Music Marketing

I had shared some info about my music marketing project, so I thought I'd share the full slides presentation!

Tears of Jupiter Marketing Campaign by DANIELA GARCIA Link - Click Here!

Integrated Marketing Campaign - Event (DECA)

Hi Everyone! I created a marketing campaign for a DECA competition this year (We placed 3rd in the state!) and I thought I should share it.

My competition partner and I marketed the Rett Syndrome Strollathon- an event used to raise funds and awareness for those affected by Rett Syndrome.

Attached is the campaign!

Here is the link too! - Click Here!

Google Drive Links

Here are all the project components as Google Drive links just in case!

(Click Here) Film Opening

(Click Here) CCR

Project Reflection

This project required a significant amount of work. I'm delighted we finished and are pleased with the results. We all worked extremely hard to ensure that we all achieved our goals, and it was a very enjoyable and collaborative process. I'm really thrilled we were able to use a song that I was very excited to use, and I'm even happier that the musician actually responded to us, granting us permission. I got along well with my group, and we were continuously communicating, which made me feel more at ease during the process.

 I learned a lot, from being organized to making sure we hit all of the deadlines and creating something that everyone enjoyed and agreed on. I was able to use a great deal of creativity, which made this assignment a lot more enjoyable for me. Overall, I am pleased with what we accomplished in the amount of time we had, taking into account all of the resources we had at our disposal.

The only thing I would change is to improve the color correction. The saturation in some of the areas is a touch too strong, but it's what we came up with as a collaborative group and what we all agreed on, and I'm pleased with how we worked it out overall.

Final Creative Critical Reflection

Wow...

It is Finally Done. 

Enjoy:)

My final project reflection is also in my CCR.

*Cue the Celebratory Music*

And here it is...

The final Film Opening.

Hope you enjoy Birthday Blues

CCR Creation & Planning

I decided to base my CCR on the Vanity Fair videos where directors of a film, break down a scene whilst reading fan comments and explain how it came to be. 

Kind of like this.

Instead of telling the film's story, I will be explaining all of my processes in the completion of this project but also answering the questions. I also don't think that it will take too long to edit as I just have to organize the clip. I'm glad that I thought of this idea because it is something that is quick to do so that I finish on time. 

CCR Script Cont.

 TECHNOLOGY

A lot of technology was used to make this film opening successful. Firstly, our iPhones were used to film and our laptops were used to edit. We each used different editing softwares but they were Mostly iMovie and Adobe Premiere.  I used Procreate and Canva for animation. They were honestly my best friends throughout the whole journey. 

It's a little crazy that I'm saying that drawing software and graphic design software were my best friends. This just shows how much time and effort I put into it but they really allowed me to make sure that my vision was completed appropriately. Everything in the animation was drawn from scratch - from the font to the movement. so I had to ensure that every line was perfect, every squiggle looked melted enough, and every movement looked realistic enough.

We used iMessage and email to communicate. This allowed us to even communicate when we were all in different parts of the world during spring break.  We then utilized the blogger software to complete our blog in addition to the film opening. This was my most used software throughout the entire project as I wanted to ensure that I had enough blog posts truly showing my process. 

We used Google Docs to communicate and collaborate through typing and writing down ideas, this was very useful as it was a very collaborative experience allowing us to type at the same exact time together.

I learned a lot about animation and how to make something look realistic but also artsy and fun and I also learned a lot about editing and color correction as we wanted to get the perfect 2000s look. 

OVERALL REFLECTION

This project did take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. I'm glad that we finished and are happy with what we ended up with.  We all worked really hard and made sure that we all accomplished the vision that we had, and it was a very fun and collaborative experience. I'm so glad that we were able to use a song that I was very excited to use and gladly the artist actually replied back to us allowing us permission. I worked very well with my group and we were always constantly communicating which allowed me to feel more at ease during the entire process.

For what I would do differently, I think that I would just maybe color correct a little bit better I think that the saturation on some of the parts is a little bit excessive, but it is what we came up with as a collaborative group and that we all agreed on,  and overall I'm very happy with how we ended up.

Other than that, I hope that you enjoyed the project I hope that you enjoy my creative critical reflection and I thought that it was something different and something enjoyable that you might have not seen before,

Thank you!

