The
Wilkinsons are teaming up with Kids Help Phone to help raise
awareness about bullying
(CP)
- Canadian country trio The Wilkinsons are teaming up with
Kids Help Phone to help raise awareness about bullying.
A
member of the youth counselling service was on the set Wednesday
as the group filmed a timely music video that depicts a deadly
classroom shooting.
Band
member Steve Wilkinson says it was tragic coincidence that
saw the project come together just days after a shooting rampage
killed 33 people at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
He
says it's important that troubled kids - whether they are
bullies or those being bullied - need to know where they can
get help.
"These
things need to stop," Wilkinson says. "If one person
changes their mind, if they're distraught and it causes them
to call a help line before they do something drastic then
maybe the effort's worth it."
The
video for "Nobody Died" intercuts scenes of a bullied
teen at a high school with shots of the band performing in
the school parking lot.
The
youngest Wilkinson, 17-year-old Kiaya, portrays a popular
student who tries to reach out to the boy.
The
boy ultimately lashes out in violence and a student dies.
The dramatic ending is followed by contact information for
Kids Help Phone.
Michael
Colonesse, who plays one of the bullies, says it's easy to
relate to the story.
He
says a classmate of his suffered years of abuse and hanged
himself just before prom.
"I
remember everyone was like, 'Oh, what a poor guy.' But yet
half the kids that were saying, 'I'm so sorry' were the cause
of his death," says Colonesse, a 20-year-old actor who's
also portrayed bullies on "Degrassi: The Next Generation"
and in the 50 Cent movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin'."
"I
just wish that people were more sensitive when it comes to
other people, because then that wouldn't have happened."
The
14-year-old who portrays the bullied teen says he felt a bit
uneasy when he heard The Wilkinsons would be shooting a music
video on the heels of the Virginia shooting.
But
Bryan Robinson, a shaggy-haired blond with braces, says the
video's basic storyline is commonly seen in the real world.
"I've
seen some people actually get picked on at my school and no
one's tried to help them or anything," says Robinson,
who started acting last year.
"If
you see someone getting bullied or they need help, then do
something about it. Don't just sit and wait till something
happens like these people did."
The
video shoot comes as Kids Help Phone released a survey Wednesday
that found cyber-bullying to be a big problem among Canadian
teens.
An
online survey of nearly 2,500 young people found 70 per cent
had been bullied online, while 44 per cent said they'd bullied
someone else.
------------------------------------------------------
April
18, 2007
TheStar.com
Virginia
massacre makes song more poignant
Wilkinsons will go ahead with new video for song that tackles
school violence
April
18, 2007
Raju Mudhar
Entertainment Reporter
It
is the kind of strange coincidence that sounds like a poor
joke, but it isn't at all funny to Steve Wilkinson.
He
and two of his children, Amanda and Tyler, make up the country
music trio The Wilkinsons and today the group is hard at work
at a local school on their latest music video "Nobody
Died." Focusing on school bullying and violence, the
song was inspired by the 1999 Columbine shootings, but it
seems all the more ominous in light of Monday's massacre at
Virginia Tech.
"The
timing flipped me out and it kind of pulled the rug out from
under my feet ... I was in my basement finishing off my rec
room when my video director called me. He said, `have you
seen the news? You're not going to believe it.'
"It's
terrible, and it just made me sick," says Steve Wilkinson
from his home in Belleville.
"I
tell you what, the song has been in our laps for 5 or 6 years.
We recorded it once and it never came out because we didn't
have the courage to do it."
Wilkinson
says they were concerned that radio might not play the song
due to its content, but after the Amish school shooting last
year that resulted in the deaths of five girls, the group
felt it was a necessary message to get out.
He
describes the song as a reminiscence from the singer's point
of view about what life was like when they went to school
and how things have changed. It starts with these lyrics:
Back
when I went to school, kid smoked and swore and bent some
rules,
But
didn't everybody? I mean almost everybody.
A
fake I.D. bought a beer, had the devil's rock `n' roll ringing
in my ear,
And
people said that these kids got a problem here.
