Music Marketing #2 - Vlog

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/15fibQzbjCp4MPmrdoxHWw6JLsqjMr8xJ/view?usp=drivesdk 

Music Marketing #1

 After learning about the Media Context essay along with it's prompts, formatting, and it's respective vocabulary, we were assigned a Music Marketing Research Project to research a specific music label and two artists under their label as "Case studies." In groups of 4 we were randomly assigned a music genre to research and we all had to focus on different artists. The full instructions were as followed:

1. Your group (groups consist of 4-5 people) will be randomly assigned a music genre.

 

2. Conduct and compile research on the marketing and distribution practices associated with the genre of music:

• Each individual in the group should choose one music production company and two artists/groups represented by each company that represent your assigned genre (if there are numerous artists or groups you wish to research that are all represented by the same production company, that is fine).  The artist/group that you choose must have produced and released music within the past five years.
• Be sure to research modern trends in marketing and distribution, as well as past practices.
• Your case studies should be artists that have released music (a full album is best) within the past five years.

Use the link below to access a blank chart.  Each group member will fill out one chart. Charts should be shared with fellow group members.

We were assigned to the Pop genre. I chose to research the record label Island Records and the artists Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. I made the following chart:

Music Research Chart - Andreina Dominguez.docx

During research, I realized how important partnerships are in terms of building a larger audience and maintaining an original target audience. I found it interesting how Sabrina Carpenter partnered with a masculine whiskey brand to appeal more to older male audience, as her target audience is mostly 18-24 year old girls. It was genius as it kept to her brand, as she's partnered with alcohol brands before, promoted her music, all while expanding her audience. Partnerships were also a great way to establish brand identity as Chappell Roan, known for her outlandish, drag-inspired makeup looks, partnered with Sephora to match her brand. These insights helped us plan for the park 2 of our music Marketing project, creating our OWN brand through a music artist/group.

Our group was given 4 songs to choose from that was part of the music genre we researched (we ended up picking the song "We are Young") and from those songs, we had to Create a marketing campaign for a new music artist/group. We were tasked to build the brand from the bottom up and use this marketing campaign to introduce our musician(s) to the public.

Our group decided on a sort of 2016-inspired boy group, focused on living in the moment and having fun, living solely by the moto "YOLO." Our groups brand aesthetic is focused on the boy bands "One Direction" and "5 seconds of summer" making various promotional videos to bring back the 2010's aesthetic, riding on the wave that is the 2010's aesthetic coming back on especially Tik Tok. They'd use Tik Tok to create raw, fun content to attract teen to young adult female audiences. Instagram, a PINNACLE of the 2010's aesthetic would be used not only to promote their music, but bring back the same aesthetic that seemingly everyone had back in the 2010s. 

Our band's aesthetic is very casual, but also beachy , as they're all california boys and the beach is a major part of their brand. Think "Cake by the Ocean" by DNCE type of aesthetic. Ripped jeans, jean jackets, stripped shirts and checkered vans at the beach. Here's a Pinterest board of the aesthetic/brand they're trying to portray:

https://pin.it/71JcHFqnE 

Mise-en-scene Multimedia Project

Summary of Activity

 This week, we were given a fun little activity called "Multimedia Mise-en-scene." In this project, we were assigned a prompt of a character we had to develop. In groups we had to include: 

• Description of character (don’t forget to give your character a name)
• A mood board for the character (must include at least 10 elements)
• A representation of a chosen setting for the character. This setting should directly relate to the character and include elements that further develop the character (think about colors, fabrics, objects, etc.).
• Audio elements that represent the character. This could be a song – or series of songs – background music to create a mood, stings.
• Tactile representations of your character. This should be something visitors to your station can touch and feel. 

Within our groups we had to discuss how we would develop this character through their physical representations (appearance, costuming, makeup, etc.), setting, and audio that would be associated with the character. 

in our group we were assigned this character description:

"Driven by a thirst for knowledge and adventure this character seeks out new experiences and uncovers hidden truths. Their curiosiy often leads them into unexpected situations though..."

During presentation day, we only had 7-8 minutes to represent our entire character through our station, so we had to get creative!

Our Character

With our description, we decided to go for an adventurous girl, much like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider or a girl version of Indiana Jones. We settled on this description:

Quick brief description: 

    The representation of the character is a 22 year old woman who’s name is Rhia Wildur. She is in a jungle looking for the legendary golden treasure box. She has a pet monkey named Rufus. He is an emotional support animal and she takes him everywhere. She encountered trouble during her adventure but it ended well for her.

• Appearance: Hair in a bun with strands of hair framing face, tall, built, toned in body, lean, rugged appearance. Brown hair with golden highlights, green eyes, freckles, sun-kissed olive skin tone. 

• Costuming: Brown combat boots with dark green khaki shorts, brown belt with satchel, map attached to satchel. Dirty off white button up shirt. Backpack with brown monkey on shoulder. Hand belt on arm with a knife.

