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Giant Con is planning some ambitious multimedia projects this summer and they are getting lots of help along the way.

"We approached friends and people we know from the Black Knight to help," said Giant Con guitarist Steve Whittaker. "It's friends helping friends. People are being totally awesome, donating their time."

Photographer Pat Kane portrayed the band Giant Con as a trio of hard-edged Northern characters circa 1934 during a theatrical photo shoot last week. The musicians are, from left, Steve Whittaker, Bryce Styan and Brendan Callas. The band opens for Small Narrow Valley at the Top Knight at 9 p.m. tonight. - photo courtesy of Pat Kane

The band recruited professional photographer Pat Kane, who shot images of the band last weekend. The theatrical photographs, doctored to make them look like long forgotten relics from an abandoned cabin, portrayed the musicians as rough and rowdy characters from Yellowknife's earliest history.

Stylistically, the photo series is a template from which the band will craft their first music video for their original song Ciest to Lie (pronounced Cease to Lie). The band is teaming up with Collective 9, a community-based film production crew coordinated by professional videographer Jay Bulckeart, for the project.

"Jay approached us about collaborating and we jumped on it right away," said Giant Con keyboardist Brendan Callas. "We want to continually grow as a band by pursuing new opportunities."

Bulckeart is all about providing local artists with new opportunities. He produced a video for local hip-hop artist Godson for his rap song Like This, and is in the middle of a video project documenting this year's Snow King Festival.

"The idea behind Collective 9 is to get fun people together to do fun projects," Bulckeart said.

"I've seen Giant Con play many times and I think they're amazingly talented, so I snagged them before anybody else did. I want us to create an amazing movie video that doesn't just play up here but in the south, as well. We want to see what we can actually do by putting this out. We want to show what's possible."

The video will be set in the old Hudson's Bay warehouse in Old Town. The Rocher family agreed to lend the space to the artists for the shoot.

"They were absolutely helpful and willing to lend us the location," Bulckeart said. "That's been a really nice development."

The location is important because the band is trying to recreate the atmosphere of Yellowknife in the 1930s.

"We want to create a saloon scene and that just seemed to be the perfect place," Bulckeart said. Bulckeart is researching Yellowknife history in order to cast actual historical characters for the shoot, including an early mayor and an infamous town drunk.

The music video's mood will evoke the sights, sounds and smells of historical spaces such as Glamour Alley, a string of tents used for boozing and gambling near the base of what is now Pilot's Monument in Old Town decades ago.

"It's the rowdy, fun atmosphere of the hustle and bustle of a new gold town with new people coming in every day," Callas said.

The footage will also feature historical references and a few surreal anachronisms making reference to modern day Yellowknife. A few contemporary figures might be cast in cameo roles. Kane's photos will be used in a promotional kit as Bulckeart and the band approach local businesses for support. Funds are needed for props, costumes and "barbecueables" to feed the extras and crew, not to mention the myriad expenses that even a short video production could rack up.

The band's video release will coincide with the first Giant Con album. The musicians joined with another local artist with specialized skills for that part of the project.

Producer Travis Mercredi returned to town this spring after completing a sound design for visual media program at the Vancouver Film School.

"Everybody is chipping in to try to make this project the best it can be for them," Mercredi said. "I think that speaks a lot to the kind of people they are. They are a stellar band - the best band to come out of Yellowknife in a long time. When anyone hears them I think they know that this is something special."

Having experienced the film scene in Vancouver for a year, Mercredi said he is encouraged by the video projects he is beginning to see in Yellowknife.

"I think there's a certain push to find a new way to express Northern identity," he said. "With film it becomes a bigger production and involves more people. It's another form of media that will help expand the identity of modern people in the NWT."

The band is playing a gig on May 15 at After 8 to raise money for their video, which they hope to complete in time for Yellowknife's 75th anniversary celebrations.

"We're all born Northern and raised in the North," said Callas. "For us Yellowknife is where we grew up and Yellowknife is where a large chunk of our friends and family are."