OnTheBrink

On The Brink wishes to thank all the people that have contributed time and resources to make our Synergistic Marketing class an energetic and dense experience. You have been part of supporting the advent of a unique college class that hopefully is going to mature into something even bigger.

The class wishes to direct a specific thanks to Prof. Dick Williams. Thank you for connecting us with interesting professionals, pushing us to make impressive things and last but not least THANK YOU for all the pizza you have bought us!

Enjoy the holidays! We will be back in the spring…

/OnTheBrink

Ad for Fiat 500 produced by students Ben Hickson & Henry Reed (http://www.villahouse.tv/) for Synergistic Marketing class at Middle Tennessee State University.

Ad for Fiat 500 produced by Amy Parks for Synergistic Marketing class at Middle Tennessee State University. Photography and editing: Warren Smythe (formspring.me/WarrenSmythe)

Alaina Cross - Handle Me [Official Music Video]

Music video and ad for Fiat 500 produced by Amy Parks for Synergistic Marketing class at Middle Tennessee State University. Photography and editing: Warren Smythe (formspring.me/WarrenSmythe)

Check out Alaina Cross on Reverbnation! This complete EPK (Electronic Press Kit) was made by Brooke Ivey; assisted by Ashanna Gardiner, Amy Parks and Zach Noblitt.

ALAINA CROSS Official Electronic Press Kit

The Synergistic Marketing class at Middle Tennessee State Univertisty met with Jay Frank, successful music business manager and author of “FutureHit.DNA” and “Hack Your Hit”.

By Becca Andrews

These days, Middle Tennessee State University is making a different kind of business deal. 

A group of twelve students in the university’s College of Mass Communication were hand-picked by Professor Dick Williams for a synergistic marketing class is working for Detroit-based Chrysler.

“The idea for this class evolved from a conversation with my friend Luis Resto, during a summer visit to Detroit,” Williams said. “Luis is one of the co-writers of the Eminem hit, ‘Lose Yourself,’ which Chrysler used to launch their new Chrysler 200 during the Superbowl.” 

Resto connected Williams to Olivier François, head of the Fiat brand and chief marketing officer at Chrysler, that day on his front porch, and Williams heard back on his drive home to Nashville. Within a matter of hours, the deal was done. Williams would construct a class with the goal of getting Chrysler fresh advertising material and students real-world experience. 

The team– which consists of upper-class students with such majors as artist management, audio production, and film production– has created an advertising campaign for Chrysler’s revamped Fiat 500, and is working on a similar project for the company’s SRT brand. The SRT is being produced at the suggestion of Ralph Gilles, head of the brand.

Alaina Cross, a musician and student at MTSU, was chosen by the group as the artist they will represent for the semester. Students were assigned to put together a press package and promotion plan, as well as record a dance-pop song and a music video. 

Cross’s song, “Handle Me,” was written by another student, Michael Watson. The track was recorded by Taylor Bray and Jeffrey Braun, class members and Silver and Gold winners in this year’s AES  traditional recording competition. “Handle Me” was mixed by five-time Grammy award-winner John Jaszcz (theyoshman.com) and was produced by Dick Williams.  The music video features Cross driving a Fiat 500, with the camera zooming in on a close-up of the logo at the end of the song. 

“Several students and a couple of professors brought Alaina Cross to my attention,” Williams said. “I wasn’t sure if she was right for the song we selected until we started recording it in the studio. Once she gained confidence, her talent really started to shine and I knew we made the right decision.”

Through weekly meetings, a couple trips to Detroit and advice from Williams, the group hopes they have come up with a successful campaign that will impress Chrysler.

Students pitched storyboard ideas to Walid Saba, the group creative director of Chrysler, during a meeting in October.  A business man who wears his artist’s heart on his sleeve, Saba was enthusiastic about the creativity of young minds and readily gave his story to the students.

“Everyone knows what beautiful is,” Saba said. “You don’t have to be educated to recognize beauty. Fundamentally, when you look at something beautiful, you almost always get a majority take on that. As a designer, you have to be able to break it down to its fundamental variables so everyone can see it.”

Keyboardist, producer and all-around Detroit music guru Luis Resto was called in to write and give music advice to the team. Resto also wrote the music for the student-produced video that introduced Chrysler to MTSU at a Detroit meeting in October.

Several students were also taken on trips to Detroit by Williams to get a better feel for the brands, touring the impressive Chrysler building, meeting with advertising officials, and even racing an SRT Jeep Grand Cherokee around the Chrysler track. 

