At Home in the Future

New York, the Jersey Shore, Nashville and California were all stops along the way to a barnlike building on a pleasant country road in Fairfield, where musician Bill Chinnock has turned his reputation as a frontiersman of music and technology into a successful business. Called The Artist Group, the enterprise is a “creative think tank” for filmmaking, graphic design, computer animation, Web site design and music composition.

The man whose music has pleased Maine audiences for over two decades now heads up a talented “virtual workplace” which brings together camera people, audio engineers, computer programmers and others to work on projects ranging from short commercial films for L.L. Bean and Cianbro to CD-ROMs, Web sites, and animated television spots for clients nationwide.

With The Artist Group, Chinnock has found a niche where he can stay on the leading edge of technology, pursue his love of music and music composition, and most importantly, hold the reins of his own future and choose the projects most interesting to him.

The Artist Group recently won the prestigious Cinema in Industry Gold and Silver awards for its film portrait of Cianbro, the construction company built by the Cianchette family of Pittsfield, one of Maine’s biggest businesses.

Chinnock loved that project. “We did a portrait, a study of the Cianchette brothers. We had carte blanche, and the control we needed to create some kind of message that they could send worldwide, and to their employees. It gave us a chance to look inside the lives of four brothers who made a company that has affected the lives of most people in Maine. It’s just a great Horatio Alger story.”

The film begins with sepia-toned shots of the Cianchette brothers talking about their family history, then breaks into full-color panoramas of the South Portland bridge project, waterworks projects, and smiling welders, crane drivers, foremen and safety inspectors. The film is accompanied by a cool, upbeat score composed by Chinnock.

Chinnock’s skill as a film director is a testament to his versatility and innovation as an artist. Since his early teens, he has been setting up bands, recording new musical hybrids, and generally pushing the envelope of accomplishment in the music industry. Growing up a half-mile from Manhattan in New Jersey, Chinnock discovered the pull of rock ‘n’ roll music when his father came home from work one day carrying a guitar for “Billy.” That was the incipience of his first band, The Storytellers, one of “about a hundred names we had.” Chinnock rounded up an organ player and a drummer from the Jersey Shore, and only lacked a second keyboardist.

“We needed a second keyboard player, so I went looking for one. When I found him, I had to ask his mother if he could be in our band.” One of their first managers was Les Paul, the man who pioneered the classic design of the Gibson electric guitar. Chinnock saw every act he could and worked with musicians now legendary in rock and blues.

“I was lucky — I grew up in the center of a hurricane. Every little nightclub had great music I could watch and listen to,” Chinnock recalls, his hands resting on his guitar. The nails of his right hand are long, the better to pick out the rock ‘n’ roll tunes that he’s set down on his eight albums, starting with “Bill Chinnock Blues” in 1976.

Chinnock left New York seeking peace and quiet in Maine, after the seven-days-a-week effort of playing in a successful band caused his health to break down. In the ensuing two decades, he’s juggled the dilemma of living where you love and working where you have to, recording in Nashville for Harold Bradley, one of Elvis Presley’s producers, and traveling to California to work with the Doobie Brothers on both a band and their new Web site. Chinnock started working with film in Nashville in the mid-’80s, when he produced three music videos for Country Music Television.

“I’ve always enjoyed being on the edge of things. I’m a technology guy,” he says, smiling, and points out that he’s been testing out new instruments since the beginning of his music career.

Chinnock took a big step in redefining that edge for himself when he launched The Artist Group in 1992. “I decided one day that it was time to do something which would provide more stability, so that I could stay in one place. It was like two sides of my life came together,” says Chinnock, who is creative director, editor and producer on all Artist Group projects. He finally had a way to stay home in Maine yet work with a talented group of artists via the virtual workplace that networking computers make possible.

And the talent shows in the array of projects The Artist Group has completed in five years. Using an SGI 3-D animation computer, Chinnock and The Artist Group have created several animated spots for television. In one, an enormous bull standing out in a field tells the viewer to say “Bull!” to bad credit. In another spot on motorcycle safety, a tiny, black motorcycle buzzes around in circles on a white background, emulating an annoying fly trying to avoid the “fly swatter” of an oncoming car. Chinnock created a cartoon character named Cody for use in promoting literacy. And he’s even made a short animated “moonwalk” advertisement for MTV.

Over the past five years The Artist Group has created Web sites for Maine outdoor adventure providers Northern Outdoors and for the Doobie Brothers, and a CD-ROM for Downeast Pharmacy. More Web sites, CD-ROMs and Internet projects are in the works. But lately, filmmaking has commanded most of Chinnock’s attention. He is just finishing up a 90-minute documentary on the Montessori education method, which will enable home-schooling parents to implement the Montessori philosophy on their own, even if they can’t afford to send their children to the private schools that teach it.

This summer, The Artist Group swings into high gear with two big film projects. “The Forgotten Maine,” a film intended for theatrical release, will chronicle the lives of four rural Maine families. Chinnock and his crew, which includes cinematographer Richard Searles, will spend a few days a month with each family and tell their story of surviving into the ’90s in the trades they’ve worked at for generations: farming, fishing, woodcutting and small business. The project is backed by Michael Fiori, the president of Downeast Pharmacy. And Chinnock is planning another film of great personal significance: “Portrait of a Country Singer,” a biography of the man he calls “my best friend,” his late father-in-law, Dick Curless. He hopes to release the film in Europe and in specialty theaters in the United States. The film will bring together interviews with Curless, footage of performances and lots of country music. “A lot of Maine artists never seem to get the recognition they deserve,” Chinnock says. “People don’t seem to realize that Dick was loved and respected worldwide.” “Portrait” will be The Artist Group’s first feature film.

Chinnock sees himself moving more and more into serious filmmaking, and really enjoying it. “I want to combine incredible music with incredible visual images,” he says. “Filmmaking gets us outside, as opposed to always staying in the dark . People say I’ve aged well, but sunlight never had the chance to hit my skin!” he adds, laughing. Sitting on the back deck of his studio, looking forward to his next two films and an upcoming concert date at the Maine Festival, Chinnock and his Artist Group seem to have moved into the sun of living and producing full time in the state of Maine.