Armand Messier’s primary role at Bellows Free Academy is being a teacher, teaching classes such as chorus, Piano Lab and Music Theory. However, Messier also has a much different side gig: making music videos. The Mercury sat down and talked with him about his music videos and how he creates them and what inspired him to pursue this passion in the first place. 

Messier’s love of producing videos started with his small Youtube channel, Green Mountain DIY Guy, where he said he made videos focused on “renewable energy and off-grid solar and battery projects.” Messier said this concept then morphed into doing “other things… [with] drone photography,” which then turned into music videos. 

According to Messier, his start with music videos came about during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. With no way of holding in-person musical performances, Messier resorted to an alternative: virtual performances. 

Messier said that “there was a need at the time for the virtual [videos].” 

Messier added, “You know, everything was taken away: school, music, [being] together. So we went virtual, did something with students at home.”

According to Messier, he began with his 2020 chorus class’s virtual rendition of “We Are the World.“ Once students were allowed to sing inside of BFA, Messier started to become more experimental with his videos, starting with recording senior solos (a video of a senior singing a song of their choice). He then went on to record more content, such as choir concerts and more senior solos.

Messier said he uses “some pretty nice stuff” to record his content, including a Panasonic Lumix G9 camera, a DJI gimbal and “quite a few drones.” Messier said his equipment is “higher end professional gear” that does a “professional job.” 

Messier took The Mercury through his editing process. The first step to making a video is getting a recording. After this, he said he takes his footage, puts it into a folder and then sorts all of his footage into smaller folders for his different cameras, a strategy he calls his “key to success.” After previewing his shots, he imports his selected footage into Adobe Premiere and starts editing. Messier said that, on average, one minute of footage takes him an hour to edit, with the entire process taking up to a few weeks in some cases.

According to Messier, his favorite video to shoot was a senior solo video inside of a church. “Her father was a pastor at the church,” Messier said. “We get the big stained glass windows and things like that, so that was my favorite one.”

Messier said his most popular music video was his “We Are the World” video, with over 75,000 views on Facebook. For his DIY Mountain Guy YouTube Channel, he saidhis most popular video has 300,000 views. Messier plans on investing more time into his DIY channel in 2023 in the future due to currently being busy teaching Driver’s Education classes.

“I don’t have a lot of time for that channel right now, but once the new year rolls around…I plan to put more time into it,” he said.