One of the new names in new country is Cory Marquardt. He's an Ontario singer-songwriter who's moving fast in the Nashville scene as well as north of the border, and his rise got a little help from a video he released this week for his latest single. It's called 21, and talks about the fast times and bulletproof zest for life when you're young.
Alongside Marquardt in the video is another rising talent. Her name is Meghan Page, a young dancer, actor and model from Prince George. When the video for 21 came out on Monday morning, it only took a couple of hours for social media to start buzzing about the wholesome, girl-next-door leading lady in the video. That's Page.
"I didn't have to audition, I was recommended for the part," said Page from her home in the Lower Mainland. Both director Blake McWilliam of Calgary and Marquardt trusted the agent's recommendation sight unseen, and Page lived up to the hype. She had to climb a water tower, walk the line along a railroad track, and go skinny dipping in a cold lake (stay calm, folks, the dipping is real but the skinny is only implied) to convey the storyline of a young couple living their youth to the fullest.
It was a long, cold day of shooting all over the Vancouver area earlier this spring. Page, Marquardt and the crew spent about 13 hours collecting the footage they needed. The finished product looks slick and glamorous to the idle viewer, but it took long, painstaking work to pull it off. It's part of the dues Page knows she has to pay to advance her aspirations, and she's already been chipping away at those.
"I did a season with the B.C. Lions cheerleading team, I do a little bit of modelling, some promotional work, I was an extra in a show called Continuum, and now the music video," she listed. If she went back farther she could add a number of Judy Russell productions on the live Prince George stage, plus dance festivals elsewhere, dating back to when she was a little girl in multiple stagings of The Nutcracker.
This was not the kind of production she'd ever been a part of, though. It was a learning experience as well as a show-biz job.
"They made me feel quite comfortable with the process. They knew I hadn't done anything like that before," she said. It helped that Marquardt was on a music video shoot for only his second single. The first one, Smartphone, did well on radio in 2014 and passed 10,000 views on YouTube.
"I'm not super into country but I thought 21 was a good song," said Page. "They played the song at all times as we were filming, and I had to memorize some of the words in advance. I wasn't sick of it by the time it was over, so that's a good sign, 'cause we had to hear it a lot."
Page enjoyed the experience and definitely hopes the referral system that got her this gig will lead her into more work like this, but she isn't star struck by the work. She recently turned down another country music video because she felt uncomfortable with the scanty clothing she would be asked to wear for gratuitous purposes.
"It (the 21 video) was just something that came to me as an opportunity," she said. "I'm glad I got the chance, but I don't know if there's a career for me in that. I'm studying business at Capilano University and I'm leaning towards communications and public relations."
Page doesn't get back to Prince George often, on her student's income rate, and her family members frequently travel to the Lower Mainland so she hosts them. However, she did come back to Prince George for Mother's Day this year and dropped in on the 24-hour Relay For Life at the same time. She wants to maintain her hometown relationships and stay connected to her home community, now that she is grown up past the age of 21.