And
I'm not saying that they weren't right,
But
I'm crying and trying to understand what I'm seeing on the
news tonight.
As
a father with children still in school, Wilkinson understands
the fear that parents are living with whenever these chilling
incidents occur.
"I've
got a daughter that's still in high school and I thought about
the millions of fathers sending their kids to school these
days. Nobody ever thinks that this type of thing would ever
occur at any school."
The
Wilkinsons released their new album, Home, a little over a
month ago, and the band applied for and received a grant to
make the "Nobody Died" video.
Casting
and plans have been in the works for weeks, Wilkinson says,
adding Monday's incident did make them pause, but after speaking
with their label and publicists, they decided to push forward.
"I
just felt that we finally needed to shine a light on it,"
he says. "If one radio station and one person listens
to it and thinks twice about maybe doing something drastic
because they're being picked on or something went wrong in
their world, it's worth the money, the time and it's worth
the effort."
------------------------------------------------------
April
17, 2007
The
Wilkinsons to shoot music video inspired by deadly school
shootings
TORONTO
(CP) - In an eerie coincidence, Canadian country trio the
Wilkinsons are set to film a music video Wednesday that depicts
a deadly school shooting.
Songwriter
Steve Wilkinson says the timing of the video shoot - two days
after Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
- is an unfortunate circumstance he never saw coming but has
nothing to do with capitalizing on the blanket media coverage
of the tragedy.
Wilkinson
admits he momentarily considered delaying the video for "Nobody
Died" and postponing the single's May 1 release date,
but quickly dismissed that notion, believing attention must
be drawn to youth violence.
"Now,
even more, that light needs to be shone on this issue,"
Wilkinson said Tuesday by phone from his home just north of
Belleville, Ont.
"I
know that there's going to be some people out there who go,
'Oh, yeah, you just put this out and it's gratuitous.' It's
not."
"This
isn't something where we went, 'Oh, OK, let's go with this.
This is topical, it'll make people sit up and take notice.'
That's not what happened here. It's a terrible, terrible incident.
I would just as soon that we came out with this and that tragedy
had never occurred."
Wilkinson,
a father of three, says he wrote "Nobody Died" about
five years ago as a cautionary tale to any troubled youth
considering violence as a way to cope. In the song, he reminisces
about his own days in school, when "kids smoked and swore
and broke some rules but ... Nobody died/We all made it home."
The video's
storyline focuses on a troubled boy harassed by bullies and
a popular young girl (played by Wilkinson's youngest child,
Kiaya, 17) who tries to reach out to him.
It ends
in gunfire in a high school classroom, with a student dead.
Wilkinson
says the song was partly inspired by the carnage at Colorado's
Columbine high school in 1999. He says the band initially
"lacked the courage" to release the song, but subsequent
school tragedies have changed their minds.
He went
on to lash out at country radio for too often taking the safe
route.
"I
listen to radio all the time, trust me, and I'm baffled by
the mediocrity that I hear and I just figured, you know what?
This needs to be out, it needs to be heard by somebody, anybody,"
Wilkinson says.
"They
have a plethora of reasons not to play it, but I think if
people hear it, it'll touch something in their hearts and
... if there's a collective consciousness of a nation or a
people or society maybe we can touch that nerve, then somehow
you'll make a difference."
Director
Warren Sonoda says the video crew were in pre-production when
they heard news of the latest school attack. He insists the
sensitive subject matter will be handled with care.
"I
think our intention is good, I think our intention is true,"
Sonodo says from Toronto. "It's rare when you make music
videos to be able to do videos that really matter in some
sort of social way. It kind of makes you realize that you
have the ability to say something important, and I'm hoping
we can do that with this video."
The plan
is to push ahead with the Toronto shoot and deliver it to
Country Music Television as soon as possible, likely before
the end of the month, says CMT programmer Casey Clarke.
Clarke
says the single will also find airtime on CMT's companion
radio station, the New Country 95.3 in Toronto, calling it
a good song despite the unfortunate timing.
