Independent recording artist Oh Susanna (Suzie Ungerleider) recently created a music video for her song,
Tickets On the Weekend. The 4:46 video is comprised entirely of still photos, many from her past, as well as those sourced from friends and fans. The song is off Oh Susanna’s album “A Girl in Teen City,” which was funded through Kickstarter.
“For Tickets on the Weekend, I thought it would be pretty easy to work with still photographs,” says Ungerleider, noting that the album reflects her youth growing up in Vancouver. “I really built on that idea of a visual scrapbook. Then, I had the idea for fans and friends to send me their teenage photographs and old punk rock memorabilia. Even though the song is pretty specific, and a true story about my life, it is really about any of us who got into mischief. Also, the song is about adoring the punk band DOA, which was my role model for being an independent musician, so it’s also fitting that I am making this scrappy video myself.”
Ungerleider says the do-it-yourself attitude of punk rock inspired her to explore readily-available editing programs, like iMovie and Adobe Premiere.
“I grew up amongst the DIY attitude of the punk rock bands in Vancouver, who basically had to pay for and do everything in order to be heard,” she notes. “The mainstream would never play their music on the radio, and only when the bands proved to have a draw would any promoter take a chance on a punk rock show. You had to book your own studio time and pay for your recordings, silkscreen your own t-shirts, draw your own poster and photocopy them, put up the posters, rent halls and promote your own shows. So really it is pretty natural to me to do the same thing. As an independent artist, there is no label to do things for me and not a ton of money to play with. Thankfully, technology has gotten very accessible and user friendly, so DIY is easier than ever.”
Like anything she has have ever done in music, be it singing, writing or playing the guitar, Ungerleider says she learns by doing and exploring. “You start from a place of exploration and then that leads you to knowledge or skill,” says the artist. “I really loved doing this. It is exciting to find a new creative outlet where you can tell your stories in a visual way.”