Ellie Ann Hutchinson '12 is very excited. The self-managed singer-songwriter will debut her first music video this Saturday on her YouTube channel. The video, produced by Tribal Films from Burlington, Mass., took over 7 hours to film and features Hutchinson singing on piano with two modern dancers. The video is for her latest single, "When He Lied," which premieres on iTunes on the same day. Hutchinson, who is a Music Composition major, sat down with justArts to talk about how she got started with music, her plans for the future and singing Raffi when she was 2.

JustArts: So you'll be releasing your first-ever music video on Sept. 3.

Ellie Ann Hutchinson: I've come out with a lot of videos on YouTube before, but they were only slideshows. I've received over 70,000 hits just on those videos. I wanted to make a full-length music video because that's what people go to YouTube to watch. So I contacted someone from Burlington with a film company. We shot it this summer, and I'm excited that it's premiering soon!

JA: What was filming a music video like?

EH: It was very long. We shot it at Brandeis on a Sunday at Slosberg Recital Hall. For the same 3 minutes of video we shot for 7 hours straight. I was singing and playing piano for 7 hours straight. He took so many different angles. We had a lot of water.

JA: How many takes was that?

EH: Seven hours divided by 3 minutes, I guess. We shot from inside and outside the piano. There were close-up shots, stage shots, mid-shots, etc.

JA: You mentioned you had two modern dancers filming with you.

EH: The filmmaker's friend is a choreographer, so she choreographed the music video and brought in two dancers. Imagine dancing that routine for 7 hours straight!

JA: Is the song for the video a new composition?

EH: It's called "When He Lied." It's premiering on iTunes on the same day. About a year and a half ago I released my first song on iTunes and YouTube, but it was just the audio. It's an original song off of my demo CD. The song itself is autobiographical. It's an extremely slow and sad song. The other two [on the CD] were upbeat and fun. I wanted to round out the whole demo CD with a slower ballad.

JA: How much time do you dedicate to promoting your music?

EH: It's pretty much my life. It takes over everything I do. It's not like at a concert when you're telling people about your music after the show. You can't tell how exactly it will affect publicity, but when you're promoting online, you can tell how many hits you get per week and how many followers you get on Twitter. I can remember all the numbers­—I just reached 18,000 followers on Twitter, I have 117,000 channel hits on Youtube and 2,100 Facebook Likes.

JA: As a senior, your career must be on your mind. What are you plans for after graduation?

EH: I want to be a full-time musician. That's my goal. I've found a bass player (Jake Weiner '13), drummer (Josh Goldman '11) and guitarist (Ben Gartenstein '14) at Brandeis. And I'm planning to do gigs around Boston­—we're playing a gig in October. I assume I need a day job coming out of graduation and that it's going to take longer than my senior year to do music full time.

JA: How did your passion for music begin?

EH: I've played piano for 12 years and sang since fifth grade. I've always wanted to be a singer-songwriter. I never wanted to be anything else. I think I was 2 when I performed Raffi songs in front of my family. I started composing in high school and began studying composition in college.

JA: What are you musical influences?

EH: Alanis Morissette. Jagged Little Pill is my favorite album. I listen to everything, which is hard sometimes when I'm composing to see what style I want. I also love Elton John.

JA: How do you compose your songs?

EH: All my songs are autobiographical. This can be frustrating because all my friends and family can analyze them and figure out how I'm feeling about them. When I compose, I just like to sit in my room and express something. In 3, 4, 5 hours, out comes some song.

JA: What was the first song you wrote?

EH: My mother has my first song. It was a song about my mother who was the "birds in my sky" and the "sand in my beach." It's in her notebook, all the way from second grade. I was a horrible speller then, and I wrote in two directions with both hands.

JA: What are you hopes for the new video?

EH: The way most people are "found" is now through YouTube. A lot of people produce videos and get a million hits. That's how people get signed onto record deals. So even if it might be a long shot, that's what I hope will happen.