Creative Critical Reflection Idea & Script

Vanity Fair- Director Breaks Down Film Scene

I want my CCR to be based upon the Vanity Fair Videos.

Breakdown of Opening

Script:

Hi! My Name is Daniela Garcia and Welcome to my CCR, 

I will now be taking you through the process of creating my film opening.

REPRESENTATION

While most coming-of-age films set in the early 2000s portray a wealthy, American teenage girl. We are portraying a Hispanic girl growing up in the Middle Class trying to fit into cliche American culture. I am Hispanic which made me perfect for playing the role of our lead. Films like Clueless and Mean Girls are great examples of those that portray the wealthy American blonde that we all know and love. While I love Regina George and Cher Horowitz, their lives aren’t the most attainable. We decided to make it more realistic and portray a normal girl with a normal amount of money and a normal life. 

In most Birthday Scenes in films like Clueless and Mean Girls, the parents are the first people to wake them up and celebrate their day with their daughters, here Berkley wakes up to the sound of her alarm and wakes up alone. Indicating the fact that her parents are already working to be able to provide for their family. (More Realistic right?)

We are also representing the idea that most teenagers aren’t prepared or taught to deal with real-life situations such as this. (I mean I think it is pretty important to teach teenagers how to deal with things like paying their own bills and taxes and more realistic in today's society - dealing with national emergencies alone…)

Through this, we are challenging the typical 2000s coming-of-age representations and conventions of the typical wealthy American Girl with a Middle-Class Hispanic who is just trying to fit in.

DISTRIBUTION AND TARGET AUDIENCE

While I  would love for our project to be submitted and shown at the Venice Film Festival, that is not really the most attainable thing for your couple of 16-year-old girls from Weston Florida.  

So, we came up with the next best thing... Firstly, we're going to be posting this On YouTube, the biggest free platform for creators to showcase their work while also getting views any time of the day.  

In addition to posting it on YouTube,  this will also be distributed through Instagram. Instagram has become a very popular social media platform throughout the years and it has started to evolve into video-sharing and even with videos that are a little bit longer such as our film opening. A lot of small creators and YouTubers who want to share clips of their videos or trailers of films and other things like that have been posted on YouTube and have proven to earn a lot of engagement this way. 

So, through youtube and Instagram we are reaching our target demographic of teenage girls, as we have seen in representation want to make a film that is more realistic and represents a more realistic type of girl.  By posting it on the most popular video-sharing platforms such as Instagram and YouTube now, more teenage girls will be able to see it as the biggest app that is used by the teenage demographic right now, This allows the film opening to be shared and reach even more engagement. 

Our target market mostly consists of teenage girls ages 12 to 17, this is because this opening is highly representative of girls this age that might be going through something like this, especially in this economy…

So in summary, we are going to be making this available on YouTube and Instagram, the most popular video-sharing platforms that are accessible to us right now, which will allow us to reach our target market as they are the biggest video-sharing apps utilized by teenage girls.

IMPROVEMENT & PRODUCTION SKILLS

Throughout this project, I'm mostly focused on the artistic parts such as the animations font picking, and designs of being production logos. This is because I am most familiar and most well versed in these topics, I also expanded and worked on scriptwriting, storyboarding, and filming, 

Normally not areas of my expertise. Although I knew that I was proficient in animation, it took a lot of tries to make something that we all agreed upon as a group. I honestly think I did over 35 drawings and mock-ups of what the animation could look like until we all settled on one thing.  This certainly improved my perseverance….. and my work ethic.

I've learned a lot about utilizing the programs procreate and Adobe Premiere, procreate was honestly my best friend through the creation of the animation. I researched a lot of videos on YouTube and on social media asking for tips and help on how to make my animation more realistic and flow as easily as it possibly can. 

It took countless hours and countless tries for me to finally produce something that we were all happy with but I'm very glad that it took a great amount of time because we are all very very happy with it. 