The country
band - made up of Wilkinson, his daughter Amanda and son Tyler
- is currently promoting its fifth disc, "Home,"
released last month, and the second season of their television
show "The Wilkinsons," also on CMT.
The disc
is not scheduled for release in the United States, but Wilkinson
says he's looking at distribution deals.
Media
watcher Bob Thompson says artists should take care in the
way they approach such sensitive issues, but shouldn't shy
away from tackling them head-on.
"If
we live in a world where this kind of stuff is happening,
we not only should allow our poets, our songwriters, our novelists,
our moviemakers to deal with this subject, it shouldn't be
off-limits, we should expect them to," says Thompson,
a pop culture professor at Syracuse University in upper New
York state.
"These
are profound experiences in a culture, these are really kind
of extreme expressions and they can carry all sorts of metaphoric
meaning, so we should expect our (artists) to do that."
------------------------------------------------------
April
2007
The
Wilkinsons are on the cover of Country Eh!
------------------------------------------------------
Friday,
March 16, 2007
The
Wilkinsons are truly a family affair
Season
2 of the hybrid series brings more angst to the close-knit
brood
Amanda
and Steve Wilkinson
In the beginning, it all seemed so simple to Steve Wilkinson.
"I
contacted CMT, and I told them that I was bringing my family
back to Canada, and that I was building a house here, and
would they like to capture it on camera for a TV series,"
he says during a press event for Season 2 of the show. "They
said 'No thanks,' and I told them 'Well, I'm doing it anyway,
and I think it would make a great TV special.'"
How right
he turned out to be. The Wilkinsons, a meld of unscripted
and improv television, turned out to be the top Canadian series
for CMT. Lucky for the network they decided to send that TV
crew after all.
The most
obvious follow-up question would be why Steve would subject
his family - daughters Amanda and Kiaya, son Tyler and wife
Chris - to the rigours of shooting a TV project. "This
is a way to market oneself," he says honestly. "CDs
are on the way out, and downloads from the Internet are becoming
more popular. As an artist, I needed to find a way to market
myself and my family. I thought a TV show would be a great
way to do that."
He's right.
I'm not a country fan per se, yet I caught several instalments
of Season 1 and was entertained not only by the situations
the family found themselves in - an amplified version of real
events that have happened - but by how close-knit the Wilkinsons
are.
"I
was a little concerned when the TV crews showed up,"
Chris says quietly. She and daughter Kiaya prefer the background
rather than the stage that Grammy-nominees Steve, Tyler and
Amanda love. "This season, I'm really happy with what
we've done story-wise. We had more control over what went
on this time around, and it shows."
Now that
the rambling house has been built, the sophomore year delves
into how the Wilkinson clan interacts with the community around
them - and smalltown mentalities. When Steve turns down a
request that he and Tyler appear in drag at a charity picnic,
they're maligned by the townsfolk; a photo shoot with Amanda
results in tongues wagging that she may be pregnant.
Additional
bits have the family attempting to hire a new manager (hilariously
played by the series' director, Phyllis Ellis), and Amanda
being approached by a pushy record producer who wants her
to leave the confines of the trio for her own career.
That last
scenario is Amanda's current dilemma. Still only in her early-20s,
Amanda's first solo effort, though successful, lead to assumptions
that she was ditching dad and brother for a solo gig.
"It's
tough because I'm still trying to find out what I want to
do," Amanda says with emotion in her voice. "I love
being with my family, but I also want to grow and explore
who I am as an artist. I'm not the little girl that fans think
they know."
The
Wilkinsons, Wednesdays, 10 p.m. ET/PT, CMT
By
Greg David
------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday,
March 07, 2007
The
Wilkinsons ready for second season of reality TV
Luke
Hendry / The Intelligencer
Musical
family the Wilkinsons - from left, Amanda, Tyler, Steve, Kiaya,
and Chris - pose at their home in Centre Hastings Monday.
