Rick Ferrell, a Portsmouth native, has been supplying singers with their words and music for years, and is now ready to make good use of his lyrics himself, and went to his hometown and the surrounding area, to get some help.

Sean Daniel, Ohio University Southern special projects producer and owner and operator of Sean Daniel Media, said he and Ferrell had met while working on Hooks for Books at OUS and had been talking about working together on something since then. Ferrell performed in Portsmouth during the summer and while he was in town, they decided to do a video for his song, “Porchlight.”

The two, along with Brad Bear and some OUS electronic media students, worked a couple of months total on the project.

A scene in the video with a piano was shot in Ironton, in the Goldcamp building. Daniel said they bought about $100 worth of candles and that was all it needed. Another scene in the video, with a large dance hall, was shot in the same building.

“Merrill Triplet really helped us out with that,” Daniel said of the building’s owner.

The light bulb scene was shot on the third floor of OUS’ electronic media department, and the night street shots were filmed in downtown Portsmouth. Daniel said they lucked out during the shooting of that scene, as a water leak shut down the street.

“Having a company like Sean’s producing the video makes me excited about coming home to film it,” said Ferrell. “It’s a great song and I can think of no better place to tell this story.”

While Daniel shot the video under the name of his production company, he was glad to have the involvement of the students.

“I wanted to collaborate as much as I could with the school,” Daniel said.

Daniel said he hopes students can see the opportunities they have available to them.

“You want to shoot a music video, you can do it,” Daniel said. “Hopefully get some kids and local people knowing, ‘Hey, this is something we can do here.’ You don’t have to go to Hollywood to make it big and for something to catch on.”

Daniel said the video is on YouTube now and is getting hundreds of views each day. The video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/seandanielmedia.

“This thing has a really good chance of hitting VH1 or GMC,” Daniel said. “That would be really neat for the students.

“We are just having a blast, working with Rick,” Daniel said. “It’s never felt like it’s work at any point. Two local boys hanging out with a camera. I look forward to the next one.”

Ferrell is a Portsmouth West High School graduate and has songs for artists like Tim McGraw, “Something Like That,” Martina McBride, “Where Would You Be,” and Julianne Hough, “You, You, You.”