All posts tagged with: video

This week, 15 awards were handed out to LGBT musicians celebrating their achievements and talent in the music industry. It was all part of the annual RightOutTV music awards for Out artists.

The global competition raises awareness of LGBT musicians, their music, and their videos, while closer uniting the community and industry. Enteries were submitted from across the world including Portugal, Austria, Britain, Canada and the United States. There were two rounds of judging to determine the winners in each of the 15 award categories.

“This is only our second year and already the number and caliber of the artists submitting has reassured us that there is truly a need for this kind of acknowledgement for the LGBT music community,” says Marlee Walchuk, co- producer of the RightOutTV Music and Video Awards.

Winners of the 2012 RightOutTV Music and Video Awards:

• Best Video (Pro): Matt Zarley – Trust Me
• Song of the Year: Matt Fishel – Behind Closed Doors
• Best Song So Far: Matt Zarley – Change Begins with Me
• Best Video DIY (Do It Yourself): Corday – Weekend Warrior
• Best Pop/Rock/Adult Contemporary Video: Jeffery Straker – Gone
• Best Electronic/Dance/Hip Hop/R&B Video: Blinded by Stardust – Can’t We Just Dance Instead (feat. Biuna)
• Best Folk/Country/Jazz Video: Kat Devlin – Dear Emmi
• Best Performance in a Live Video: Rachael Sage – Everything
• Best “Living Room Performance”: Nhojj – He & Him
• Best Video So Far: Matt Fishel – Football Song
• Best Pop/Rock/Adult Contemporary Song: Jenn Foster – You Stayed
• Best Electronic/Dance/Hip Hop/ R&B Song: Darren Octert – This Modern Life (1984)
• Best Folk/Country/Jazz Song:  Summer Osborne – Be Still
• Fan Fave Award: Sonasfly

Just in time for Vancouver Pride, gay dance/pop music artist, Tyrell Witherspoon, has released in latest single, One Step Closer. The track was born when Tyrell revamped old lyrics and revamped the song with the help of Vancouver DJ and producer, Nick Bertossi. The new song is a pulsing dance track with emotional lyrics asking for the love of your life to come back after a rocky break-up period.

Filmed and produced in Vancouver, B.C., One Step Closer, is a story of two gay lovers who get in a fight over a jealous situation with a mutual friend. In the video, Tyrell dances out his emotions, while his fiancé, Patrick, heads to the 1181, a local lounge, to meet up with ‘Kevin’. After Kevin beings to hit on Patrick, Patrick leaves, realizing he has made a mistake and desperately tries to reach Tyrell. The video closes with Patrick returning to the apartment looking for Tyrell to forgive him.

“I’ve always tried to write songs that come from an honest place,” Tyrell said as he recalled his inspirations for the new song and video. “Whether their my own personal stories or stories I’ve observed from family or friends. My songs may be dance-y and up-tempo but in the end, I want the song to relate to you and mean something. I grew up listening to music that served a purpose and I want my listeners to know that I have a heart.”

Regardless of his sexual orientation, Tyrell is set to break into the mainstream pop music scene. Tyrell credits Adam Lambert, Ricky Martin, Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters and the newly out Frank Ocean for their inspiration and courage.

“The music industry is very heterosexually dominated,” explained Tyrell. “But, just because I am engaged to a man doesn’t mean my stories of love and heartbreak are any different. I want to help the world see that.

One Step Closer is available for download purchase on iTunes.

Most people will remember the famous 2009 campaign by Tourism Queensland,  “The Best Job in the World”, where applicants used social media to apply for the position with the end result of having a full-time job raising awareness of the Great Barrier Reef to increase tourism to the region.

Canadian, Mitchell Moffit, was voted second place in the world-wide competition after receiving over 65,000 votes after he created a mini-musical video expressing why he should win. Watch the Mitchell Moffit Tourism Queensland Musical Video

With his passion for music and new-found knowledge and appreciation for marketing he dedicated the next two years of his life working on his next adventure; creating his first EP.

Mitchell began writing his own music and preparing for his debut solo EP, 01. It is a columniation of is works over a two-year period.

“I grew up in a really musically family – my mom sang, played piano and guitar, and naturally had all us kids enrolled in lessons,” Mitchell said. “While I’ve fiddled around on most instruments throughout my life, piano has always been my bread and butter.”

Mitchell used his keyboard talents to produce the drum sounds tied to specific notes by using patches of programs. He admits it is a bit of a run-around, but it got the job done and he had fun doing it.

“All of the songs were written, recorded and produced by myself,” Mitchell explained. “Since it was my first EP I really wanted to just experiment and see what I could come up with. I had been writing a lot of songs, somewhat struggling to define my sound.”

Mitchell struggled with creating his first EP because there is not one genre that fits is personal style and he wanted to create an album that enveloped a variety of styles.

“The EP is called ‘01’ not only because it’s my first, but it represents the nature of opposites and the duality of life and death,” Mitchell described. “When we strip nature down to it’s core, it tends to be binary on a certain level. The EP goes through not necessarily the physical, but instead the psychological life and death, from the perspective of somebody who is maybe a quarter-way through his life.”

Mitchell’s debut EP, 01, is currently available as a free download on his website.

On Friday, September 10 and Saturday, September 11, from 9 – 10pm, the Georgia Street side of the iconic Vancouver Art Gallery will be digitally transformed right before your eyes! The project has been toted as a one of the a kind animation meets public art installation event.

This is how the storytelling has been described by Project Nighfire:

Nightfire is a 3D building manipulation piece that uses the boundaries of an architecture building to tell a compelling and beautiful narrative. The Vancouver Art Gallery sets the canvas, as Rival Schools will tell the story of an fallen angel. Broken, she’s found by a lone man who, with love, takes her on a  journey back to her home.  Set to the music “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot, audiences will be presented with this unusual experiement, as light, shadow and colour are projected on the Vancouver landmark to create illusion and transform it appearance.

Project Nightfire as tested on September 6 and you can see the test video here.

The event is a partnership between The Vancouver Opera, Rival Schools, The Media Merchants, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Each partner contributed valuable resources to the experimental project.

For more information, please visit the Project Nightfire website.