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!

Mr. Robot Representation

    Mr. Robot's main character, Elliot Alderson, has DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder. This is a major and easily one of the most important parts of his character, and the plot revolves around this aspect of Elliot after the first season. 

This provides representation for people with DID, which is often misunderstood and misrepresented in the media. One example of this is the 2016 horror movie Split. In this film, the main antagonist is a person with DID, who is shown to be aggressive, dangerous, and violent and creates the idea that all people with DID are like this. 

However, this is far from the truth and only harms people with the disorder. Contrary to most depictions of DID, many viewers believe that Mr. Robot and Elliot are overall a good depiction of the illness. Sam Esmail, the creator of the show, was able to flesh out the disorder throughout the 4 seasons and portray it as accurately as possible, creating a praised representation of DID. 

    Mr. Robot doesn't limit its representation not only to the main character but also its main antagonist Whiterose. Whiterose is a trans woman who is the Chinese Minister of State Security and leader of the Dark Army, a Chinese hacker group. As a minister, Whiterose masquerades as male Zhi Zhang, and is truly herself when presenting herself as the leader of the Dark Army, using the code name Whiterose.

 

In contrast to most trans representation which consists of making a character trans and having their entire personality revolve around that aspect and ONLY that aspect of them, Whiterose is a complex and well-developed character, having more aspects to her than just her being trans. The character has received widespread positive feedback.

    In the show, Elliot is attempting to take down E Corp, a representation of mega-corporations like Google, Apple, etc. In the show, the company is always called Evil Corp because that is what Elliot has programmed to hear when someone says E Corp, showing the malicious nature of the company in the show.

 Evil Corp has a monopoly over technology like laptops and phones but also has control over banks and credit, owning 70% of the global consumer credit industry. Elliot also has a personal vendetta against them because of a gas leak that E Corp covered up in one of their facilities that led to the death of Elliot's father.  E Corp is a cliché representation of the personification of the top 1% of the 1% into a company.

    Mr. Robot also has a great representation of Middle Eastern and South Asian characters. The two characters, Trenton and Mobley, are both respectively Middle Eastern and South Asian and are a part of Elliot's hacking organization, F Society. They were not chosen just to diversify the cast, but Esmail explained in an interview with Vulture that they were chosen because these characters with these backgrounds are the people who would take the actions they do in the show and join F Society.

 Esmail growing up Egyptian-American in New Jersey also affects the lens through which the story is told, affecting the characters and casting. Esmail also cleverly uses the terrorist stereotype that has become associated with these races and makes it a part of the story. The antagonists, Dark Army, set up Trenton and Mobley to appear to have done a hack so that they would get all the blame without a second thought since their races are typically associated with acts of terrorism, especially in the United States. 

Genre Research

Sci-Fi 

    Science Fiction (or sci-fi) deals with the impact of science and technological improvements on individuals and overall society. These movies can range from E.T. to Alien, providing a wide variety of subjects and subgenres to choose from within the umbrella of science fiction. The audience for these movies are typically teens and adults as the reoccurring themes found in the genre are mainly for older and more mature audiences. I believe science fiction is popular with audiences, including myself, since it gives viewers an escape from their own reality and lets them enter into the world the film creates, more so than any other genre. This is clearly seen with some of the best-grossing movies and franchises of all time being sci-fi, such as Avatar ($2.9 billion) or the Star Wars franchise (a total of $10.3 billion). 

Content

    Sci-fi movies almost always have advanced technology that is the drive or creates the setting of the story. This can include spaceships and space travel, robots, time travel, etc. This is really the base of the entire genre and is set up around the idea of what this technology could do to us as a society. This produces pieces like Star Trek, which show the exploration of space and how advancement can better our society, and also films like Blade Runner: 2049 that show that technology does not always lead to good. 

    Dystopia is another common theme seen in science fiction films. I just mentioned Blade Runner: 2049 which is set in a dystopian world where wretched cities are covered in smog, cities are made into massive wastelands, and one must find what makes someone human, what makes someone alive. Dystopia is a state or society where there is great suffering and injustice. This is a popular convention in sci-fi as it can allow for commentary on the real world.

    Alien encounters are also popular in science fiction. Many times, when people think of space, they think of aliens or about what else could be out there. Science fiction movies featuring or about aliens feed that hunger. For the most part, these movies are mainly horror, depicting aliens as horrifying creatures that are a threat to us and have come to murder us all, such as "Alien" or "Killer Klowns from Outer Space". But there are some rare exceptions, such as everyone's favorite alien E.T., which shine a different light on extraterrestrials.

Production Techniques

    Props and set design typically play a big part in selling the movie since the audience has to believe that the story is truly taking place in a world different from ours. This is where production design comes in. They must make props, sets, costumes, make-up, and lighting that all work to create the world and help tell the story visually. Even the color of the environment or what the characters are wearing is important. The color white is typically used in futuristic productions to indicate cleanliness and advancement.

