When I registered for the Rhetoric of Country Music class last spring, I figured that we would be listening to lots of music, reading lyrics, learning about the history, and watching videos to learn about the rhetoric of music. I never would have thought that we would have an assignment where we would have to make a music video to a country song. At first, I had no idea what I would do with my group, or what song we would choose, but I knew this would be an interesting and fun experience.
My group was made up of Jessica Jakobeit (JJ), Tori Horvath, and myself and we started looking for a song that we would like to make a video for. We could have chosen a song with a video already but we wanted to make one for a song that does not have a video already. That part was a bit complicated because there were a lot of songs that we liked but they already had a music videos. Eventually we started looking into Carrie Underwood songs and I mentioned one of the songs from her first album, Some Hearts. I had always liked her song “Starts With Goodbye” because I could relate to that song at one point in my life, so I thought that that song would be interesting to make a video for. We listened to the song as a group and started brainstorming ideas for it.
Kyle and JJ laughing while recording the video
The next class day, we started to record the different scenes that we would have in our songs. Since we did not have a guy to play a role in the video, we got a friend of ours, Kyle Moore, to be a part of it. I thought he was a good choice to be in the video because he loves country music, maybe even more than some of us in the group. We had to record some scenes outside, well all of the scenes outside and it was not the best weather to be outside because it was so cold. It took us the entire class period to record and I even had to meet again with JJ after our dance class to finish up. After we had all the scenes we needed, we started to put the video together, which was my favorite part. We used the footage that we got and got to add some transitions and other details to it to try to show a story that the song was talking about. It was fun getting to play with different features on iMovie and it was just fun in general, mostly because we were laughing at ourselves. Well we would laugh at Kyle and JJ but it was in a friendly way and I think they did amazing acting. I believe it took us like 3 hours in total to finish the video but I think it came out pretty good for not having almost any experience in making videos.
This project is definitely one of my favorites ever and I am really proud of what we did. I hope everyone else in class had as much fun as we did and I would love to hear about your own experiences about making a video.
Hey Alina,
I enjoyed reading your thoughts about our Country music video project. I have to agree, when signing up for this class I did not ever think we would get the experience to create a music video ourselves. My group, consisting also of Mark and Brent, chose to also do a song without a music video. I liked the idea of this because you can choose the meaning of the song yourself and act it out in your video. Zane’s group did a great job at creating a new meaning of their song “I Saw God Today”, in a funny way. I thought y’alls video was put together very nice and really enjoyed watching it. What a great project we all got to participate in!
I can definitely relate to your post, Alina! When I registered for this class, I never imagined having to make a music video, but I can definitely say that it was one of the coolest projects I’ve experienced in college. Everyone’s videos turned out so great, and they were all fun and interesting to watch. It was enjoyable to watch how each group interpreted their song and determined how to portray it to the class. Lastly, I have to say that I am extremely proud of our group’s video; it was completely worth braving the cold!
I feel like everyone was a bit anxious when we heard that we would be making a music video. I’m sure we have all had to make some kind of video for a class project before, but this one was a lot more fun because we got to involve country songs in them. It was a nice break from writing a 1000 word essay and it allowed us to flex our creativity a little more. It was a little awkward running around in the cold weather while people stared at us. I like how you invited your friends to join in on the video!
Yes, I definitely remember how unbearably cold it was on that day. Of all the days for Austin to have subarctic weather conditions, it was the one day we could walk around campus. I remember just running around for a bit to stay warm. Anyways, it was definitely a little stressful to make the music videos. It was difficult to make a good video while not ruining the original song. I was a bit nervous about the video at first, but as we kept filming our ideas just sort of came together to make a finished product. It was a fun experience, I am glad we got the opportunity to make our own music videos in college.
Amazing job with your video! I think we all did a good job of capturing our song’s meaning but your group’s video reminded me the most of an actual music video. I really liked how in your video you cut back and forth from scenes of the story you were portraying to you lip syncing the lyrics. I feel like that is what most music videos these days do with their format. Also the message was very clear and went along very well with the song’s lyrics. Again, great job to you and your group members, you did a fantastic job!
Alina, I enjoyed seeing your video! You guys did amazing! I couldn’t agree with you more on the expectations for this class. When I first had told my friends about me taking Rhetoric of Country Music they all gave me a funny look but at the same like they all agreed that it sounded like a really cool class. I was a bit hesitant because I did not know what to expect. By far, this has been one of the coolest class I have taken at UT. I am glad that this types of classes are offered. Although I was nervous about the music video, I am so glad it was assigned! It was so much fun to do!
Alina: This is a great idea for a post, and I will probably make my students next semester read it before they make their videos. I also enjoyed and was impressed by your video. And… I guess I should apologize to everyone for making y’all go out in the cold to record. Haha.
I agree, and agree with everyone else’s agrees. This day was certainly cold, but after a while I actually did not mind. Taking this class was definitely a great ending to my undergraduate studies. When I went into this class I was very excited, and taking the class was one of the greatest experiences. I thought my history of Christmas class was unbeatable, but this one definitely takes the cake. Making the video allows me to appreciate all of the work that goes into making professional ones. They probably have to go through some tough conditions sometimes. Overall this was a great learning experience.
First off, that day was SO cold. We actually did a good chunk of our filming inside, but that was difficult because we had to be more quiet then. I definitely was not expecting anything like this when I registered for the class, in fact I had no idea what to expect at all since I had never heard of it. I think it’s awesome that you got someone involved in your video that isn’t in the class because it might help to get the word out more about the class. We didn’t even think about that, but it probably would have made it a lot easier to figure out details of our love song that we made a video to.
Alina, I also thoroughly enjoyed making the music video for our class! Definitely the highlight of the class! I also really enjoyed your video. I like that your group did a more serious song and the video matched it! I remember being a little sad afterwards because the song really hit home for me and the way your group acted it out was very relevant. The split road was very clever. I also think it is funny that pretty much everyone has mentioned how cold it was that day. I think it took me a while to thaw out after spending 2 hours in that awful cold weather (I do not enjoy the cold). I also loved my group and feel that making the video made us closer. ☺
AS we all know now making a music video is much harder than it seems. You cant just go out and film something and add music to it. There has to be some sort of plan or idea behind it. Depending on how it flows the meaning of a song can changed dramatically by the images of a powerful music video. That being said, i had a great experience making my music video with my group. We didnt have much time to make it but we had fun filming our scenes and i was very happy with the final product. We didnt quite know how we were going to fit our material together but we made it work and it was a good learning experience for all of us.