We also did a lot of research just on the overall aspect of Coming of Age movies specifically set in the 2000s era. We researched films such as Ferris Bueller, clueless, mean girls, and wrote the motivating aspect of each and what led them each to be successful. We took each positive from every movie that way researched and combined them and created something that we all thought could make our film successful. We took the vibes of Clueless and Mean Girls and we also took the font and handwriting aspect of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I improved a lot in the way that I conducted research, allowing me to make sure that I looked at every aspect of every film to ensure that we got each part that would make us successful. 

We looked at the aspects such as coloring, fonts, filming Style, etc. 

(Show Doc)

In storyboarding, we also improved how to make a cohesive story that makes sense throughout, making sure that everything was representative of the era, but also made the story flow appropriately.

We also adapted a lot, I had trouble with construction going on in my house and my room was the place that we are going to film, I actually held back Construction in my room for a week so that we could get everything finished and film,  it was honestly worth it though because it allowed us to make sure that everything was done before Spring Break giving us enough time to edit.

We started with an idea that I think we ended with, we rarely manipulated the style that we wanted to go for, the script, or the general idea. Thankfully everything flowed appropriately and allowed us to actually meet our goal and accomplish the vision that we had accurately. 

I'm going to continue the script for the next few questions next post!

Credit Fonts

After careful consideration… we were able to decide on a font for our credits. We also decided to make the credits be the cursive font and a neater font for the person's full name. We were in between these two combinations, and after asking our friends and family to vote, the second combination won. This is the best decision for us because it is the most legible and also goes well with the theme of our film opening.

We also finished editing our video footage! We just need to add the music and credits through an overlay and we’re done! The. we get started with our CCR. Also: here is the amount of animations I did to get it perfect. 

Title Soundscape and Foley

    We decided to add the sound of someone blowing out a candle to the title. This will make it seem more realistic. We recorded ourselves blowing out a candle and are going to be using that audio. This is how the title is going to appear in the movie opening. With the audio added, we have finally finished the title! 

    After countless tries, we finally got something that we were all proud of. This is going to be added to the end after all the credits and after everything we filmed and edited. I'm not gonna lie... I don't think I have ever repeated and restarted something as much as I repeated and restarted this whole entire animation and I am glad that it is finally finished. I am very happy with the final product. I think that it accurately portrays the genre we are going for while also giving it an artsy vibe. 

Editing and Organizing

We have divided up who is going to edit what parts. Since it is spring break, we are all over the place right now. We have decided that it will be more efficient to divide it into sections, each edit those sections, and then put them together. I started editing my part and I have realized how long editing really takes. We also over filmed A LOT. I think that we got so many extra clips that weren't needed, and although this may be a good thing, it took quite a long time to organize them all and put them in order. This made my only part be over 6 minutes long (this was not good)... hahahha.... it took a lot of tedious work to fully cut everything down and organize it while still flowing and making sure the whole story was told.

This way we all do equal work as well. The storyboard is 3 sections, so we are each going to edit a section. We set a deadline to be finished with editing by Friday, that way we can have the weekend to just quickly put it all together. I am going to make sure that I get the editing done by today, as I will be doing something throughout the rest of the week. 

Canva and Procreate are my best friends

 

We finally finished animating!

I think I made about 15 different videos until we got something that we liked. Now I have to figure out how to download it with a transparent background without looking crazy, but I'll figure it out. We also started coming up with ideas of what fonts to use for credits.

Here are the ones we have, they all have the vibe of writing in a diary. My personal favorite is the second to last, it is the most legible whilst still looking like handwriting. We also finished labeling the clips to each scene and divided up what parts we had to edit, we are then going to put that together. Canva and procreate have been my best friends throughout this whole process. Canva just has the best fonts and graphics and I animated everything using Procreate. I will be updating you on how the editing process goes :)

Starting to put everything together

I decided to make a quick video explaining our visual ideas and what we needed to do. I feel that I am best at explaining creative and visual ideas through speaking rather than writing so here's that video!

