Wow, this project was certainly something. Between the learning this project induced, and the time taken to experience the teaching, I feel like a changed man. I am blessed to be a member of the group I am a part of, but like all good things, there are some speed bumps one must go through. After the first project, I did with this group (the movie pitch) I felt pretty confident that I knew my teammates enough to be able to work with them just like before on the music marketing presentation. Boy, was I wrong, and I learned a great lesson from it. Never judge a book by its cover. No inside is like the outside, and vice versa. Through the project, I was able to learn more about my teammates from a personal level and grew to respect them all equally. Daniel, while funny and loud in class, isn't the loudest person at home and still has things he is scared of (definitely not public speaking). Camila, while quiet in class (for the most part), really isn't that quiet personally and has quite an opinion when ready to voice it. Lorenzo, while chill in class, is also chill out of class.
Anyways, I am here to give a full blog post on the process involved with this project so here I go.
First off, this project, like many others, began with the research phase. However, even before the research stage, we must first talk about task delegation. Given that this was such a big project, and everyone knew that, the team decided it would be best to delegate tasks in order to finish the project on time and more efficiently. I was the coordinator when it came to task delegation, and I gave people tasks based on what they wanted to do and how good they were at it. From the moment we received our genre of pop, I was ecstatic thinking that this genre would be really easy to cover for a marketing plan and a music video. Unfortunately, these feelings weren't similar throughout the group. Lorenzo wanted country and Camila wanted rock. To compromise, I thought it would be a good idea of having Camila and Lorenzo do the main research portions of the project because they wanted to do it on their own bands (BTS and OneRepublic). This worked and allowed for a lot happier group. Next, the group delegated the tasks of creating the business idea, storyboard, and filming. Since the group had lots of time commitments the next weekend, we only had about 40 hours to go through, make the story, and film the video. Therefore, we prioritized and paused a little on research and the business idea, regrouped, and went full-out music video preparation. One of the hardest parts was getting another actor/actress for the video. Since the storyline revolved around a couple, we needed a couple that would work well together and has good chemistry on set. Stressed for options, with every member of the group reaching out to their friends to see who could film on such notice, we found our actress (Daniel's friend) and set to work on the music video.
We needed to brainstorm/plan the actual music video. We accomplished this by analyzing the lyrics of the song. Every group member was more than free to give their own analysis of the lyrics, and we didn't make an official solution to the story until everyone was on board with it. Additionally, we watched some online interviews with the actual songwriter about what inspired him to make the music video. Once this was all accomplished, we created our storyline and designated Camila to make the storyboards since she had great penmanship and wanted to do it.
Filming day was the next day, and fortunately, there isn't much to say about it. It went smoothly, and we were able to accomplish most of the shots in the storyboard. There was a little time constraint towards the end of the filming session because our star actors had to leave for an event. This did lead to a little less footage than expected and definitely did impact the editing process when deciding which clips to select, but thankfully we had enough clips.
After filming day, editing, research, and the business presentation all had to be finished. The next day in class, everyone worked independently, and efficiently. I edited the video, while Daniel worked on the business presentation, and Camila and Lorenzo did their separate sides of the research. This was one of the most productive days ever because we didn't have any distractions whatsoever and just worked hard. After this day, the research was finished, and the packets were lovingly printed from Lorenzo and distributed to all. For the next days, Lorenzo and Daniel would work on the business presentation while Camila would work on the storyboards (drawing) and I would keep working on editing.
Editing this project was very difficult. I typically would say that I'm good and faster at editing, but this project really just slowed me down. I don't know why or how, but I just wasn't very efficient with editing. I was slow on creativity and running out of ideas. Then, I managed to renew myself by talking to some friends and getting their ideas. The key to everything is others. If I kept doing my video solo the WHOLE time, things really wouldn't have worked out well. Eventually, I finished editing the music video, but at that point, it was the day before the presentation! I had no idea what was going on with it because I was focused on editing the whole time, so that night we had a discord call and completely regrouped.
Camila remade the presentation, with better design and better graphics, but with the same information that was previously on it. And now, it was time to DECAfy it! I took full control and just absolutely used all my DECA knowledge to the best of my ability to make this presentation as realistic as possible, while also showing the potential investors why they should invest in us. I appealed to logos, pathos, and ethos to try to get that investment. Pathos was appealed to through the Ukraine Story, Ethos through the strategies we are implementing directly from our research, and logos from the ideas of targeting our actual target audience. After we made the PowerPoint, we did a couple practice run-throughs so that everyone knew what to say, how to say it, and how to elaborate on it. We did this multiple times, until about midnight and were ready for the next day.
We ended up not presenting the next day, and that night we just ran through the presentation a couple times to make sure that we all still knew what to do, how to do it, and all. After everyone was very confident, it was presentation time! The group had a little argument about what we should do at the beginning, but once that was settled, we presented. Our goal was to be energetic and fun, while also fully remaining professional. In the end, I think it worked out, and our A grade certainly reflects that.
Overall, I learned a lot from this project. Most importantly, I learned that confidence is hugely key in making a music video, or even making any video. Also, when in doubt, ask for help! People will be there for you, and it's never bad to get help from others. Apart from getting help from others, it is best to work with your teammates. Communication is key! For the Cambridge Portfolio, I think that learning how to edit the music video and just getting that practice SUPER helped for the portfolio project as I will have to edit. Also, getting practice "directing" the cast of the music video was great practice for what I will do for the Cambridge project. Additionally, it was great to be able to understand the target audience and see how that should affect your music video. That is something I definitely need to incorporate into my project for Cambridge. Ultimately, I learned a lot from this project, and plan to incorporate a lot into my Cambridge portfolio.
Photos/Examples.
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