Durham College campus sets the scene for music video shoots

The beautiful campus of Durham College is being taken over by local directors who are incorporating the school into their music videos.

Within the last two years, five different music videos have been produced on the grounds of Durham College featuring a variety of artists including Najjah Calibur (It’s Been a Pleasure), Tyler Medeiros (Please Don’t Go), 20 Amp Soundchild (Lights Go Out), Jordan Mcintosh (Walk Away) and K-Simone (Can You Hear Me).

Each artist has been a recipient of the MuchFACT fund that provides grants to Canadian recording artists to help them produce music videos. Production company Next Element (NE) specializes in music video shoots and two of their directors have directed four of the five music videos taped on campus.

Students from the Digital Video Production and VFX and Digital Cinema programs were incorporated into the filming of these videos, allowing the students to showcase what they’ve learned while gaining great hands-on experience in the comprehensive field of media production.

Marc Andre Debruyne and fellow NE director Cazhhmere have spent a lot of time at Durham in the past few years, creating visual works of art that tell a story with the help of the diverse areas and state-of-the-art facilities on campus.

After directing It’s Been a Pleasure in 2012, Debruyne found a lot of positive and versatile aspects that the campus had to offer and returned a couple months later to direct the Say I Love You – Please Don’t Go video by Tyler Medeiros.

“Durham College offered a nice diversification in architecture, giving me the chance to shoot two videos there, without it looking the same,” he said. “They were both very fun, youth-oriented videos with storylines revolving around schools.”

In his time spent on campus, Debruyne was most taken with the impressive layout of the library as it added to the beautification of the Najjah Calibur video.

“It really elevated (It’s Been a Pleasure) to a whole other level of production,” he said. “Durham College has always been a friendly place to shoot and there are still many buildings that I could shoot in.”