SCHEDULE AND TO-DO:

 

Group Meeting

I had a pretty successful group meeting. We collaborated a lot and helped each other develop ideas to make everything flow better. We collectively decided that the animation would step everything up and make everything look more sophisticated, even if it is a little cliché. So my main focus is going to be to watch hundreds of animation videos over spring break to make sure that I can do this as best as possible. We also need to get started on credits and make sure that we are all on the same page for everything. Also, I would like to add that we have worked very well together and the work has honestly been so evenly divided. We have worked very well together so far. Now that we have filmed, we are going to get started on putting everything together. Spring Break is going to be dedicated to doing so, 

We have a current to-do list:

- Pick the best production logo

- Animate

- Edit

- Credits font and who we are crediting

    So basically, we are getting towards the end. What felt endless is now coming to an end, I'm very proud of what we've done so far and I'm glad that my group liked our ideas. I am also glad that we don't have much to do and have quickly ticked things off our list.

Now on to me watching hours of YouTube videos on how to animate. 

WE FINALLY FILMED!

We also got everything done in one day.... so props to us for being so productive. Everything also went pretty well, but since my house has been in so much chaos, we didn't know where some of our stuff was. This led us to get creative and make our own tripod out of a paper towel roll....... yea crazy I know.

Here's us watching a tutorial on YouTube and attempting to do that. 

Everything else went well though. We bought our props like birthday balloons and pink perfumes to set the scene. We then started filming. It was best for me to play the main character because all the pictures in my room were of me, this would make everything the most accurate. Here are some more pictures of the room set up. 

I had to change outfits like 15 times because we need to catch all of the daylight before the sunset, so that meant we had to film out of order, it all worked out though. This means that we have all the parts that we need, now we just need to put everything together... (yay! the hardest part!) We are going to dedicate some of our spring breaks to editing and making sure that this project gets finished on time.  I really love the vibe of everything and how it's going so far. Even though I had to wear low rise jeans paired with uggs for this (tragic I know). I think that we really captured the vibe of teenage life, and this was done so accurately as we were able to implement our own experiences as well. Even though this is super cliche in hundreds of ways, these are the types of films that never get old in my eyes, they're just super light-hearted and fun. You can watch them in whatever mood (even though our film does change up towards the end of the opening). 

Here's me in the wardrobes we picked out. (very Lizzie McGuire-esque)

Well,

Now on to putting everything together. 

Production Logos

So.... we got a little ahead of ourselves and designed 4 potential logos for our production company. We kind of love all of them so picking which one to use might be really difficult. In my opinion, I love all of them, but they all have a very different vibe. So, we just need to make sure that we think of the vibe of the company that we would like to create, and this will allow us to decide on what to use better. 

LUMINESCENCE PICTURES: 

This one is more fun and artistic, it is neon colors like the other one. This one is honestly my least favorite but I still think that it is really good. 

 

STARLIGHT FILMS:

This one is more representative of the era that we are trying to showcase (the early 2000s). It is very simple and not the most creative though.

LUMINESCENCE FILMS:

This one is the most creative in my opinion. I also think that it is the most realistic. I really like the neon colors and I'm obsessed with the font.

 

MOONGLADE PICTURES:

MY PERSONAL FAV!!! I think that this one is really realistic and minimalistic. I really love the colors and the vibe. 

Even though this isn't the most important part of the project, we want to make sure that all the visuals in this are perfect. I am a very visual person and every time I see something visually appealing, it makes me enjoy it even more. We want to ensure that we provide this experience to everyone.

Script

 

We have finalized our script! This movie opening is more centralized on action and movement. There is little-to-no dialogue. This may be a little difficult to make interesting and easy to follow along. We wanted to make sure that this is a little different from the popular coming-of-age movies that are heavily surrounding dialogue in the beginning. We are planning to film tomorrow. One of our partners just told us that she was not going to be here due to the fact that she is going on vacation so, we want to make sure that we get everything done before she leaves.  After a conversation and brainstorming session with Mrs. Stoklosa, we have decided to get rid of the animation aspect of our opening. This is going to make it less cliche and more "well-respected" as a film opening. We are now planning out our set for tomorrow. We are going to be filming in my room, hopefully we get all the shots we need tomorrow. So that the rest of the time that we have left is used for editing and any final touches. 

