Social Media Marketing Review

This year Social Media Marketing has taught me how to use social media responsibly and professionally. All through college I’ve been told to be careful what you post online because potential employers will check your social media, yet all this really did for me was keep me from posting pictures of me drinking. Now I know what I should be posting instead of what I shouldn’t be and I feel this will benefit me in the future. Now future employers will stumble across me on social media and not only see that I don’t have a party side, but they will see that I’m truly passionate about the work I’m doing.

            The class has made me capable of focusing on using social media for my benefit. There is a way to use twitter, facebook, and blogs in a way that shows a certain side of you that you want displayed. Being able to promote my brand through the pleasures of social media is actually surprisingly fun and is something that I see myself continuing to do. In fact my twitter account has changed entirely to show strictly my knowledge of music. It also labels me as the Visual Media Director for ACRN so people aren’t only following a person, but what I do.

            I think the main thing I liked about this class was blogging. I’ve never consistently done this, for I’ve never found a niche topic I enjoyed talking about. However this class forced me to do that and I greatly appreciated it.

            I didn’t like being forced to use websites like pinterest and Google + though. I think next time around you should have students pick three or four websites that they feel will best promote themselves and go from there.  This will allow for more proficient content and more focused and tailored personal brands.

GOOD LUCK AT ILLINOIS!

            

Mistaken for Strangers, the Documentary?

I was originally planning on writing about Tyler, The Creator’s newest music video for “IFHY,” especially since Kanye West shut down his whole website and just streamed Tyler’s video for Kanye felt it was so well done. However, I’ve come across news that personally excites me more and has potential to go ahead and be a giant music video of sorts.

It looks like The National will be releasing a documentary that follows their 2010 tour for their album High Violet. So instead of a long informational post today I’m going to post the trailer for this new documentary, Mistaken for Strangers, which is set to debut this Wednesday at the Tribeca Film Festival. I honestly can’t tell exactly what the film is about, but it will more than likely be host to a slew of The National’s best music, live tour action, and a little background to who The National really is. So get pumped!

Copying Art & Copy

Recently for class I watched a film called Art & Copy. It was a documentary describing the process of advertising and doing so successfully by looking at Mad Men that helped jumped start the business.  The movie also followed this man who puts up and takes down billboards for a living, which really added nothing to the film but I found it humorous that they decided to use this random man as a segue.

There was some inspiration to be found in the film however.  They interviewed George Lois who is an advertising genius and seemingly knows how to take smaller brands and turn them into a giant brand over night. He did this with Tommy Hilfiger by creating a fill in the blank word puzzle host to big names in the clothing industry such as Calvin Klein.  By putting the unknown name of Hilfiger next to 3 huge brands such as Klein and labeling them “The 4 Great American Designers For Men,” gave the line success almost over night.

This got me thinking about my current project with the Shafer Street Fugitive.  Having to promote this band in Athens will be a bit of a trick with their fan base being a tad smaller, so why not associate them with the bands that are already well known? I believe our group needs to take tactics where we book the band shows with bigger named bands on campus.  That way people going to see the bigger bands will see Shafer Street Fugitive not to mention their name will be next to bigger artists on posters around campus, which only makes it easier to associate SSF with the more well known acts.

Simple Can be Good

So I’ve recently come across the band Bombay Bicycle Club and I’ll be honest there is only one song I like by them, that being “Lights Out, Words Gone.” It just so happens that this song has a pretty grand music video to go along with it.

I love this based on two things.  Art direction and simplicity. 

The art direction goes hand in hand with the simplicity.  Each person was instructed to either wear a neutral white or black outfit, while characters of focus in the video were instructed to wear yellow, blue, or red, or at least one article of clothing hosting these colors. This creates nice complementary colors that poop throughout the video and help the eye focus.  They also stand strong against the light orange room used as the set of this video.

The simplicity of the video is really where this band succeeded though. The video has such a basic concept; get a room full of people doing a traditional dance. All this video is meant to show is people dancing to the music and enjoying themselves.  In fact, since this song is dropped over footage of some form of Latino dance gathering it almost appears any song could’ve been dropped in the background to make this footage coexist with the music.

Something else important to note is this song normally runs 5 minutes and 2 seconds and they made their music video only 3 minutes and 42 seconds.  This helps eliminate redundancy within a simple concept.  Good work Bombay Bicycle Club! Now make another song like this!

The Good Side of Cordell

Normally I won’t cover the same band back to back on here, but I figured after putting down Allen Cordell in my last post that I might as well let you guys know why I do actually like him.  Also in Cordell’s defense, the “Walk in the Park” video is part of a collection of insane music videos that Beach House threw together to release on DVD with every vinyl purchase of Teen Dream.

With that in mind here comes a piece from Cordell that is pretty easy to appreciate.  It still has a bit too much post work for my liking, but the tone of the whole video does indeed mach the song in which the video is made for.  Yup, I’m talking about Cordell’s video for “Lazuli” by Beach House.

