Music Marketing Blog #2

     Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a music marketing project to not only make a music video revolving around a new and upcoming band but also create a presentation on how my group and I aim to market the band and distribute the music.

Korn Album featuring "Blind"

    My group of 4 had to develop a brand for a whole new band from the ground up. However, we were given a folder of 4 songs from a specific genre that we randomly picked. My group happened to receive the genre of heavy metal/nu-metal, featuring songs from Slipknot and Korn. After discussing which song would be best for each type of music video (story, promo, and artistic), we settled that from the options, Blind by Korn would be the best choice for a promo/story music video, and it would also be especially easy to edit to the beat. Even though we were using the song Blind, we still had to create a band around the song and disregard that the song already existed. 

    After deciding on the song, we had to make a research chart on different bands in the same genre from two different record companies. Using this research chart documenting different marketing and distribution strategies, we would be able to effectively assess which we would use for our own band in our marketing presentation. Our chart featured System of a Down and Payable on Death from Columbia Records and Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed from Warner Records. 

    Once completing our research chart, we began storyboarding our music video and deciding when and where we would record. This was one of the more difficult parts of the project since we had to decide what our brand and public perception would be since it would decide how our music video should go. Many ideas were thrown around, from clowns to crazy blind people, but we eventually settled that a promo of the band would be most optimal for us. To make the promo video interesting and fit our theme and image, we decided that we should all wear prison and psych ward outfits to convey the idea that we are crazy, uncontrollable, and rebellious, all aspects that fit with the sound of nu-metal. 

Frame from Music Video

    The initial idea was to have all 3 of the band members wearing prison outfits, but unfortunately, we could not get all of them on time for the scheduled time we set to record. So instead we improvised and had me, the main singer, differentiate and have a ripped-up outfit with a muzzle over my mouth. This not only served as my costume and fit with the theme of prisoners but also served as a way to partly cover my mouth when I was singing to make editing and syncing easier later. On the day that we had to shoot, our team member who was meant to be behind the camera and film us had something come up and couldn't come, which caused a lot of problems during filming.

    On the day of the shoot for the music video, with only 3 team members, we did the best we could to make the most of our surroundings. When the shot would have to include all 3 of the band members, we would have to prop the phones up to desks or doors to get medium and wide shots of all of us performing for the promo. This lessened the variety of shots we could get of all 3, which is unfortunate since a promo music video should have a wide variety of shots. However, we used close-ups and mediums to our advantage so that only having one or two members in a frame would make sense in the context of the space.

    As we were storyboarding and organizing the music video, we were also working on our marketing presentation, making a list of all the major points we wanted to hit and what we wanted to include. We used the information from the research chart to influence our choices as well as keeping in mind that our band was a new one that would be limited in its resources and power. In our presentation, we had to include information like the genre overview, our brand, image, target audience, etc. to fully market the band. On top of this information, we decided to take a step further and make a website where the band would post information such as shows, upcoming music, and merch.

    In terms of editing, I took the main load. Editing to the beat proved to be harder than I thought it would've been, especially with some stylistic choices I made such as having multiple videos in one frame. Finding clips also started becoming a hassle the more I edited because I realized that we had not filmed as much as I had hoped which led to me struggling in some areas of the music video to find an appropriate clip that hadn't already been used. After making the main line edit, I chose to stylize the video quite a bit since the basic edit turned out relatively bland and boring, which is the opposite of what I wanted with a music video and song like this. I started to mess with the color of the clips and the layering of multiple clips as well. In the end, I was pretty happy with the end product. 

    Overall, this project taught me to utilize my time a lot more wisely, as I found myself scrambling to record the music video with only a few days left before the due date. I also learned to always prepare for the worst, as my group was not ready for our cameraman to be absent from recording, forcing us to cut down on a lot of ideas and visions we had. I think for my Cambridge portfolio, taught me that I must dedicate my own time to working on these projects and not just rely on my time in class. 

Music Marketing Process #1

    Our newest project is creating and marketing a new musical artist using a marketing campaign and a music video to illustrate their brand and character. We were given a genre with a list of songs to choose from, and the song we chose would be the one we would have to form our campaign around. My group got heavy rock and chose the song "Blind" by Korn. This came after much discussion about what types of music videos we could feasibly make with what we had available. The types included a story, a promo, focusing on the band members playing, or artistic, a more abstract way of portraying the song's essence. We ended up deciding that "Blind" would be good for promo or story, and we also decided it would be a good song to edit to the beat.     

A page from our storyboard

    Once deciding on "Blind", we made a research chart on different record labels and artists in the same genre. This helped us find marketing practices that we could utilize for our own band. My group used Columbia Records, housing System of a Down and Payable on Death, as well as Warner Records, including Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed. After getting our charts filled out with info about the bands' marketing and distribution practices, we began working on the storyboard for our music video and thinking of ideas for the marketing campaign PowerPoint we had to present. 

    This was one of the harder parts since we not only had to figure out which type of music video would be best for producing as well as building the image of our band but also trying to figure out what marketing techniques we should use. Our fake band is small and only just releasing their first single, so we had to keep that in mind and it handicapped us in our abilities to fully market or distribute the music. For example, a smaller band would not be able to hold a concert for a larger venue and would have to restrict themselves to pop-ups or be openers for other bands. We also had to think about the location we would film at and what to wear, as we decided on doing a promo music video, focusing on the musicians. We wanted a dirty and distraught look at the location, and we ended up on prison uniforms for the on-screen presence to establish the rebellious and almost dangerous nature of the band, further emphasized by the music.

    In the future, I definitely want to delegate my time better, as I felt as though I was rushing with the storyboard and marketing PowerPoint. I underestimated how little time I actually had to do these things, and it ended up hurting me. For filming, editing, and finishing the presentation, I would like to delegate the group's time better and our roles in everything. We have assigned one day to film the actual music video and the rest of the time editing as well as finishing the presentation. I plan to have 1 or 2 people edit the video, while the rest mainly focus on refining and developing the marketing presentation to its fullest extent. Hopefully, filming goes smoothly this weekend so we can edit and start finishing up the project!