Direct video link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRD3Cv4_NEg

Charlie Hill and fellow Ryerson film student Max Mezo have pulled off something rather intimate and magical in the age of COVID-19. They persuaded 27 Toronto households — involving more than 60 people and two family dogs — to take part in a new music video simply by standing in the windows of their homes and then doing a little dance.

“We caught people in their natural habitat and I’m really pleased by the range of emotions. A lot of it was basically rolling and letting people do what they want,” Hill said. So Hill went to a local Facebook group for the neighbourhood as well as a second Facebook group in the Scarborough Bluffs community and got plenty of interest.

“I think if we’d done it where I grew up in the U.K., we wouldn’t have gotten the same response. In normal times, people wouldn’t even think about responding. But there’s definitely an increase in awareness in helping out other people and the community,” Hill said.

“Also, of course people are stuck around the home and are kind of bored.”

Hill and Mezo set up a schedule allotting about 15 minutes per home, set up a tripod outside and communicated by speaker phone.

“We asked them to come to the window and stand there and then we asked them to dance any style they choose,” Hill said.

Andrew Weeks, who lives in the Scarborough Bluffs area, said he’s glad his family — including two reluctant teenagers and the dog — took part.

“It was something to do to break the quarantine up a little bit. They (Hill and Mezo) had posted online about it and my wife were kind of thinking this would be something fun to do, an experience and also to help out the guys because they’re going through school and trying to make these videos. Our kids are teenagers so it was something to get them out of their shells as well. It was just something fun to do,” he said.