In my AICE Media Studies class in school, me and my classmates are learning about music marketing and brand development through a music marketing campaign project. We were put into groups and assigned a random music genre, in which we would choose one out of four songs to do our music video to. We would also need to create a "new" band or artist. Me and my groupmates got the genre of alternative, and we chose the song we liked the best: Night Running by Cage the Elephant. First of all, I did not know anything about the alternative music genre before this project, so I had a lot of research to do. Also, these songs didn't really fit my taste, so I would have to adjust to it throughout this project. I ended up liking the song. But to start the project, we would have to make a schedule.
Before doing anything towards the completion of the project, me and my groupmates got together to make deadlines for each component of the project. There were four main components to our project, that we had to complete in a short amount of time. These components were the storyboard, research paper, music video, and presentation. All of this had to happen in around two weeks. So, we had compiled a schedule to keep us aligned and ready for the completion of this project.
Picture of schedule
Next, we wanted to complete the research paper, as we agreed in our schedule. We had to research two music publishing companies who each had two artists or bands that worked for them. We also had to research the individual artist or band's marketing strategies, distribution practices, and fan interactions. We decided to study Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner Music Group. These two companies are very large companies, so finding artists would be simple to do. This research paper helped us understand what alternative music was.
Image of the research paper
Next, we had to think about ideas of our music video. We decided that we would do more of a storytelling type of a music video, rather than an artistic and promotional video, although we would have some promotional elements and shots. We created a document where each member of our group would write down an idea that would fit the song and write a basic plot of the storyline.
Music video ideas
Once we had chose our story plot (the robbery and police chase), we then started to expand our ideas and start writing out a shots list. Rather than doing a storyboard right away, we wanted to discuss the different shots and all of the storyline plots that would happen. We created a document where we split the song into 6 parts: a beginning instrumental, verse 1, chorus 1, verse 2, chorus 2, and an ending instrumental. In each of these parts of the song we would have a different pace of shots because the pace of the song is slower in some and faster in others. Once we had all of the storyline elements discussed, we created a shots list of all the shots we would have in the music video. This would make the production of the storyboard and the music video much easier.
List of shots for music video
After creating this list of shots, we decided that it was time to start working on the storyboard. This storyboard would help us film the music video later. While I was working on the storyboard, the rest of my group began on the presentation. I chose the 20 most important shots to the plot and included them in the storyboard. I included the shot type, angle, a description of the action, and a picture for each scene.
Image of storyboard page 1
One of the biggest challenges we faced in the music video planning was that we wanted to have a cop car drive up to a "robber," but no one in the group had a cop car or a drivers license. This got us thinking. We could ask one of our friends to be an actor who can drive the cop car. One of the two problems were solved. But none of us had a cop car or siren. This problem stumped us until one of us suggested that we could edit the police lights in when we were doing post-production in the editing process. Another problem occurred to us. We didn't have a cop costume or a gun for the cop. Also, we can't include the image of a gun as it's a school project. We thought for a while about this setback. We then suggested that we could try to use an "undercover cop" who just has a badge, and we could show this by having a closeup of the badge. This would work, but how would we represent the gun in the video. We took inspiration from another video and thought we could film the shadow of the "undercover cop" and show him holding a "gun" and firing it. This would work.
Now we had everything we needed to start our music video, we just had to film and create our presentation. The day after we finished our storyboard, we went to film, which went smoothly and quickly. We also discussed the major marketing plans needed for our band. Our band's name would be RedSkyz. The further steps we need to take are finishing the research for our presentation and compiling all our information into an easy to read format in our presentation. We will also create social media accounts and a website for the marketing of our band.
