Beach woman's video is finalist in Pepsi rock video contest

By Carrie White Correspondent

Virginia Beach's Elisa Hansen doesn't care if people talk about her bad reputation, just as long as they vote for her group's video to win the first "Moonman" award at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards for the Best Performance in a Pepsi Rock Band Music Video.

The three-minute video, titled "One Wo(Man) Band," is one of the five finalists, chosen from a field of more than 650 entries.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with the 2007 Regent University graduate's reputation. The adult education teacher in Chesapeake was merely lip syncing to Joan Jett's hit "Bad Reputation," which she chose from a list of Pepsi-approved songs. She was struck by the line, "It's a new generation."

"With the integration of Pepsi and a rock band (two of the parameters of the contest), I thought the song was the perfect choice."

The video was filmed and edited by her husband, Scott, a filmmaker and 2005 graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design.

ODU engineering student and friend Justin Junda helped with the "visual effects and computer stuff" for the project.

Scott wrote, filmed and edited the video, which shows various incarnations of Elisa playing - and later destroying - various instruments in time to Joan Jett's song.

She is her own one-woman, fully independent band.

"It just shows a girl rocking out. Basically, she is thinking, 'I don't care what anyone thinks. I've got Pepsi on my side, and if you've got Pepsi and a rock band, what else do you need?' "

Although Hansen doesn't actually play the instruments, she does actually destroy them: "Rock stars destroy instruments. We were trying to go old school."

The trio never expected the video to go far.

"We were just having fun. We shot it in one day - eight, 10 hours. To be honest, I didn't expect it'd be so big. I was just having fun with my husband and his friend."

According to Hansen, the winner of the award gets a spread in Spin magazine and a five-day photo shoot, along with a trip to the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City.

"If we win, we would be accepting the award among all the people who we were inspired by. Puff Daddy is going to hand out the award!"

Online voters will decide the final outcome, and fans can vote for their favorite videos "up to 10 times a day," Hansen said.

Hint. Hint.

Carrie White, caramine2@aol.com