Season two of their self-titled TV series debuts March 7 on
CMT at 10 p.m. Photo: Luke Hendry
Local
News - Quinte's country family returns to the tube tonight,
but with a difference.
Last
summer the Wilkinsons once again opened their home and lives
to television crews from Henry Less Productions, working under
contract to Country Music Television Canada.
The
result, the 10-episode second season of The Wilkinsons, premieres
tonight at 10 p.m. on CMT. As before, it's a half-scripted,
half-real look at the lives of Steve and Chris Wilkinson and
children Kiaya, Tyler and Amanda.
Sitting
in the livingroom of the log home viewers watched them build
last season, the Wilkinsons chat happily about season two.
But
if they seem quick to separate the two seasons, it's because
they're still feeling a bit of the backlash from viewers who
didn't like portrayals of the family, their home region, or
both.
At
times, they said, they had to do scenes they felt didn't portray
them accurately; they'd also hoped their music would be featured
more often.
"Hopefully
we will smooth some ruffled feathers," said Steve.
"There
were a lot of people who were bothered by the fact that just
as it was going more into the family ... it would break off,"
said mom Chris Wilkinson.
Fans
weren't necessarily happy with the guest characters, a rotating
cast of crazies that defined season one.
"It
was distracting that each episode a new character would pop
up and then they'd be gone," Tyler said. "It felt
like the Polkaroo."
That's
changed thanks to screenwriting by series newcomer Adriana
Maggs and the direction of Phyllis Ellis, who appears as the
band's fictional manager.
"This
time around it's closer to us because the humour is not so
bizarre," said Chris. "It's more about us. It's
got more heart."
Though
acknowledging everyone expects the family to gush about the
series, Steve said he's genuinely happy with their second
attempt.
There
are separate moments in which both Amanda and her father are
in tears - real tears - while talking about family relationships.
"Those
are honest moments," Amanda, 25, said, but stressed the
series isn't all hard fact.
"You
can't take the show literally," Amanda said. "If
you are, there's something wrong."
By
popular demand, season two refocuses on the family dynamics
and the music. There are concert shots of the band at the
Havelock Jamboree, scenes of Amanda singing solo, and rehearsal
and performance footage of Motion Picture Ending, the local
rock quartet in which Tyler, 22, is also a singer-guitarist.
There's
also more room this year for the non-singing Wilkinsons. Chris
and daughter Kiaya, 17, get a bit more screen time, bringing
them farther into the family spotlight.
"It
was fun," Kiaya said. "I had a great time doing
it."
At
times, she said, it was hard to juggle her high school classes
and the shooting schedule, but she and her mother said their
new fame hasn't affected their everyday lives much, but they
do get noticed.
"I
have to go out with my makeup on now," Chris said with
a laugh.
Tyler,
meanwhile, said he's convinced he's the family's worst actor.
"It was kind of evident the crew thought I was the worst
at it," he said, smiling.
"They
always had me sleeping or eating," he said as his family
broke into knowing giggles. "They're like, 'Just sit
there and play video games.'"
Ted
Ellis, director of programming for CMT's parent company Corus
Entertainment, said the first season performed 20 to 30 per
cent above his expectations for ratings.
Corus
doesn't release ratings, but Ellis said The Wilkinsons was
competitive and fared well among viewers ages 18 to 49.
"We
were very happy with it and surprised, in fact," Ellis
said. "Of our original shows we've done, it would be
the strongest-premiering original Canadian production ever."
Not
ones to be idle, the Wilkinsons just completed recording segments
for CMT Central and are now preparing for the March 20 release
of their fifth album, Home.
Eleven
of its 14 tracks were penned by the family; fans will see
a few in development during the TV series.
The
next single will likely be Nobody Died, written by Tony Haselden,
who also wrote hits such as Take It Like a Man for Michelle
Wright.
The
song is about violence in schools and the video may see the
Wilkinsons making a social statement against such violence,
Steve said.
"I
don't think it'll change the social order," he said.
"Maybe it'll make people a little more aware."
The
band's new website is online now at www.wilkinsonsonline.net.
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