Music Marketing Project #2

 

    In this project, my group had created a music video for our band, Crepitus. While creating this video, we had explored multiple contexts that we were taught in class. In my filming location, I had to work very hard on exploring ways to work with the lighting. Since I was in public, I had to find a way to make my lighting box work while avoiding the interference of the normal public lighting. I also had to find a place that would work and have the empty and quiet vibe I had been hoping for. Luckily, I have family connections to a bar, so I was able to use the backroom on a day they weren't busy. This had allowed me to get very specific scenes that I had been hoping to use to help tell the story a little more clearly.

    Overall, I think my personal filming process went well. I hope to take a little more time to redo shots in a more controllable environment next time I have a project like this. I also hope to have better resources for costuming and lighting to help me have more creative freedom while filming.

Find the Behind the Scenes of the music video here.

Music Marketing Project

 For this project, my group has to create a marketing plan for a band in the alternative indie genre. In my group, I am mainly in charge of creating graphics for the band. So far, I have created the brand logo, a social media advertising post, and a merchandising campaign. The purpose of the color scheme used for these campaigns to symbolize peace, tranquility, harmony, and growth. This is describing where the band is at now in comparison to where they started, which will be described in the music video. 

(Above the logo for the band.)

(Social media campaign for their new song, which the music video will be to)

(Social media campaign for merchandise, which also allows for physical marketing when people wear it)

Most of the time, alternative indie bands use storytelling in their music videos, so my group will be doing this along with some promo as this is supposed to be the bands first release. The music video itself will be about each group member's struggle and how music had let them get away from these issues. This is meant to push the boundaries public knowledge, allowing for fans to know its ok to struggle, and there are ways out of it.

The Musical Genre

     The Musical genre in films often have a much broader target audience than one would think. Musicals that are composed by musicians such as Alan Menken or Stephen Sondheim tend to be much more well known by the average person rather than one by Bob Fosse or Galt MacDermot. This is because Menken and Sondheim musicals are often based off of already well known stories and produced by companies like Disney. These movies will have their target audience be children, and often are the types of movies that are continuously shown as the viewer gets older, and then are shown to the viewers children and gets passed down for generations.

    Movies like Les Misérables directed by Tom Hooper grossed over $442 million at box office, and Chicago grossed about $306 million. These movie-musicals target older audiences to understand the plot and are often favored by Musical-Theatre fans rather than the average 11-year-old-kid.

    Often, movie-musicals include very specific numbers to keep the audience engaged. For example, Little Shop of Horrors is a movie-musical from 1986 that is still very popular today. The opening number (Little Shop of Horrors) is a showstopping classic number that everyone that knows the movie is familiar with. The main characters (Seymore and Audrey) work at a flower shop. They sing the classic "I want song" (Skid Row & Grow for Me) where every character hopes to get out of the downtown slums. Typically, there is one antagonist of every show, but sometimes there will be multiple. In Little Shop there is the main antagonist (Audrey II) and the supporting antagonist (Orin). There is also often a love story between the lead characters, followed by a love song (Suddenly Seymore). To keep continuity and musical storytelling, there are also often reprises and repeats. Along with this is a showstopping number (Skid Row) and a finale (Don't Feed the Plants).

    A Musicals genre narrative can really go anywhere, since the only rule is there must be multiple numbers sung by the cast. This range can go from horror (Sweeney Todd), romance (The Last Five Years), and historical (Hamilton).

    Productions following the Musical genre will always need a composer and/or lyricist, unless they decide to make a jukebox musical (Mamma Mia, Moulin Rouge). All sorts of different lighting and shot techniques are used for musicals, too. Often, if there is a large dance number, long shots and extreme long shots are used to get all dancers in the frame (Seize the Day, Newsies). The sound in Musicals is always very important, since there needs to be seamless transitions from dialogue to song. Lighting and Closeups are often used to focus on whoever is singing in a particular song (The Other Side, The Greatest Showman).

    

    Rent, A modern rock musical, is known for taking a step away from the classic musical look. It takes place in New York City. It follows Mark, a filmmaker who is documenting a year, starting at Christmas. This story has many ups and downs and shows a realistic life of a New Yorker who isn't incredibly wealthy. Marks friends Roger, Benny, Collins, Angel, Mimi, Maureen, and Joanne, all have crucial roles in his life. Everything shown on screen is meant to be everything Mark captures on his camera at some point. This was a game changer for the musical world since it took such a different approach to not only the plotline, but the music itself too. The rock musical style started with Hair: The Musical, and was made popular by Rent.

    Marketing for Musicals often utilize the opening number, or showstopping number. For posters, the main characters are often used to create a design to best represent the basis of the whole show while using basic graphics and the main characters that keep the show memorable and easily recognizable.

