Axel Hayes: Wrapped

At long last the media marketing project is over... We have single-handedly experienced the rise and fall of Axel Hayes.  Now that we have concluded researching, filming, editing, and presenting, I'm ready to put him away in the deepest corners of my brain forever.  But before I do, here's a concise recap on everything Axel Hayes:

One of the first things we did was to research similar alternative rock bands in order to gauge their marketing techniques, including social media usage and cross-media convergence.  After focusing our research mainly on Papa Roach and Arctic Monkeys, we realized that they embraced a lot of social media.  Specifically, both bands were very active on MySpace during their earlier years, and later transitioned to Instagram and Twitter.  Additionally, both bands received a lot of attention (specifically from younger audiences) after having their songs go viral on TikTok.  Since we knew that Axel's target audience was young adults, we made sure to incorporate the use of these apps into our marketing.

Instagram account

We would use the accounts to spread important messages, go live, interact with fans, post demos and audio clippings, and just post regular pictures of Axel being himself.  Through this, fans can get more content, interactive experiences, and get to know him as if he were a friend.

Creating a marketing campaign for Axel didn't require much brainstorming, as most of it came naturally.  As with any up-and-coming artist, we wanted him to have a strong fanbase before releasing music.  Thus, we decided to create build-up by first creating social media postings, releasing demos, and making sure that the audience can get to know a little about him.  Only then will we release his debut 'Sail.'  After, we plan on promoting his work through articles, ads, and collabs.  We chose a collaboration with Adidas, as Axel embodies the aggression and masculinity of rock; something that goes hand-in-hand with Adidas' athletic and perseverant branding.

However, our most grueling and time-consuming task was definitely that of filming and editing.  We met on three separate days to film, and even still a lot of the shots were unusable.  Although only three out of the four of us were able to meet up and film the first day, it still ended up being a very productive day.  We recorded essentially all of Axel's individual scenes, as well as the final fight montage with Juan and Julian.  

Although there were very noticeable errors in the footage, we worked with what we had.  For example, there were shots in which my shadow was very noticeable, and others which were entirely over-exposed.  I worked with this by attempting to lower the exposure and color-grade in post-production, but even still it did not entirely serve as a remedy.

Here, my shadow is very noticeable

Another problem I encountered while editing that I had not originally accounted for was that many of our scenes were too long and did not fit with the rhythm of the music.  As a result of this, I ended up incorporating jump-cut scenes all throughout the first 16 seconds.  However, this did help us in that I had accidentally gotten a clear shot of the building's  entrance which read my city's name, and it did not fit the video's aesthetic. By using jump cuts, I was able to edit this out easily.

This entire scene is overexposed

The next day, we met back at the same location for the second day of filming.  Now having Federica, we were able to do the flashback scenes of Axel and his girlfriend, as well as the scenes including her and the 'new boyfriend.'  These proved to be the hardest to film, as the awkward scenes prompted laughter, and many of the shots had to be discarded.  After the second day, I began editing together all of our footage.  The main problem that stood out to me were the discrepancies in the time of day.  Having originally filmed from 5:00 to 6:45, the first batch of shots featured 'golden hour' lighting and ended at nighttime.  However, as we filmed at 3:00 the next day, the skies were cloudy and the sun was bright.  Although I tried to fix this, again, by lowering the exposure, it wasn't easily fixed.  Another problem that I noticed is that there was a lack of clarity in the music video, and there were several plot holes.  Thus, I put together a list of shots that we were missing, and our team got together again to finish recording them.

List I made to send to my team

These shots, although mere milliseconds long, made the music video look infinitely better.  With these shots, we were able to establish that Axel’s girlfriend had broken up with him, that she was with a new dude, and that Axel was in his car watching them.  Additionally, we got a shot of the new couple saying goodbye, which explains why Julian’s character was alone when he was attacked.

The filming process, although somewhat long, went along smoothly with very few problems (namely, actor’s cooperation).  The editing process (which was also lengthy) went along pretty well.  Editing on Premiere Pro, I added the "Matrix Blue" color filter over the scenes depicting the present, and the "Golden LDR" filter on the flashback scenes.  I had originally thought of differentiating the scenes using blue/red overlays, but I adapted this after I realized that the "Matrix Blue" filter best fit Axel's vibe.  

In the part where Axel supposedly floors the gas and is soaring through the streets, it was clear to us that we couldn't capture this on film.  Instead, I editing a fast zoom on the shot of him in the car, a technique which I hoped would represent motion.  In the fight scene, I slightly blurred the footage and sped it up to mask the actors' smiles and their careful movements in order to create a more realistic 'fight.'  The blurring ended up being unnecessary, as the video's quality went to shit as soon as I uploaded it (sigh).  Regardless, I am satisfied with the final product.

Before our presentation, my team divided up the slides which we would be presenting.  For the most part, we decided that we'd each be discussing the slides which we had written.  This left me with a big workload, and my nerves made me rush through the presentation and forget to mention much of the information I had previously rehearsed.  Still, I think that it went pretty well, all things considered.  We experienced technical difficulties when it came time to show the music video, something which was out of our control, but still slightly infuriating.  Addressing questions from the class was another nerve-wracking element, but I mainly dealt with it by diverting attention away from the question and to some other aspect of the campaign when asked something that I did not have an answer for.  The worst part was definitely when I lost my train of thought mid-way through answering a question, something that a few people later pointed out to me happened at the worst moment.  Regardless, I think that it was managed pretty well.

Overall, I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed this project.  The stress that comes with taking on this entire project by yourself was too much, and it led me to create a watered-down marketing campaign which is not up to par with what I can create by working with people who I trust.  Although I can't say that I'm proud of the work here, I think that it's pretty decent under the circumstances.  My main take-away is that I re-discovered my love for editing, and I would gladly take on the responsibility of editing the Cambridge portfolio together.  I also came to the conclusion that I should take more time to plan out the exact shots that we plan to film, so that we can avoid last-minute shooting.  Finally, I hope to go more in-depth with my research on future assignments.  Despite the setbacks, I did enjoy some of it, and I'm excited for future projects.  I also anticipate to be posting on here a lot more often these coming weeks, so, see you then I suppose. Finally, here is the finalized music video.