As I write, the marketing campaign for MARZ has seen its fruition: a 15-minute presentation. My group were the first ones to go on, which was nerve-wracking in and of itself, but the process of the presentation led me to reflect on how the project went overall. It was really cool to see all our hard work pay off.
To begin with, the research we conducted was used as reference in our presentation visuals. This helped our audience understand what we were basing our choices off of. Although I didn’t produce the presentation slides- my teammate Hailey did- a part of our presentation process was showing the two-minute music video that I co-directed and co-produced with Beatriz, which starred Martin and Zach (with a cameo from Beatriz). Here’s our music video, to the song C’mon Talk by Bernhoft. But our music video was a process that was weeks in the making.
First of all, we had to understand who our artist was. In my intro post for this project, I talked a little bit about how we decided on MARZ’s name and connection to emotion and spirituality; but as I constructed the mise-en-scene elements of our music video and helped Beatriz design the visual persona of our artist, a bigger picture- or rather, color scheme- began to emerge. We decided that although bright colors suited the background of our images and videos, Zach and Martin should wear primarily neutral and dark colors. Hailey and Beatriz also decided on a darker theme for our presentation. This was so that we could focus on the dark, realistic elements of our artist’s message- namely, we could project the idea that MARZ was a band/duo that wasn’t afraid to talk about real feelings and events. This was key to creating the overall aesthetic of our music video. But our music video had to match the song we were working with; so I began to develop a storyboard.
Zach offered up his house as a shooting location, and we made plans to shoot at his house after school. I also consulted with him about props, namely the instruments that him and Martin would be playing in the video. We decided to develop a promo music video with a touch of storyline to enhance the friendship between our two artist faces. It was difficult to find dates that worked for our whole group; but because of our earlier planning process, only Hailey couldn’t make it, but we were able to successfully shoot and produce the music video. I shot 80% of the music video and directed 100% of the shots. It was difficult to get takes that were in sync with the music for shots of the drums and guitar, as well as Martin singing. However, we tweaked the lighting and got some colorful, dark shots using the lighting that Zach already had in his bedroom to create the final, colorful look of the music video.
Before we shot the music video, we also decided to take some pictures of Zach and Martin.
Finally, after we wrapped production of the photos and videos that would comprise our social media and music video, Beatriz edited the photos using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and Martin edited our music video using Adobe Premiere.
Throughout this process, I really enjoyed working with my team. Our creative choices all built upon each other, and it was really engaging to split up different parts of our project and later combine them to form our final presentation and product. I gained experience storyboarding, shooting video, and directing inexperienced actors. Our music video wasn't perfect, but it was very rewarding bringing my ideas to life; I'm sure that'll help on some of my upcoming endeavors (portfolio project?). More on that later.
Yours always,
Clover (Fields)
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