Film students Hayley Haines and Sarah Angeloni, along with musician Flow, made a music video this week. Photo by Grace DeSanti.
While it’s many students’ dream to make it big in the music industry one day, few put in the amount of work that Flowesny Henry has to make his dream a reality.
University of Rhode Island Student Henry, who goes by Flow, has been making music since the eighth grade, but is getting close to releasing his first song, “Guap Chasing.” Henry and Hailey Haines, a senior film student, have been working together to make a music video for the song’s release.
“Guap Chasing” was an important song for Henry because it was the song that spurred him to start making music more.
“I hadn’t been writing music much when I wrote ‘Guap Chasing,’” Henry said. “My friend asked me if I had been writing music and I told her ‘no.’ She said ‘I have a challenge for you. I want you to write me a song in two days.’ I had the song written the next day and then I recorded it and I loved it.”
When Henry was offered the opportunity to make a music video he knew from the start that he wanted to use “Guap Chasing.”
Haines is the director behind “Guap Chasing.” She first met Henry through a mutual friend and soon after they started talking about filming a music video. The project has been in the works since the beginning of the summer and was just shot this past weekend. While this is Haines’ first time directing a major project she has worked on several short films before, however, they’ve been very different from this music video.
“This project was very different from anything I’ve ever done before,” Haines said. “Usually, people have to do a lot more casting and other jobs that I didn’t have to do for the music video. It was really cool to have my own project going on that I got to make my own rules for, it was a really freeing and creative experience.”
Haines and Henry were able to bring their creative visions together in the music video. Henry was open to Haines’ ideas throughout the shoot. Although the video remained true to Henry’s vision for the song, Haines was able to add her own ideas to the music video. Although filming was a success for Haines and Henry, there were still some setbacks.
“One of the people on the crew was playing the song on my phone and she dropped it, it hit my foot and bounced off right into the slot of a storm drain,” Haines said. “Flow and all of his friends lifted up the manhole cover and tried fishing out my phone. After about 10 minutes I told them to stop because we were burning daylight.”
Even though Haines lost her phone she still enjoyed the experience of filming the video.
“I really want to be in the studio recording music,” Henry said. “I just want to be the first big musician out of Rhode Island, I feel like nobody has really done that yet. Then I want to pave the way for other musicians. Watch out for me, because I’m coming and I’m going to take this state by storm for sure.”
Haines spent her own money on some of the equipment for the shoot, such as a fog machine as well as party lights. She set up an INDIEGOGO page to raise money to help pay the expenses for the project.
The screening of the music video for “Guap Chasing” is scheduled for Dec. 11 in Edwards Auditorium alongside other student films. The screening will be free and open for anyone to attend.