You’ll recognize the work as Cordell’s by taking note of the overtly saturated colors that pop throughout the video. Every color stands out as the art direction of this video is one of it’s highlights.  Also a highlight is Cordell’s use of steadicam that is used to identify an outside world that we are familiar with.  The rest of the shots that occur indoors or in the land of CGI, are all locked down adding composure to the acts of sitting at a bar and having a drink or sitting at home and watching bullshit television.

(Just an example of the insanely awesome art direction here!)

On top of solid production we do get to see Beach House in this video! I personally always like to see the band in the video and when the band is host to Victoria Legrand, I’ll watch the video all day.  All in all Cordell brings us a solid video for “Lazuli.”  Three story lines fall in place and enter a world straight out of Cordell’s mind that is both visually striking and fun to watch along with one of Beach House’s best songs to date.  

Walk in the Dark

Today’s post is going to be a little different than the rest.  The intention of this blog is to bring music videos I find well produced and successful throughout the whole production process into light for you lovely readers.  However, recently I’ve come across a music video so strikingly odd and, what I would consider, terrible in comparison to the song its promoting that I can’t help, but share it with you guys.

Today we are going to look at Beach House’s music video for “Walk in the Park,” which is host to the directing, cinematography, and editing styles of Allen Cordell.  Now this post isn’t here to rag on Cordell at all.  He is a rather successful director for Cause and Effect Productions and has made music videos for Cloud Nothings, Gentleman Drivers, as well as for Beach House’s 2012 hit “Lazuli.”  I am a fan of his other work, but this video just seems to miss the mark.

The video takes a bunch of odd twists ranging from a man with Hypertrichosis taking a walk all the way to this same man pulling a sandwich out of his chest in order to poison his enemies.  Maybe this is a fun concept.  Maybe some people will enjoy the absurdness of what goes down in this video, but bottom line it does not match the song at all.  If I were Victoria Legrand of Beach House I’d be genuinely upset with this project. 

It’s not that the direction is bad or the cinematography for that matter.  Even the editing is well done, but it may be a bit too thoroughly edited.  In fact, the postproduction is just far too much.  People are edited into the foreground, a dog barks over top of the song, and this is all topped off with a “trippy” fake fight sequence that is genuinely awful.  Not to mention none of the actions in this video have anything to do with the lyrics.  Not that this is a necessity for music videos, but the tone of the song and the video don’t even match up. 

Beach House…how I love you, but please don’t let this happen again. Take a look for yourself.

Beach House - Walk in the Park (Official Video) from Allen Cordell on Vimeo.

The Shafer Street Fugitive

So last week in class I was drafted to join team Happy Trees in the promotion of a band native to Athens, The Shafer Street Fugitive.  The band falls in the progressive / hardcore genre, which isn’t a genre I’m necessarily familiar with, but with my background promoting bands for ACRN.com I should be able to contribute nicely.  Our group was happy to find out the band already has a pretty solid fan base on campus and their facebook page is currently sitting at 66 likes.  We’d like to see that number jump up as we start to promote the bands shows through social media.  The band also has a blogspot already so we have another outlet to do some PR through that cannon as well.  Our target audience will be Ohio University students and we don’t see ourselves having to spend money to help the band out, which is always a plus.  Through photography, facebook posts, and blog posts we hope to help The Shaker Street Fugitive gain a solid fan base and hope to see them have some more success on campus and potentially off campus. Be sure to check these guys out!

Also check out this short documentary already made on the band.  Taking advantage of existing publicity never hurt!!!

Hey Gang

Hello friends! My name is Jake and I have found myself recently swooned by the quality at which music videos are being created these days. As the guy behind the video content produced for OU's college rock radio station ACRN, I'd like to point out that its nice that we have begun to step away from music videos that promote girls shaking their goodies to videos that follow a concrete concept and are properly executed. Today's music videos seem to be more often a step further into our favorite band's minds as lyrical interpretation doesn't always serve as the fuel to the music video's storyline. Current bands have started hiring well known directors like Spike Jones or Michel Gondry to shoot their ideas and make a visual experience that compliments the music to the best of its ability. You'll notice that my current background is host to a still from one of my favorite music videos of 2012, Grizzly Bear's video for "Yet Again." With that said I'm gonna leave today's post with a link to the video, but in honor of Beyonce's Bootylicious Super Bowl Halftime Show, I will be posting a link to one of the best music videos from 2009. First off here is Grizzly Bear "Yet Again." This video was directed by Emily Kai Bock who has also directed commercials for Coca Cola and music videos for Grimes and Doldrums.


 


Finally, one of the best videos from 2009 and honestly one of the best pop artists of all time, Beyonce's video for "Single Ladies." This may be one of the best choreographed music videos of all time, and I have nothing but mad respect for anyone that has the dance completely memorized themselves. This video was directed by Jake Nava who is well known for none other than his work with Beyonce. Watch out Jay-Z ;)