• Makeup: Scars on her face and she’s dirty 

• Setting: deep jungle setting looking for a mysterious ancient tomb

• Character’s bedroom or most utilized space: tent with maps, books, scholarly papers, lit by a candle, its messy and used for research, where she sleeps and uncovers mystery. 

• Audio: Background music of the jungle similar to temple run music. Animals in the background as well. Mysterious music whenever she uncovers a secret about the tomb, whenever she encounters trouble intense music is played.

What We Created

We wanted to create a sort of immersive sound/audio station where the audio would immerse you to AI videos made in the characters point of view, really making you feel like you are the character. These included all of our 3 settings (the tent, the jungle, the temple) with audio pertaining to these settings, same with background music to really sell the fantasy aspect of our character and her world. 

Next, we worked on the mood board, grabbing all elements that inspired her, such as Lara croft, Indiana Jones, and even Ellie from "The Last of Us", and threw it all on a board with other elements that represent her, such as her outfit, her hair, the jungle aesthetic that inspired her, and certain objects we think she would have/use regularly.

After that, we created a quick powerpoint to describe her character and setting more deeply, as we felt what we had wasn't enough for the station. It included the inspiration pictures plus colors that would be associated with that particularly setting. Colors that would be used in the scene if she was being filmed in that particular setting. 

https://www.canva.com/design/DAG2kCyWGK8/VqLj2QXZhT6M8nF2AxGAWA/edit

Lastly, we had to work on the tangible object. We had been brainstorming the tangible object for the entire project but had complications last minute in doing it, so we had to improvise. At first, the idea was to create a treasure chest with treasure inside but, it didn't work out so we decided to create a page of a letter given to her, a scroll, and a map that were all aged and then to make them look adventerous and rugged. We also decided to include a big bag of treasure with precious stones and jewelry inside, making up for the lack of a treasure chest we had.

Development of Character

When brainstorming the development of our character, we had to use our representation of character lecture, developing character with the following elements:

• Construction - When showing the character, in production we would use a lot of low angle shots with the character when showing the temple to show the power and grand mystery that the temple show, but when showing the character the lighting would probably be moodier when uncovering mystery but intense when she gets into trouble due to the mystery. But mostly, the character would be shown in a lot of yellows, beiges, browns, and cool greens, fitting her adventurous lifestyle.

• Selection - we would make sure to include a lot scenes with her surrounded with books, globes, maps and papers to not only show that shes a character of high intelectual, but to show the amount of studying and dedication she's gone through just to uncover this mystery. Compasses would also be shown a lot, same with backpacks since their linked with travel and discovery.

• Stereotypes - She's depicted as a tomboy, not wearing any makeup and always having her face dirty since she's constantly working tirelessly, not caring about her appearance. There would be a lot of stereotypes in the scenery as well, having the temples be inspired off of mexican/aztec culture, maybe de-centering the culture, and using it to contrast the American Explorer character in a foreign backdrop traveling to find treasure.

Final Reflection

Overall, I believe ve considering the complications that we had throughout the project, it was a great first start. Our teacher told us that most likely, we would be doing things like this again, and i'd definitely love to make my project more interactive and interesting for people to experience. Sure, I'm not 100% satisfied with the outcome and I felt like there were many parts we could've expanded the project more, especially after viewing everyone else's take on the project. But failure is redirection and I learned so much regardless!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hbY6Tp9HhUCiRjLzj8X8-7WMIC-tENxz

One Word Film Project

     For the last 2 weeks we have been learning the importance of editing and how different types of cuts push a storyline. We were assigned a "One Word Film" project, where, with a partner, we were expected to create a short film that strives to represent a random word, given to me by my instructor.

    We were instructed to work with a partner; I picked my friend, Trisha Burr, and later got assigned our word, which was "awe." It was drawn out of a mug full of papers so that all words are truly randomized. Later, we were assigned a brainstorming and storyboarding activity. Our task was to basically write a list of shots and editing techniques that we could use for each shot we were thinking of doing for our film. It turned out like so:

For our storyboarding project, our task was to essentially recreate the shots we listed as a storyboard to show the pre-planning of the sequencing/editing of our shots. Our storyboard looked like so:

Although we had multiple different ideas on how to carry out this film, our idea turned out to follow the story of a girl who was being bullied by two girls and feeling a sense of awe when a kind girl at school decides to help her during her most vulnerable moment. 

    Being completely honest, I did feel like the restricted use of shots didn't allow us to express our full idea for our project, but it did help us see what different shots would look like and how we should approach the next step of our project, which was our filming.

    After all of our planning was completed, we began the filming process. We were given the following instructions:

• The film must be at least one minute and may not exceed 1 1/2 minutes. 
• No sound is allowed within the production. Therefore, all sound should be extracted from the video.

