Ryerson Students Shoot Thornley DVD As Graduation Project

03/13/06 8:00pm

by Phil Villeneuve (CHARTattack)

When six fourth-year radio and television arts students at Toronto's Ryerson University had to come up with a creative final project to graduate, they decided that they wanted to hit the road with a Canadian band.

After creating CEO Productions and sending out request packages to several Canadian record labels, Thornley accepted their offer and welcomed them warmly on their tour. They followed the Juno-nominated rock band in a cramped RV for two weeks across western Canada in October and shot 11 shows, tour bus footage and other clips.

"It was very exciting and draining," says producer Renee Childs. "I had no idea what was going on in the rest of the world for the whole two weeks on tour.

"We were so consumed with following the band and the venues, which was really intense. I really don't know how musicians do it for more that two weeks."

The students lived in the RV during the project and learned new lighting and audio techniques at the different venues along the way. With an amalgamation of cameras, tripods, computers and more than $15,000 worth of donated software from Apple Canada, they chaotically put together the necessary footage.

The final project is currently in post-production and is due on March 20. It will be included as a bonus DVD on Thornley's next album.

"I really think the DVD shows fans that world and what it's like to be on tour, which is what they wanna see," says Childs. "The band is also awesome and really good live. They weren't slow-paced musicians, they always put on a real rock show."