“I’m a car guy, I’ve always loved cars,” said Wesley Oakes, a recording industry management major in the class. “This has been awesome.”

The goal of the class has been to bring real-world experience into the classroom, and Williams hopes to have done just that.

“Students are experiencing something they would never have an opportunity to see under any other circumstances,” Williams said. “Having the association of a major manufacturer like Chrysler is truly an honor for my class and the university.”

By Becca Andrews (originally published on www.mtsusidelines.com)

Luis Resto did not entertain dreams of hard-hitting rap music fueled by brilliant orchestral melodies when he first fell in love with music.

Now a major producer in the hip-hop world, Resto began his career in his parents’ house in Garden City, Mich., playing keyboard in his older brother Mario’s group, helping create a sound he describes as  ”fusion mixed with rock ‘n’ roll,” with pop lyrics. 

Although he lives in Detroit, Resto recently visited Middle Tennessee State University to participate in a Chrysler ad campaign that is being designed by Dick Williams’ Synergistic Marketing class.

It is an acceptable assumption to make that the beat lives in Resto’s blood. His family has a strong arts background. The youngest of four brothers, Resto was surrounded with the artistic talents of two of his older brothers, DeDe, a dancer, and Mario, a singer.

“My parents were Puerto Rican– we’d go to Puerto Rico in the summer times to visit, and we’d watch Beba, my grandma, accompany my grandpa in singing Portuguese songs,” Resto said. “I think between that and seeing my brother [Mario] love music, I wanted to play something.”

Resto’s father encouraged him to pursue music, and suggested he choose either piano or organ to master. Resto chose piano, and quickly became heavily involved in Mario’s group.

At 15, he found love in the form of an Oberheim OBX  synthesizer. He persuaded his father to buy it for him by telling him, ‘I’m not sure what I’m gonna use it for, I just got a feeling it’s something I’m gonna like.’ Lessons in Detroit and much experimentation helped mold the Puerto Rican musical mastermind into one of the most demanded producers in the business.

Resto’s breakthrough moment into the industry came with his involvement as a keyboard player for Detriot-based funk outfit, Was (Not Was).  His synthesizer teacher, Don Fangeson, also known under the stage name Don Was, introduced him to the band.

At the time, Don was working on the track “Wheel Me Out,” one of the first singles released by Was (Not Was). Resto brought in his synthesizer and his violin to do some studio work and the rest, as they say, is history. Resto said Don acted as a mentor, and would bring him into the studio to work around midnight, collaborating till the wee hours of the morning.

“It was a great beginning,” Resto said of the experience he gained with Don.  ”It was this hodgepodge of all these styles, you know? It was fun, it had Motown, rock ‘n’ roll– I brought the synthesizer to it.”

Resto said his interest in jazz music, inspired by the tunes of his favorite band, Weather Report, influenced the direction of the group and brought a fresh musical approach.

As his involvement with the group waned, Resto found himself playing keyboard–his “main thing”– and working with musicians such as Patti Smith and The Highwaymen.

“With someone like Patti Smith, she’s such a poet,” he said, a wide grin lighting up his tan face. “I grew up really, really admiring Patti Smith. When I was 13, I looked at the cover of Horses and I just thought she was so wild-looking, and really liking what I heard, you know? So to be able to work with her 20, 25 years later is crazy.”

Working with The Highwaymen was another fulfilling experience.

“That was awesome,” Resto said brightly.  ”I was there for three days, everybody cut in the same room. It’s great to still have the old way of cutting as opposed to the other way we do it on the computer. It’s just lovely, playing together. And Johnny Cash would come in and say ‘Hello’ to ya, not in a condescending way. He’d recognize you, I always remember that. You’re looking at him in awe, and he’s all, ‘Hey, how ya doin’ today.’ “

Resto has recorded with artists of various genres. He’s played an incredible range of instruments and has filled roles from producing to co-producing to penning lyrics.

“I’ve co-produced quite a bit, I find that to be my best role,” Resto said, leaning in. “Kind of collaborating with everyone that I’m with.  It’s so much easier for me to be just this spigot of creative ideas, but when it comes to decision-making? Not so easy.”

Resto finds this especially true of his working relationship with rap royalty, Marshall Mathers, known to the world as Eminem. Luis was called in by Joel Martin, Mathers’ production company manager at the time, for a session with the newcomer about a decade ago, and went in with a great deal of hesitation.

“Just a couple of weeks before, I had just heard “My Name Is…” and I was really taking an argument against it,” Resto said, a frown forming a crease just above his nose as he recalls his reservations. “I was like, ‘God, what’s the point,’ you know? What does that contribute to the universe?”

