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Goal: Content Creation | Documentaries | Photography | Brand Package | Website Design
Package: Big Moves Plan
Location ⚘ Year: Tri-State Area. 2023
I founded HearThatMusic.com with some help from my friend Tristan Duverglass in 2022 because of our shared passion for music and photography. I managed the content creation for social media, documentaries, and getting the website up and running, while Tristan focused on photography. I also handled all the designs, directing, editing, and back-end workings.
Our target audience was aspiring musicians. We learned what our audience wanted and combined that with our mission to give deserving artists their first piece of media coverage.
We didn't want anything flashy but wanted to be noticed. Red would become our primary color and our logo remained minimal - something that would stand out in the music and hip-hop community.
It was important that our content provided information on how musicians can grow while highlighting the subject or individual being documented.
Creating a community in the music industry is an easy thing to do. Creating a thriving community is a lot more difficult. It takes patience, purpose, presence, and passion. HearThatMusic.com is a passion project that is not money-driven. It’s about growth over time and making a small but loyal community that can grow with us.
What started with simple videos about music turned into documentary style interviews, then a website, which added podcasting. We are still releasing content this day and will implement more projects as our community grows.
Without sponsorships or backing from an established company in the industry, making an immediate splash takes viral posts and a bit of luck. We were not in the position to capitalize on either which led us to pursue the slow and steady route of quality over quantity.
Pre-Launch
Since our goal was to reach the music community we settled in where they are avid visitors. It was key to use platforms that were also similar in format so our content would be reusable.
Teach our audience how to succeed in the music industry through interviews and documentaries. Work with featured musicians for outreach and word-of-mouth growth.
Grow a community of aspiring musicians to use as a springboard to launch more helpful products in the future without searching for customers.
We utilized platforms that can host posts, live streams, and monetization opportunities.
YouTube
Self-Hosted
Twitch
Education  |  Website  |  Content
Founded:Â Early 2022
Field: Music
Form: Entertainment
Location: Tri-State Area
Tier: Lower-Mid Level
Many musicians don’t have access to information on monetizing their music. The music community would also like to hear from top music industry professionals from the business side, not only the mainstream artists featured by the commercial platforms.
Software
Interview Gear
Photography Gear
Lighting Gear
Since long form videos are the main content style, the layout of their YouTube channel took priority equal to the website. It was decided the channel would feature documentaries, full podcast episodes, and podcast clips.
I’ve said it before – getting a subject’s full story with all the juicy details is no easy task. We need to understand how they want to be represented visually as well. Adding photos add our signature look while most production groups strictly focus on video.
Our podcasts utilize a minimalist setup. Each conversation was meant to highlight the individual and teach listeners how to succeed in their respective fields.
This was just the second website I’ve built and is done so on the sturdiest of foundations when considering ease of use. Till this day much of it remains unchanged. All that I need to do is update the plugins from time to time. Otherwise I can just sign in, write an article with some pictures, post it, and I’m done. My first turn-key website that supplies visitors with all of Hear That Music’s content.
Making high-quality social media posts took much longer than expected. Between sifting through software and finding the right style, it took about 6 months in total to get to this point. Clean and authentic that captures our style of documentaries while giving value to viewers.
Once we had enough content we wanted to memorialize it while adding to our set of skills and products.
Making high-quality content calls for high-quality merch.
The most important thing was getting the colors right. No matter how good the content is, no one would watch if it looked bad. We went for simple and bold.
We’re entering an extremely competitive field and targeting an audience that does not have much money to spend. This is the definition of a passion project and won’t survive unless we plan well and eventually start making money or getting funding.
Pros
Cons
Content Creation
An efficient 5-step process we’ve developed over time.
The first step is to get the content. Making sure we shoot at the best times and locations.
Not anti Premier Pro or anything but Final Cut is the software of choice for editing.
After 6 months of testing different software this was by far the best for captions.
Where all our text overlays come from. This was our very first software subscription and is highly recommended.
After everything is complete we are ready to drop our content across all our platforms.
Execution
So far its been a great trip with positive reactions from our audience. We’ve successfully started this project by interviewing local artist and extending from there. Each interview brings us new connection and leads to more artists reaching out to us.
I severely underestimated the time needed to accomplish this. At first I assumed three years, but without funding its very hard to grow quickly or connect with big names for interviews. That said, the slow growth we are experiencing is steady and perfect for this being a casual passion project with plans for the future.
What I did well
I happy with the products we have made. I learned a lot about production and have gotten great with cameras and talking to clients.
What I would do differently
I really should have read more books before starting. Maybe 2 or 3 would’ve helped. I should have also watched more interviews and podcasts with business owners on how they built their communities. Could’ve edited the videos better and faster as well if I had more experience going into the project.