Fonts

 

After some times trying out what we wanted the film title to look like, we finally decided on the last pink one. The “I” on the word birthday is a candle, representing that it is Berkley’s birthday. We also finally decided on the title “birthday blues” and tried implementing our ideas of making the font melt to appear like a candle as well, we tried many different fonts until we finally decided on the last one. This is the one that looks the neatest and most legible, allowing everyone to be able to read it. We also decided to go with the color pink as it goes the best with the aesthetic that we have. The credits are going to be drawn on procreate to create that handwriting type of style handwriting. It’s been a little overwhelming due to the fact that I’m on a school competition along with Berkley (our partner), so we haven’t been able to work together in a long time. We have done our best to communicate ideas and anything else we can thing of through our group chat, this is how we collaborated on thinking of what we could use for the fonts and how we were going to implement our ideas on to actual design. I can say that I haven’t been totally responsible because we have worked so hard for this competition, and really want to make the most out of it. Getting back from the field trip is also going to take some organization as I have missed so many assignments, to ensure that we film on time because we have already had some slip backs, and I can say I am sorry because it mostly has been my fault. I do feel so much better now though so next week we are going to try our best to film and get as much done 

Very excited on where this project is headed though :)

Film Name

BIRTHDAY BLUES

We have finally picked our film name. We decided on Birthday Blues. The feeling of birthday depression, or the birthday blues, refers to feeling sad, apathetic, or disinterested in celebrating or thinking about your birthday. This applies to the films story and describes what our character Berkley is going through. She received bad news on her birthday and therefore feels the birthday blues. The birthday blues are a psychological feeling and are very real for many people. They are actually considered a type of mental health condition that may come and go for some people. After researching this, we realized they Birthday Blues is a perfect name for our film, Berkley is experiencing sadness after receiving bad news and may experience the Birthday Blues afterward. Playing around with alliteration was also an idea that we had and this is a perfect and catchy name for a film.

Bad News :( and Storyboard :)

I got sick, thankfully it isn’t COVID-19, but we weren’t able to film on the day that we had planned. To overcome this challenge we have decided to film some time after school any day we were available. We're glad that we decided to start filming early, this allowed to to make sure that we had enough time to film something again or reschedule if we ever encountered any problems.  

We also created a storyboard of the breakdown of our scenes.  

This is it:

This is an overview of what the film opening will look like, the end scenes are to create suspense, further achieving the goal of a successful film opening. We want to make the audience wonder what happened, and what may happen next. 

For the credits and Film Title, we want the overall vibe to enhance a sad feeling, letting the audience know that whatever Berkley saw on her phone, made her stressed and sad. 

We want the film name to also showcase the feeling of feeling sad on your birthday,

These are some ideas we had:

We want the font to appear liquidy or as if a birthday candle is melting. If we use a title with the letter "I" in it, we want to make the "I" a melted birthday candle. 

Like this:

Titles:

- Birthday Blues

Birthday Blues is the psychological feeling of being upset on your birthday, whether its feeling upset that you are growing up or feeling upset that not everything is perfect. Someone gets the birthday blues due to these reasons. Berkley would get the Birthday Blues because she got bad news and wasn't as happy as she was expecting to be on her birthday.

- Birthdaze

Birthdaze is a play on words with the word Birthday and the word Daze. The word Daze, according to Merriam Webster, unable to think clearly or act normally due to injury, shock, bewilderment, fatigue, etc. 

This means that Berkley, our main character, is in shock due to the news she heard on her birthday. 

For the credits:

We want the credits to look very organic and hand-written, using calligraphy or even a realistic font that looks and gives the appearance of handwriting. 

Like this:

Breakdown of Scenes

Opening:

Girl (16) is seen getting ready for an event (school, birthday, party, etc) establishing a shot of the room (with a calendar to show the date, 2005)  and surrounding area of where she is getting ready. Her phone keeps buzzing but she ignores it as she continues to get ready (show her picking her outfit, putting on makeup, spending a lot of time focused on how she looks to make it obvious she is getting ready for something special), but she is in a great mood- happy music playing. On her way out- she checks her phone and realizes there is an ongoing pandemic that might spread to her area. Once reality hits her, the music cuts out and she is shown in shock - cut to title. Credits on top of showing room / providing context and setting.

Overall: 

Begins with a girl getting ready for her birthday as her phone is blowing up. She assumes it is birthday messages from her friends and ignores it. She goes outside and it looks abandoned and gloomy. She walks out and gets locked out of her house, her mom yells at her to come back in and discusses the situation very seriously. 

