Feature: Trent Waterman, video maker

By Christa Lawler
Duluth News Tribune

It wasn’t hard to convince Minneapolis musician Jeremy Messersmith to stroll along a mall alcove and strum his guitar and sing.

All Trent Waterman did was ask the singer-songwriter. And after Messersmith’s show at Beaner’s Central that October night, they shot the impromptu video for “Beautiful Children” in two takes, including a break for Waterman to change the camera’s battery.

The end result was video No. 2 in Waterman’s growing collection of North Shore Sessions, a hobby that pairs the budding filmographer with musicians for quick-hit videos in unlikely settings such as a former railroad tunnel, a friend’s apartment or a barn in Wrenshall. He claims as inspiration Vincent Moon’s “The Take-Away Shows,” in which musicians are recorded playing in the streets and parks, highlighting the quirks, ticks and spontaneity.

“I’ve always kind of been interested in different acoustics and how it affects the way sound travels — spaces that sound interesting and look cool, too,” said Waterman, a senior at the University of Minnesota Duluth studying graphic design and photography.

It started with Russian Bride, a Minneapolis-based Americana band that includes friends of Waterman. They set up a recording session at the barn in Wrenshall that hosts the annual Free Range Film Festival. Waterman decided to make a video recording of the session just for fun, and ended up making a 4-minute, low-light, at times abstract arty accompaniment for their song “Hundred Dollar Jig.”

Next came the Messersmith shoot, a quickie when the popular singer-songwriter was in town for a concert. Waterman had just one video shoot on his resume, but Messersmith was game.

“He seemed friendly, and he seemed rather earnest,” Messersmith said of Waterman. “I’d rather err on the side of doing something and having it turn out terrible than not doing it.”

“I watched it and I was like, ‘This is really good. Who is this guy? This looks and sounds way better than I thought it would,’” he said, calling it beautiful and well-edited.

The Russian Bride and Messersmith videos were posted on the locally run community website Perfect Duluth Day. This is where Annie Dugan, who owns the Free Range barn with her husband, saw what had come from that video shoot.

“(The videos) capture the Midwest in a modern way, which is always a nice way to do this,” said Dugan, who organizes the film festival and is the curator at the Duluth Art Institute. “It’s not precious or folksy, it’s more just sort of real. It’s always refreshing when filmmakers and visual artists let the work speak for itself. It was a total surprise when this video came out. He just said he was recording stuff. I didn’t realize the end project. It’s neat when that sort of surprise happens.”

Local musician Sarah Krueger approached Waterman about collaborating after she saw the Russian Bride video. She liked the lighting and the simplicity. He chose to shoot her playing in the former railroad tunnel near Ely’s Peak, and told her the acoustics would pair well with her voice. The video, shot in November, includes puffs of breath from the singer.

“I was really impressed,” she said. “We did like pretty much one and a half takes of that song and one other song. He does a really nice job with the quality of his filming. It’s really simple, and it goes with my style.”

Then came a biggie: Cloud Cult, a nationally touring act with local ties. With a few bands now in the bank, Waterman e-mailed frontman Craig Minowa about shooting the band before its show at St. Scholastica in November.

The result: A casual acoustic version of “Bobby’s Spacesuit” shot in a foyer, the band members harmonizing and playing guitar, violin and percussion. The video ended up on Cloud Cult’s Facebook page.

“I’m a huge Cloud Cult fan, so that was a cool experience,” Waterman said.

Now that he’s got a bit of a base, Waterman said he’s getting solicited by bands looking to catch his camera’s eye. He said he has a few things lined up for the next year and plans to keep the North Shore Session going as long as he lives in Minnesota.

This story ran in the December 23, 2010 edition of the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune.