Music Marketing Blog Post #2

Our music marketing project was extremely enjoyable to work on and really taught us all a lot. Not only  were we able to display our film technique knowledge when making the music video, but we also used our knowledge of color, and lighting to ensure that our singer was able to lip sink properly. Additionally, we tried our best to implement the presentation techniques that Mrs. S gave us, making the power point simple, and having few lines on each slide, by memorizing most of the information.

To begin, we were assigned the Rock genre. Our song "Time Is Running Out" by the band Muse was chosen by our group to be the center of our marketing campaign. We began by conducting research on two record labels that our known to have famous rock artists, Warner records, and Radio Corporation of America. Then, we each conducted further research on an artist, or band who is contracted by one of these two companies. My job was to conduct research on a band called Red Hot Chili Peppers. They are a well known Punk Rock band that performs year round at many venues, and also hosts talk shows. Originally, the members of the band were all classmates at Fairfax high school, and their first major hit was their song called "Under the Bridge" which took off in 1992. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a prime example of a band that used technological convergence, and digital marketing to advertise their songs, and market themselves. Not only do they have various social media pages, but they also have a mobile app, a website, and a merchandise store. Because of all these new techniques the band was able to market themselves further and gain a significant following basis. 

With regards to the brain storming, and planning: we began by first listening to the song multiple times, and reading the lyrics over and over again. After we all had agreed upon what the theme/message of the song was, we began to map out the various scenes that we felt would math the song, as well as promote our artist. Sam created a story board on her Ipad, and we all began to discuss what the first and final shot would be. We came to the conclusion that our theme should be about drug addiction, and that our music video should promote a positive social message as well as show that if you are fighting addiction it is important to get help. I included our story board bellow, as well as a link to our power point. 

After we had finished our planning and our story board, we began to start filming. Thankfully,
Sam is a member of CBTV, and was able to borrow a light kit, as well as a few cameras to make our project look far more professional. We first filmed at Markham Park, using a wide variety of long shots, close ups, and extreme long shots in the process. We then went to Sam's house where we shot most of the artist advertising related scenes. We used a wide variety of different angles, camera movements, and colors to keep the scene interesting as all there really was to look at was our artists face. We also filmed the drug addiction scenes here. What was really cool about these scenes was that we used a wide variety of props to display drugs, and used a striking two shot to establish the relation ship between our addict, and the person who is trying to save her from addiction. That was my favorite shots because we were really able to utilize proximic patterns to further contribute to the message of our video. 

 

 

After our video was done it was then time to create our presentation. A new idea that one of our group members mentioned was to use Canva to create the presentation as it is contains far more creative and innovative design styles and templates. To complete the presentation effectively we each picked two slides to complete and then present. My slide talked about marketing techniques and gave an outline for our campaign. I included examples of our social media pages, as well as created a Spotify account, and even example merchandise. When it came time to present I feel that our group did do a good job, but we could have spoken more clearly and been more concise if we had been able to practice a few more times together. Aside from that I believe that we all did a good job and learnt a lot about the whole creation, and marketing process. 

Finally, I believe that we learnt a lot from the whole project, not only were we further made to apply the techniques, and strategies that we were taught, but we also learnt that there are many key, unnoticeable steps that media producers must take in order to ensure that their projects are marketed successfully, and to the correct target audiences. Almost all aspects of the presentation will be helpful when it comes time to developing our Cambridge portfolio project. Everything from the shots, the composition, the editing techniques, the props, and even the marketing are all extremelly important in making a film successful. All of these things that I just mentioned will prove to be very use full when developing our Cambridge Portfolios. For me, I believe that the research aspect of the project will also be very important, as a lot of the information takes a good amount of digging before one can find exactly what they are looking for. Overall, I believe that the project was a great experience, we were able to work together, and work effectively to ensure that our band was marketed and created in such a way that we are able to captivate our target audience.