Breakdown of Scenes:

1. Establishing shots- cuts of showing pictures, lamps, posters, extra details, etc. - potential animation, music 

2. Arm hitting alarm and turning it off. 

3. Getting clothes, outfit to get ready

4. Goes to bathroom (still not fully shown) and slams door

5. Door sound transitions to sound of shoes dropping and her half ready now

6. Clips of her getting ready with phone buzzing out of control

7. Acknowledges phone, turns the ringer off, walks away

8. Continues getting ready

9. Grabs stuff and is about to leave/leaving

10. Walking through her house to leave (news on in background) - sees stash of TP, lysol, etc.

11. Looks at phone (message from friend “turn on the news” editing)  -> sees abandoned looking neighborhood

Prop and Set Design

We did some research on what types of decoration, wardrobe, styling, and makeup were mostly used in early 2000s films. After this, we looked at items we had and items we thought of using to make sure that this film opening looked as realistic as possible. We made a list including items like:

• Establishing / context / room shots 

• Bring props:

• Tiny butterfly clips (link to clips) 

• Nail polish (pink)

• Trophies and medals 

• Jewelry

• Neon sign (moon)

• Magazines

• Stand alone mirror

• Throw/decorative pillows 

• Disposable cameras

• Pink bedding

• House phone/Landline

• Clothes (pink, bright,youthful)

• Diary 

• Bedazzled ipod

• Pen

• Calendar (dry erase board)

• Lava lamp 

• Pink fuzzy socks

• CDs / CD player 

• DS

• Happy birthday necklace

• Birthday banner / decoration

• Alarm clock

• After making sure that we had all of this and that my room was ready for filming, we set a date and time of when to get together to film. 

Shooting Schedule

We have started developing a shooting schedule to ensure that we stay on track. The filming of this project is expecting us to take about 3-4 sessions of filming. We have decided to film during the weekends as that is the best time for all of us.

Filming Session One: Room Day

Taking place February, 27th, 2022

What we will do:

We will record in my house. We decided that this was the best location to represent the main character Berkley's room. We have come up with props and other materials that we need as part of our prop and setting design and there will be another blog post specifically about that after this one. 

We will be recording the opening scenes- including the establishing shot that is showcasing her room and everything that makes up her personality to better establish Berkley's character. To prepare for the filming, we will be preparing props and the setting. For example, changing my bedding from grey to pink to generate the early 2000s vibe and to also fit the personality of the character better.

Filming Session Two: Outside Day

Taking place March 11th or 12th, 2022. (Tentative)

What we will do:

We are planning to record outside of Berkley's house in her neighborhood. We ran into a bit of an issue before, we were planning on recording in my house, but there is some construction going on inside that can ruin the shot. We solved this by recording in Berkley's neighborhood. Here we will be filming the other half of the film opening, where Berkley (the character) is shown walking out of her house and to school.

Filming Session Three and Four: Extra Scenes

Tentative Date

What we will do:

We will film any extra scenes that we feel are necessary to make this film opening successful.

Schedule:

Character

Character Name: Berkley Morgan or Berkley Summers

We are currently researching our main character. Her first name will be Berkley and we are in between last names Morgan or Summers. She is 16 years old, the film opening will showcase her turning 16. She is a female and is pretty well known in school, she isn't popular but has a good amount of friends. Her favorite color is pink and she is a dancer. She currently does ballet and contemporary dance. She normally has a really well rounded family dynamic, but due to her parents' stress of the up and coming pandemic, she doesn't really get acknowledged at home. She expects her parents to celebrate her birthday with her, but they are unfortunately too stressed about the ongoing situation and don't celebrate with her. She is the very cliche girl, but challenges the family dynamic that is normally represented in girly-girl early 2000's films, she is also hispanic. 

We also came up with an idea of creating the first 30 seconds or so of the clip being animated, to represent her happy nature, then when her alarm to wake her up rings- it turns back to real life. Showcasing her bubble of happiness bursting. This is doable as we can record the clip and then just go over the clip with an animation and drawing tool on procreate.