To begin the planning and brainstorming of the project, me and my group started by first listening to the song options that were given to us. We individually listened to the four songs provided, then regrouped to discuss what we thought of each song. We decided on "Me and Your Mama" after taking a vote, seeing the song having the most potential in terms of what we could do with it creative-wise, as well as it appealing to us the most, having a unique sound compared to the other choices. The way the beat switched after listening to a mellow and slow tone in the beginning would show the audience that our new artist was different from the rest. When we chose the song, we all discussed how we could use it and turn it into a story for a music video. It was finally decided after about twenty minutes that the story for the music video would revolve around a man madly in love with someone, but that other person is in a relationship.
With the plot of the music video basically decided, we moved onto researching information for our music media chart. As "Me and Your Mama" is classified under the genre Soul and R&B, we looked into different music production companies that has artists that within similar genres, such as Doja Cat and The Weeknd. A Google Document of the chart was made so that everyone would not only have a copy of the chart on their account, it would also enable us to edit the charts together and ask for any help on our assigned part if we needed any. With two charts of four columns each, it was simple in deciding how the work should be divided. As we were a group of four, we made it so that two people would work on one chart while the other two would work on the second chart. For each chart, one person would look into the history of the company and research one artist from said company to use as a case study, while the other person would put a list of artists from the same company, as well specifically write about another artist to serve as a second case study.
When we finished putting information into the charts, we moved onto how we would incorporate different kinds of edits, colors, camera angles, etc. to match the theme of the song with the storyline of our video. Using the same Google Doc, we added another page below and began to write different techniques that we thought would work well at certain parts of our story. Our layout was written in bullet points and was in chronological order so that it would be easy to follow and understand. As previously stated, the beginning of our chosen song starts off slow and melodic, so we had thought about shots that would help convey that feeling in the music video, such as a point of view shot of our main subject looking at the ground as he walks to symbolize sadness. When the song switches its sound to a much more energized style, we will have an emphasis on the movement of the individual, such as them throwing something they had in their hands onto the ground, which would symbolize anger and/or frustration.
Challenges I faced during this portion of the project was coming up with an idea for our music video and communicating effectively with my team. I am not the creative or imaginative type, so coming up with a story for a music video was difficult. It took me a while to think about a storyline that would somehow relate to the song. After listening to the song multiple times, we grouped our thoughts together and created a story based on what we felt from hearing it. It was hard to communicate with my team because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced schools to be online, meaning I can only communicate with my group members on Microsoft Teams. While I have mostly gotten used to talking through Teams, it would be much easier to simply be able to physically go to school and talk face-to-face. It can be hard to convey to your teammates what you are trying to say through a screen. The next step will be actually putting our layout into action and creating the storyboard for our music video to make it easier to follow when we actually record the video. We must also start creating a campaign for our artist so that their music is properly marketed and distributed to an audience.
