Music Marketing Project Pt. 2: Reflection

 

Jigsaw Youth Logo

    Researching the alternative genre was an easy process for our group because we were able to evenly distribute the work, and we had some fun while doing it. Shannon focused on Modest Mouse and the Shins, Bri worked on the Gorillaz and the history of Subpop, while I did the Arctic Monkeys and the history of Warner Records. While we did assign specific parts of the research to do, we still collaborated on the information we would find. The research that we did share would end up being mentioned in the presentation. 

    Once we finalized our research and choose "Night Running" be the song for our music video, we can to brainstorm the concept of the video. I immeditely knew that I wanted it to be filmed at night, and not only because of the title.  When I listened to the song and read the lyrics, I imagined that the character we would create would be running from something, but figuring out that something was what I needed help on. As we laughed and chatted at Panera, Bri mentioned the idea of the protagonist being a monster. Bri's simple concept of a monster was the key to opening up our imagination to the different possibilites we could have this "monster" be or look like. After another hour of brainstorming, we decided that the monster could be someone who the protagonist would least expect, such as a friend. Eventually we decided that the monster would be a concept of the protagonist's head, almost like their experience with the monster was nothing more than a dream, or what later became to be as paranoia. 

    Production for the music video was the most challenging aspect of the project. We split the filming process into two days, with the first day being focused on getting the running sequences of the protagonist, and filming the opening scene, while the second day focused on the car sequences and running shots of the antagonist. Since our video took place at night, we had to get creative with the lighting, hence we brought bright flashlights and a borrowed lighting kit to our location. Instead of using the equipment to simply light the scene, we wanted the lighting to add a deeper meaning to the story, so we had Shannon bring colored binder dividers and we would place them on top of the light. Each color would symbolize the immediate action happening within the video: red represented evil, blue illustrated innocence, which contrasted the orange's meaning of chaos, and purple demonstrated fear. In some shots, we would mix the colors, such as in the close-up shot of the protagonist spinning, we mixed purple and blue together. Along with the lighting, it was difficult trying to film scenes that required a stunt. For instance, the car chasing scene at the end of the video required Sophia M (the protagonist) to drive the car fast enough where I couldn't keep up, while Shannon had to keep the camera steady and hold the flashlight. The amount of times we had to re-film that one shot was exhausting, especially when Sophia M would drive the car too slow, or I would start running too early. We eventually got the shot, and ironically it is the group's favorite part of the whole video. 

Close-up spinning shot of protagonist - mixture of blue and purple light

    Once we wrapped up filming, I was tasked with editing and putting together the music video. In order to create that feeling of paranoia that we concepted at Panera, I wanted to make Sophia M's world seem imaginary the second she fell off the pad, which required me to use Adobe Premiere for the distortion effect. Along with the distortion, I wanted to demonstrate Sophia M's thoughts as she was running away from the antagonist. Therefore, I layered multiple shots together, including repeats of us chatting in the opening scene, to a close-up of my face turning red  to illustrate her retracing her steps, trying to figure out why her friend would do this to her in the first place. I also lowered the opacity of those shots so that they can be seen and contrasted with the close-up shot of her spinning. As for the lighting we did during production, I made sure to exagerrate the color a little bit during post-production, so that each meaning of the colors we used was clearly understood. Throughout post-production, everything seemed to be smooth sailing until my computer crashed, and I lost all the footage. Fortunetly, I was able to recover it, but I almost gave up entirely because I spent two days, one of which I stayed up extremely late, to finish editing. My favorite part though, despite losing my footage and crying profusely, was seeing the video complete, and watching our late nights of filming come together in this music video. 

Example of layered shots/opacity

Example of distortion

Fun Fact: Some of the shots included in the music video were bloopers, such as the shot of Sophia and I  laughing on the top. 
 

Once we completed filming, Bri and Shannon began the presentation while I was editing. Eventually, I completed the music video and joined them on creating the presentation, and our first obstacle was how we wanted to theme it. We wanted the aesthetic of our presentation to match that of our band, Jigsaw Youth. I wanted it to be a vintage space theme (pictured below), but Shannon and Bri disagreed, explaining how it was best if we did something simple. We kept the idea of cool-toned colors as demonstrated in the space theme, but what changed was Shannon's idea of using a puzzle piece for our logo. Along with creating a theme, we also wanted to make sure that our marketing strategy was able to reach out to teenagers. While we did include social media into our plan, we wanted ours to be different from the bands we studied, and thanks to Shannon and her AICE Business class, we were able to include guerilla marketing. We felt that incooporating zine interviews into our plan allowed us to reach a niche group of individiuals within our overall target audience. As we concluded our presentation, we had trouble deciding what our main selling points would be, and that's where I thought of allowing our puzzle piece logo to symbolize more, and instead represent our music rather than our band name. At first, Bri had the idea of each music video having a hidden piece within it, and once it is found, the code of that piece can be put into the website and a prize would be involved. However, I thought that would be a little complicated, and instead suggested that each music video is a continuation of a story, or a single piece to an overall puzzle, which would be Jigsaw Youth's album. 

"vintage space" inspiration

    Working through every portion of the project, while having stressful obstacles to overcome, was one of my favorites to do. The group that I was able to work with was diligant and helpful throughout all aspects of the assignment. We were able to give each other constructive critcism, and come to a solution that incorporated everyone's opinion. In terms of filming the video, I learned that in order to get the best shot, we had to be meticulous with where the actors were standing, as well as where we had to place the camera from beginning to end. Some of the shots shown in the video took a minimum of ten tries before we were able to get the perfect take. This project also gave me an opprotunity to re-learn how to edit, and being able to have creative control over the process allowed me to play with the program, and teach myself new tricks that I could use for the future. Researching how other alternative bands put together their brands gave us helpful inspiration when creating ours, while making sure we gave ourselves room to branch off from existing artists.