Music Video Finalists – Venue Change

I came to The Horn to catch some of the finalists of the Music Video competition and watch the screenings of their videos.

The Horn pub

I arrived at The Horn, which is a really cool little venue with a good vibe, and found some bands playing, which was surprising as I thought the screenings would have been underway by now.

Live music at The Horn

I discovered before too long that the reason there weren’t any screenings at that time was because when they began the viewings, a technical hitch had meant the sound had been lost – not so great for a music video.

The problem was resolved, however, by moving the venue and time to 6pm at The Maltings, so I took the time to interview one of the shortlisted entrants, Daria Kulesh, about her entry.

Daria with her ‘Tomtoms’

Daria, who is local to St Albans (well, comes ‘from a place just outside the city’), based the song and video on the true event of Tom Cruise stopping by a local Indian Restaurant. His surprise visit to the city, during a time when he was filming nearby, causes quite a stir and Daria exclaims “I can’t believe nobody else thought to do it. I thought I’d better write the song and make the video before anyone else did”.

The 6pm screening at The Maltings worked out very nicely after all, though. The screen available in there was much larger than at the previous venue, and the dark room with tiered seating provided a good atmosphere.

Touch by Adam Awni

Most people grabbed a drink at the bar to take in with them and there was a lot of networking going on in the bar area beforehand.

As the screening got underway it was clear that there would be a range of different music genres showcased here, but also a range of different budgets and experience had gone into making the 15 finalist videos.

Across The Universe

From space themes to prostitution, young adults in night clubs to kids in school, this was a really diverse competition category. One video even had pianist Maxim in it. I’m not sure who is going to win this one, but I left the room with 3 favourites in mind.

Full list of finalist

I took short clips of each of the finalist entries that were screened at The Maltings to give you a feel of the kinds of entries that were submitted and to show the diversity of the short-listed music videos.