Students produce music video for indie rock band

When the world-renowned indie rock band Luna needed a music video for their song “Friends,“ they called on Emmy-nominated filmmaker and Augusta University Communication Professor Matthew Buzzell to direct the project.

Buzzell’s relationship with Luna stems back over a decade when he chronicled the Los Angeles-based band’s 2005 farewell tour in the documentary “Tell Me Do You Miss Me.” So, when Luna’s Dean Wareham asked Buzzell to direct a video for a song on their latest reunion album, A Sentimental Education, he was honored to work with them again.

When Luna presented the idea to Buzzell, the timing coincided with the start of the fall semester leaving him no time to fly out to Los Angeles to direct the video. Instead, Buzzell re-cast the band with high school students from Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School and Aquinas High School, and the production crew was entirely made up of the Augusta University senior communications capstone class known as The Agency.

“I enjoy working with Luna, and I saw this as an opportunity for our students to know what it’s like to handle a project of this magnitude while getting a feel of working under union guidelines,” said Buzzell.

The video was shot in nearly two days and the overall production took The Agency about four weeks to complete. Elizabeth Hundt, a member of The Agency and longtime Luna fan, served as the project’s producer and managed items such as talent releases, equipment checkouts and scheduling. She described working on the production as “fun and enjoyable” and says she is grateful to have had this experience as an undergraduate student.

“I grew up listening to Luna’s music and being able to work on their music video was a full-circle moment for me,” said Hundt. “This type of hands-on experience is something you can only get in our department and it gives us a professional experience we can add to our resumes.”

Hundt says working on the shoot broaden her perspective on journalism and she is now considering the possibility of attending graduate school for film production. Watch “Friends” by Luna.