The vulgarity of Marshall’s lyrics was of hot debate for Resto and the other professionals around Eminem’s budding career. However, the unique sound was something Resto found he couldn’t deny.

“To hear the way Marshall did it, it was a tough crossing for me because some of it was real vile, and yet I hadn’t heard a scenario set up that way,” he said.

The studio session marked the beginning of a legendary friendship, a collaboration that would allow both artists to expand their styles extraordinarily over the next several years. They hit it off musically, and the positive chemistry was undeniable.

The bond that grew between the men is of rare strength in an industry as cutthroat as the music industry, Resto said.

“To me, he’s one of the most trustworthy guys in the business,” Resto said earnestly. “The [public] perception, the anger and stuff, I know where it comes from. His upbringing was pretty different, and his life with Kim (his ex-wife) is…well, you see a lot of it in there. It’s not everything, there’s artistic license taken, but it comes from a place. I’d even go so far to say some of that is common ground between us, frustration with dealing with relationships. He’s inspiring, humorous, he definitely doesn’t come in spewing venom other than at the mic.”

The two fed off each other, with Luis developing a better ear for hip-hop and Marshall experiencing a greater exposure to orchestral music.

“I came in at that time and had hair down to my butt and everyone in this room was thinking I was Michael Bolton. They were like, ‘oh, no, what is he getting into?’ I didn’t give a rip,” Resto said firmly. “I take my shoes off in session, that kind of thing. I’m kinda like an oddball. And then I think that’s why this thing works, because I came from a sense of view, not so much what the current sound was in hip-hop, because I wouldn’t have known it. My background is classical, so I gravitate towards string, towards orchestral approach, and I think that grabbed Marshall’s ear. I think for a run there, that was a sound we had. ‘Lose Yourself,’ to me that’s the synergy that happened there.”

“Lose Yourself,” the theme song for Eminem’s semi-autobiographical film “8 Mile,” was a huge hit for the team. Luis and Marshall came back to the year-old track and made it into what would eventually be a major song associated with Eminem’s career. The positive ideas expressed in the lyrics jolted Resto– he hadn’t heard such sentiments from the rapper who makes his millions off pain and anger.

“So he had had the first two verses down, and I remember hearing, the lyric was just so positive,” he said. “I had not heard this, and no one else had heard something like this from Marshall at that point. So I figured it would flip people out.”

It was “Lose Yourself” where Resto’s classical ear really came in handy.

“But the approach, [Marshall] said, ‘it’s too rock ‘n’ roll.’ All the chords that you heard, the stabs, the chorus, were all rock ‘n’ roll chords,” Resto said. “We took it out, and that’s where all the orchestral thing came in. The build, if you listen to it, it’s not synth, it’s all orchestra. It’s flutes, it’s French horns, that’s the way I approached it.”

And the world listened.

The track garnered attention from fans and intrigued the powers-that-be at Chrysler, resulting in the famous Super Bowl commercial that depicts Marshall Mathers himself driving around downtown Detroit to the pulse-quickening beats of his hit song.

These days, Resto spends his time with musicians and his two children, who are his world. Bedtimes and homework help come before any studio session. In September, he came to Murfreesboro to write a track for Dick Williams’ Synergistic Marketing class in MTSU’s College of Mass Communication. The class has partnered with Chrysler to market ads for the Fiat and SRT brands, as well as promote an artist within the school.

Now he’s back in Detroit, continuing his experimentation with marrying unique sounds together.  He sees his musical future with one foot in the classics and another in the modern, and his in-sync collaborations with Eminem will hopefully have him pounding out bass notes with haunting melodies for many years to come.

His fans hope so.

Picking up a Fiat 500 at the Chrysler dealership in Murfreesboro, TN. From left: Recording Business student Amber Leone, Chrysler dealer Mike Lutwinski, Prof. Dick Williams.

Johnny Moss at Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep of Franklin, TN and Prof. Dick Williams here exchanging a Chrysler 300 for a video shoot.

Stéphane P. Cloutier (Chrysler), Prof. Dick Williams, Becca Andrews and Wesley Oakes at Chrysler HQ in Detroit.

On October 4th the class met with Walid Saba (Head of Marketing Design, Chrysler Group LLC) to pitch ad concepts. (Walid Saba sitting left, Prof. Dick Williams sitting right)

Sebastian Lönberg, Catherine Larson, Bo Puffer, Prof. Dick Williams and Taylor Bray during a visit to Chrysler HQ in Detroit, MI, August 2011