    

     Visual effects are a HUGE part of science fiction. Without it, I do not think the genre would be the same or as successful as it is today. Since the genre is so focused on what is not real or does not exist yet, many rely heavily upon VFX to show the viewer futuristic or alien technology or creatures, without having future technology that does not exist or real aliens on set. Avatar is a movie based on entire characters that are created with CGI and special effects, and as stated before, it is the most successful science fiction movie ever made. VFX mixed with practical production design leads to the best of both worlds, creating the best product you can get. 

Marketing

    Since sci-fi is a genre about aliens, robots, and all of the above, you can get pretty creative with marketing. Neill Blomkamp’s 2009 film District 9, a story about a segregated alien race, had benches around that would say "Bench for humans only", creating curiosity in the person that sees the bench and eventually calling the number posted on the bench. Sony claims to have received 33,000 calls from the ad.

  Another interesting marketing campaign was for the movie Ex Machina, which tells the story of a programmer falling in love with a machine. A Tinder account of the robot was set up and users could interact and text her. She would say lines from the movie before eventually directing them to the film's website. 

Samples:

Star Wars is the perfect example of the science fiction movies I have been talking about. There are technological advancements with space travel, lightsabers, and droids. There is a dystopian factor to it with the empire controlling the entire galaxy and Luke and the others being the ones to fight back and repel against the system. There are aliens found throughout the entire movie. The cantina scene alone shows you all you need to know. The set design of the movie is fantastic, particularly in the Millennium Falcon and the Death Star, which both have a futuristic look to them. Visual effects are also present with the lightsabers and scenes in space, as they mainly used miniatures to establish settings, spaceships, and scale. Marketing for Star Wars is also extremely present, with not only iconic items, moments, and characters, but even sound effects like Vader's breathing and the sound of an activating lightsaber. However, the cherry on top is Star Wars having its own designated day, May the 4th. 

The Matrix is another great example. The movie has more of a focus on the dystopian world that the characters live in, as they are forced into the Matrix to live a false life. There are technological advancements found throughout the movie, such as the robots that are present in the real world and the ships that they travel around in. The contrasting production designs in the Matrix and in the real world help establish how different each one is to one another. The real world is dark and dirty while the matrix is very sterile and clean looking. Special effects are used heavily in the movie as Neo, the main character, has powers such as flight that are used in the movie. The movie used a simple marketing campaign to spark curiosity in people while also connecting to the movie, what is the matrix? The viewers would be asking the same question Neo asks at the beginning of the movie, and they would have to watch it to find out. 

Some Sci-Fi Movies to check out:

Alien (1979)

Arrival (2016)

Nope (2022)

2001: A Space Oddessy (1968)

Metropolis (1927)

The Thing (1982)

Sound Project

    For our sound project, the class was put into pairs and had to brainstorm a 1-2 minute story that we could make using only sound effects and at least 4 Foley sound effects. The story had to be something that could actually happen in 1-2 minutes and we could only use 7 words for any dialogue, narrowing the possibilities that we had. The main focus of the project was to create a full soundscape and have depth and layering with all of our sounds and create a real world. 

  The pairs were required to make an outline to make sure that we had enough sounds and Foley to fill up the scene that we came up with. The pictures on the right is the outline that my partner and I came up with for our scene.

    My partner and I came up with the idea to do a western duel. We first came up with the main sounds that would be most important and primary to the project. We settled that these sounds would be the horse entering the scene, the main cowboy getting off the horse and walking, a church bell ringing, the dialogue, the gunshot, and the main cowboy laughing and walking back to his horse. After settling on the more important sounds, we began constructing the world by deciding what should be in the background. We decided on wind, sand, tumbleweed, birds and insects chirping, and people murmuring. All of these sounds would be the basis of our soundscape and create the world that we came up with.

    We then had to decided what sounds we would Foley and what we would just use online sound effects for. We decided to Foley what was the most accessible things to Foley, which was the horse hooves, the walking, the revolver, and the belt and clothes sounds that the cowboy would make. For the sound effects, went on multiple websites, such as YouTube, pixabay, free sound, sound bible, etc. This gave us all the resources we needed to create our soundscape.

       For editing the scene, my partner edited the beginning of the horse entering, the ending after the main cowboy shoots the other one, and the overall ambient sounds found throughout. I did the middle chunk of the the cowboy getting off the horse, walking, the climax of the revolver firing and I put all of the sounds together at the end. I used premiere pro to edit my sound. A screenshot of my timeline below shows the layering that I had for my section.

Below is the final product:

Camera Shots/Angles

One of the first projects assigned in my AICE media course was the camera shots and angles quiz. We were put in groups to make a PowerPoint slide consisting of 15 pictures with different shots and angles that told a story about a object of our choice through visuals only. 

My group chose water bottles as objects and our story was about one bottle stopping another from taking their life. After coming up with the premise, we came up with a shot list to help keep us organized and make sure that we got all required shots. Afterwards, we made the PowerPoint and put the photos in separate slides and wrote a short summary of the shot we used and why we used them.

I believe that my group's organization was useful, but I think it would have been better if each shot and how we ordered the shots had more meaning and purpose.

Camera Shots PowerPoint Link: file:///C:/Users/0613125780/Downloads/Camera%20Shots%20Quiz.pdf

Intro Post

 My name is Mateo and I am making this blog post for my AICE media course.