 10 times per day by cell phone. Voting ends Feb. 2.
Laura Geggel: 392-6434 ext. 221 or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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Great job! Hoping for a WIN!!
[...] This video project took around a week to complete with several days of planning, several days of filming, and several days of editing. The deadline for the video also happened to coincide with the deadline for MIT’s Early Action Application, so that was fun. The video has been submitted as of November 1st and is available for public viewing. Our video was recently featured in our local newspaper; check out the following link: http://snovalleystar.com/2010/01/13/mount-si-students-literally-climb-mountain-to-film-video [...]