Music Marketing Part 2

 Hey Hey Hey!!

As I’ve now culminated my music marketing project, I want to reflect on my journey on one of the best projects I’ve completed, even more so as I had the help of amazing partners to create it with.

The first part we tackled was the research. As we all did not have a clear idea or vision as to what bluegrass was, we first researched it ourselves to get a sense and feel of it and then dived into researching companies that produced these artists as well as the artists themselves. When we really got that true sense of what it was, as we are 4, we decided to split into 2 groups of 2 in order to research two record labels, their history and the artists/groups they represent. Information such as when they were founded, what type of music they produce, awards etc. were put on the history side in order to later remind ourselves what the company is made of. Next to the history column, as previously mentioned, we added some of the artists they represent and a couple of recognitions they received as well. Here’s a bit of my partner and I’s chart on Rounder Records so you get an idea of how it was organized.

Besides that planning, we went ahead with tackling one of the bigger pieces of the project, the music video. If I am being quite honest, although we did our research and chose the best song that we felt that would best represent bluegrass and would reel in audiences into the genre, it was a bit hard to think of a concept that would best represent the song. My partners and I  had a couple of ideas here and there, in fact we had a ton, but it was mainly random ideas that were making us fall out of what the song was and meant. After brainstorming that whirlwind of ideas, we all came to the conclusion that we wanted for the song to have a nostalgic or intimate to life feel and really represent what the song talks about, reaching for something different in life.

Once we got our idea we got storyboarding. Initially I had a concept and my partners, and I had agreed on it, but one of them told me to hand my storyboard over and let her make a few changes. Of course, I trusted her and what she ended up doing was magic. They ended up changing a decent amount of my idea to something much better. For our music video we decided to follow through with the idea of an aspiring actor being forced to continue on with the average life, knowing very well he dreams about something bigger. After we solidified our idea, we began to look for someone that truly understood and felt that they wanted to be on-board with the project. Just so you guys get a feel of our artistic direction, I’ll give you a sneak peek of a draft of our storyboard!!

Next up, the actual production, my 3 partners and I got together at one of our houses and began to shoot for around 4 hours. They were tedious as we had to play a bit with the lighting, techniques, and mise-en-scene elements we wanted to include and further establish in our music video. The best part was our actor, as he let us creatively direct and do our thing and even provided some suggestions. As we really had this idea thought out and discussed throughly the night before the shoot, production felt pretty straightforward, unless one of us felt the need to change an element such as lighting or a prop. 

As of post-production, we decided to split. We had discussed again what we all wanted to see in this music video, and finally left it to the pros, our two beloved and great partners. While they ran off to show off their talent, my other partner and I decided to tackle a decent part of the presentation. We did start it during our brainstorming time and really just splattered our ideas on a Canva presentation, but now meant business. We sat together during and after class to meticulously create ways in which we could attract fans or audiences into our next big thing. We made sure not only did we make sure our “clients” would be able to grasp the big picture of our strategy, but also that we put enough detail into it so that they could also “unlock” that extra intention we added behind each strategy. In the presentation, we made sure we had constant and similar themes, colors, and strategies to create that very much needed brand for our artist. 

Finally, for our presentation, we went for voiceovers for each slide to make sure that not only we all had an equal chance at speaking up, but, that we were able to have time to speak up about each slide’s idea in detail. We wanted to ensure that all ideas were brought up in their complete nature and intention to further persuade our “clients” on why our artist and their single can become the next big thing.

Most definitely, this project has left me a mark. I learned how everything in the music industry has intention behind it, and how important it is for it to be there. I also learned how valuable it is to research ahead of time about your client, even if you may think you know what they’re about. From what I was able to pick up on, when comparing and contrasting with other peers of mine that did have genres they felt they knew about, you still have to reach the very bottom of it and understand it completely to then further meticulously line up a plan to make it work. Aspects I feel that will help me in my incoming portfolio project are the pre, during, and post production parts. Although I only really took part of pre and during the production, and was monitoring the post, I was really able to take in all sides and stages to a project and had an idea of how extensive and detailed every moment of that is as well. Overall, I was really capable of taking in how detailed everything is, how throughly you have to think about it, and how it takes up steps (multiple I should say).

This project is definitely one for the books!!