Making [Square] Waves with Jordan LaChance
Jordan LaChance thinks that every Denton musician should have their shot. Through her passion of making music videos, she’s looking to make it easier for musicians about town to get out there.
LaChance operates Square Waves Productions, an homage to music waves as well as downtown Denton and its propensity to be a birthplace to so many spontaneous jam sessions.
“I see people playing all the time, just busking and stuff,” LaChance says. “I always thought it’d be cool to kind of capture those moments.”
LaChance has found herself a fan of music videos and their cinematography since she was a kid. She decided one day to hang out with friends and create point-and-shoot videos on her phone. Since then, she has taught herself through experience and now has six cameras—including cell phones—that she takes on shoots.
Much like the music she admires on the downtown square, LaChance has a spirit for collaboration and capturing genuine musicianship that she takes into every shoot. She describes her videos as “snowflakes,” all different from each other from inception through completion.
“Sometimes I have an idea of where we could be set up and the setting of it, and sometimes I have no idea," she admits. "I get there and I’m like, ‘Okay, what do you want to do?’ We talk amongst ourselves and work it out. Some of my favorite videos are settings that the artist comes up with, where it wasn’t from me, it was from them and I was just like, ‘Let’s do it.’”
From this process, she has amassed a collection of videos vastly different in approach and environment. One of her first videos on her Facebook page features Novi McKay, seated on a slim chair, performing in a wooded area dusted with snow. Watching it, the viewer feels as though they’re getting an intimate performance while also getting an excellent lay of the entire environment. All of the movement is organic; the cinematography moves without being distracting and shows the enjoyment and curiosity from LaChance herself through the making of the video. Since then, she has worked with a variety of musicians and groups, including The Grumbling Grandsons, Miranda Kennedy and Jake Steinberg, and Springtime and the Changes, among many others. Another favorite was Dome Dwellers while they played during Band Together Denton.
While Nathan Fenner is lending her an interface and is helping with her sound editing, LaChance does much of the editing herself. She consistently has been putting out videos, especially as she has reached out and been approached more and more.
“I started out with the plan of, maybe I could do a video a week,” LaChance says. “I wasn’t even sure if I could do that. Then it just kind of exploded, and I was just doing video after video, and now I’m backlogged. I have maybe about 10 videos at home on my computer that I’m trying to edit and get out as fast as I can. I think I’m going to call it at maybe three videos a week. I’m just kind of going with it.”
LaChance is guided by a desire to let the musicians and their process and approach shine through in her videos, and make her own approach a creative accompaniment to the talent she captures.
“The more you take away, the less options you have, the more creative you become naturally,” LaChance says. “That’s something I take to heart. I’d be willing to film in a bathroom, or in a bush. Something you just would never think of, and I wouldn’t be able to do a whole lot, but it would kind of force me to get creative with it and make it into something unique and different—its own snowflake.”
LaChance’s goal is simple. As a keys player herself, she knows that having the opportunity to get oneself out there with a music video is something she wouldn’t turn down. She is expanding from the genres she has already covered, and is making waves herself through wanting to document the Denton music experience.
“I want to get Denton, period. That’s anything,” LaChance says. “I think what’s really important is that Denton has so much talent that’s just not out there, you know. Some people are, some people aren’t. I really think it would be cool to just give everyone their shot, everyone gets their own spotlight.”
LaChance is hosting an improvisational music ensemble film project on Sunday, March 19th from 3-6 p.m. on the square. LaChance’s videos are available on Facebook, and musicians can reach out to her there for inquiries.