Our teacher allowed us to check out tripods or stabilizers to aid us in filming our project. We chose the tripod, as we would also be the actors for our film. But with actors came our first obstacle: we needed 2 more people to act in our film, and everyone else in our class was busy filming their shots. We tried asking some girls in our class, but we were not able to acquire their consent. So, to work around this obstacle, we decided to film all the shots that did not include those extra characters first. This led to us having to wear the same clothes on our next filming day to not have any continuity issues within the shots.

    We filmed all of our shots, striving to include the editing techniques we learned in class, such as the eyeline view or the shot/countershot. Unfortunately, there were many parts we had to cut, not only to keep it under the timeframe of 1-1.5 minutes but also due to external factors. For example, we wanted to film during our lunch time, but because we weren't allowed to check out the tripods outside of class time and my partner and I don't have the same lunch schedule, we had to scrap the idea. But I do believe that this made our final video more concise and follow a continuous order of events. 

    At the end, it took us two days to get all of our shots plus extra raw footage. The editing process was very short for us, as we organized our shots while filming, meaning all we had to do in editing was cut and place the shots together. However, we did have issues with our editing software.

    In our instructions, we were told we couldn't use CapCut, which was a problem because CapCut is the editing software that most teens are familiar with these days. So, I tried to use Adobe Express, but it kept crashing and lagging out my computer, not allowing me to get anything done. In the end, we resorted to iMovie and got the editing done in under 30 minutes.

OWF_Dominguez_Burr.mov

    All in all, I'm very proud of the project. With all of the obstacles we had, we overcame them promptly and accounted for future problems effectively. We were very resourceful when filming and had proper time management as well. If I were to do anything differently, I think I would've made the theme of "Awe" more clear throughout the story, as I fear it gets lost in the plot of the girl being bullied. Some of the scenes we cut pushed that theme more, but we cut them due to time constraints and a lack of actors. This did make our finishing product suffer, but in the end, it's a great start!

Camera Shots Quiz

    My first preliminary project in my AICE Media class was my Camera Shots Quiz. The activity directions required a partner, and you must convey a short story using only 15 shots while also applying the knowledge we learned in class about shot types to convey tone and emotion. 9 of those 15 shots had to be specific shots assigned by the teacher, while the rest could be shots of our choosing. The shots required were the following:

• An establishing shot
• A Long shot
• Two medium shots
• Two close-ups
• An Extreme close-up
• A Point of view shot
• Any type of shot using a high angle
• Any type of shot using a low angle
• Any type of shot with your subject on either the left or right third

Process:

Me and my partner, Trisha, and I started by brainstorming. We decided to go with a Romeo and Juliet themed story about a pencil and a pen who were separated. Part of the project was to use the environment around us as our subjects, so we had to be creative with what we chose to film. With our idea set, we created a graph in Word to divide our shots by Shot Type and Content. 

    After creating our shot list, we began taking our shots, keeping our subjects in frame and ensuring we weren't just following the list, but making sure our shots conveyed meaning as well. In the end, the description of the short story became this:

STATIONED TO LOVE

    "Film following Pencil and Pen, two pieces of stationery that fall in love. They are together before one of them accidentally gets knocked off the table, separating the two of them. The way they were reunited brought friendship between Trisha, the Human, and Andre, her Classmate, spreading the overall theme of how love spreads through the kind actions of others."

Reflection:

    All in all, I believe we did the project to the best of our abilities. And my teammate had great communication and discussed the story well before starting our shots. We had the same ideas when it came to conveying meaning through shots and compromised well whenever we had a different direction for a shot. If I could do something differently, I would pay more attention to the Rule of Thirds and stabilize my phone better when taking shots, since some of the shots ended up having a canted angle, which was unintentional. I think a great way to fix this problem would be to invest in a tripod. All in all, great first project! 

 Andre's Little Blog Intro

    Hello, my name is Andreina, otherwise known as Andre, and this is my little blog! A cute little blog, I will care for it as if it were my own child. This post is like a birth into the new world of blogging, I have never done it before, hence it is so little as my expertise is not so large. My expertise in blogging is just as little as my knowledge of AICE Media. This blog is meant to document my progress and creative process throughout my AICE Media Cambridge exam. It's part of my Cambridge portfolio project, so I'd better make it good!

    I joined AICE Media as I've just recently discovered the world of marketing, which is something I'm looking to study in college. With college applications just around the corner, I'm trying to solidify my knowledge of Media Studies as fast as possible to make my decision. I'm also Historian of the drama club, so this class will definitely help me out with creating engaging media for the Drama Club's socials. So far, I'm enjoying it a lot! It's definitely a very interesting topic, and I do see a future for myself in this path. I'm excited to learn more about the topic and document it on this now very little blog. And maybe, this blog won't be so little by the end of it. 

- Andre :)