Chicago: The Musical

In The Heights

13 : The Musical

Representation in the Media

    Representation in the Media is very important since it can change the entire portrayal of the reality created in the work. In the Hunchback of Notre Dame, representation is greatly used with two of their characters, Quasimodo and Esmerelda. 

    Quasimodo, a Hunchback, is the main character of the movie. He is the son of a Roma woman and has an Unknown father. Dom Claude Frollo (Archdeacon of Notre Dame) had reluctantly taken in Quasimodo to give him "salvation" although there was never an issue with him to begin with. Esmerelda, on the other hand, is a Roma woman who travels from city to city with Clopin and the rest of the Roma. Frollo's mission is to teach Quasimodo everything about Catholicism there is to know in order to give him sanctuary. He keeps him hidden in the bell tower to hide the fact that he is a "monster"' from the rest of Notre Dame.

    This movie uses othering to make Esmerelda and Quasimodo not only different from the audience, but from everyone else in the movie. The whole theme of the movie is to not judge others by their appearance, which doesn't only include how Quasimodo is a hunchback, but also speaks for the racism against Esmerelda throughout the movie. The opening song from this movie translated from Latin means "Someday, someday ...God speed this bright millennium. Let it come someday" which is sung to tell the listener that there is the hope that someday peace will come. That is said right before telling the story of  how Frollo found Quasimodo and singing the words "Who was the monster and who was the man?" Which is asked to tell that Quasimodo, despite his looks and being known as a monster, was the protagonist of this story who had done nothing wrong. Quasimodo is also a hard of hearing character, since the bells ring so loud in his ears all the time.

   

    Esmerelda faces a similar problem to Quasimodo. Frollo targets her since he dislikes how "impure" she is while she is just very involved in her culture. He tries to get Phoebus, who is in love with Esmerelda, to capture her so he can give her the option of salvation or death. These events later lead for Phoebus to also be discriminated against due to his involvement with Esmerelda, which had got him kicked off of the guard.

    Overall, the movie Hunchback of Notre Dame uses othering to represent disabilities, body types, POC, and women. The use of Dom Claude Frollo as the villain showed that ignorance can only get you so far and the powerful story of Quasimodo and Esmerelda had communicated that no matter who you are an how you look, it is what's on the inside that matters.

Soundscapes Project

In this project, we were directed to tell a story using only sounds with a partner. We were also assigned to use 4 foley sounds within the 1-2 minute time frame.

Approaching this project, me and my partner had decided we would make our project based off of a soccer game. To do this we would've needed to not only focus on what noise would be going on within the game itself, but also in the background too. We used our outline to highlight every single noise that could both normally be recognized in a soccer game, and also when you're just outside so we could layer the two to make it more believable. We had gone scene by scene in order to get every possible sound noticeable in the soccer game included in our project. To complete the project itself, me and my partner had utilized both Adobe Premier Pro and iMovie.

For the next time I use sound in a project, I would definitely like to use more believable sound effects. We had used many running sounds where the layering was not as strong as I had hoped it would be, so I would also like to get better at layering to make it sound more believable. I think our foley was done very well too, but I wish I had a better "foley stage" to record it in since the room I had used had a lot uncontrollable of background noise.

Soundscapes Project

One Word Film project

In this assignment, we were directed to make a 1-1:30 film where no words could be used but we were given an emotion to portray to practice our editing skills.

My group was given the word optimism. While we were brainstorming, we had thought of multiple ideas such as taking a test, applying for a job, etc. We had finally settled on a person doing an audition, since multiple of the people in the group to theatre, we would find it easy to act out the audition process while giving us more time to focus on the editing of this project. 

One Word Film brainstorming sheet

We had created our storyboard to help us recognize what angles we would need and where we should shoot the following clips. This helped us plan when and where we would need to be for the filming process of this project. After filming, I had decided to edit on iMovie since I had little experience editing and I had heard it's easiest to learn on iMovie and then take those basic skills to more advanced platforms later on. 

Looking at my finished results, I think the actual filming of the project had gone very well. Many different filming techniques were used, and the brainstorming sheet had helped us plan all of our shots out very well, so we knew what we were doing. I definitely think I could improve on my editing skills, I didn't have many clean transitions between clips so I think that specifically is what I should focus on. I also think my group struggled with continuity since we filmed on two separate days and we hadn't thought of us wearing different outfits when the film takes place within the same day.

One Word Film video

Camera Shots Quiz

 In this quiz, we told a story using 15 photos and utilize multiple camera shot types to help convey our story.

I told the story of a yellow creature who wanted to learn how to write music, and hired a teacher to help it compose a song.

I think in this assignment, I could've used more diverse camera angles and shot types. I had repeated using long shots and mid-shots a lot which could've been replaced with other options and the story could have been told the same or even better. I also think my storytelling was unclear and could use improvement. Another way I could've improved is if I had used better lighting to make what was on the computer more detailed, since that would help the viewer see what exactly the creature was working on. 

Link to the Camera Shots Quiz