STORY BY PALWASHA TEMOR
Sheridan students gain a lot of experience to add to their resumes, but not many can say that they have directed a music video while being a student.
Media Fundamentals student Aref Mahabadi, 24, has done just that.
The video is for a song by his good friend Del Hartley called “Seduce.”
“He thought my work was pretty good, so he came up to me and asked me if I wanted to direct and write the music video,” says Mahabadi.
“We shot it over three to four days with a crew of seven or eight, which is a very small crew.”
The video takes place indoors and Hartley sings about a girl who he sees at an art gallery.
Hartley wants to get to know her and seduce her, and the music video follows along this desire for the young artist.
Despite the crew size, Mahabadi was able to get the job done with support from his older sister, Del Mahabadi, 26, to support him.
“She’s always a big help. She pretty much helped me get to where I am and she’s my hardest critic,” says Mahabadi.
“He’s the older brother I never had,” says his sister, who’s the eldest of five children.
She describes him as being “kind, quiet and introverted” when he was a kid.
“He and I had drawing contests all the time and we rarely argue or fight. We are pretty much the same person. We talk the same and look the same as well, except I am better looking. People confuse us as twins,” says Mahabadi.
Mahabadi’s creativity has taken him far.
“I always knew he would find something within the creative realm,” says his sister.
“All my siblings are very creatively driven and that’s our strongest asset.”
Mahabadi studied marketing for three years and was in the co-op program at Sheridan before starting a new program this year.
“I went into Media Fundamentals so I could be more professional,” says Mahabadi.
Mahabadi hopes to get into film and television after he finishes with media fundamentals.
Mahabadi also works at Sheridan Student Union, which is something that he does for fun and at a finance company that was his third co-op placement while he was taking marketing.
“It’s mostly design work for them now because I guess they’ve seen my talent,” says Mahabadi who’s been there for three years.
“It’s a very flexible schedule. I can go in whenever I want and that really helps a lot, so I can focus on what I need to focus on and if I need to take two weeks off to work on a music video, they’ll allow it.”
With so many things on the go, Mahabadi still manages to balance everything that he needs to do.
“It was very hard at first, but I’ve been doing it for four to five years now, so it’s become second nature to me,” says Mahabadi.
As a director, Mahabadi says that his job is to tell the story and to direct what happens on set.
“We went location scouting, looking for the perfect places to shoot and we hired an actress to shoot the parts that we couldn’t do,” says Mahabadi.
“The hardest part was planning the music video before we shot it.”
In the end, it all came together and the video can be viewed below.
http://vimeo.com/89040204