ONLINE EXCLUSIVE Go online to see more photos from the Doheny Treasure Room’s latest exhibit.
Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | VOL. 163, NO. 16 | www.dailytrojan.com thursday, february 7, 2008
filming words
A multimedia exhibit at Doheny
Library examines the creative process
of adapting books for film scripts. 9
Trench warfare
Coach Pete Carroll signs 10 highly-rated
offensive and defensive linemen as
part of the 2008 recruiting class. 24
ASH WEDNESDAY | Students observe Lent at a local church
Hide Kurokawa | Daily Trojan
Religion ­|
Students attended Ash Wednesday services at the Catholic Center on University
Avenue and 30th Street. Ash Wednesday is the official beginning of Lent, which is the 40-day
period of fasting and prayer that precedes Easter. The 40 days of Lent represent the 40 days
Jesus spent in the desert.
By RYAN FURLONG
Daily Trojan
Candidates vying for Under-graduate
Student Government
positions launched their cam-paigns
Wednesday, signaling the
beginning of the USG elections
period for the upcoming academ-ic
year.
Students will campaign along
Trousdale Parkway over the next
several weeks, talking with stu-dents
and campus organizations,
handing out cards, posting flyers
and placing signs throughout
campus.
“We are very excited to see
how the elections turn out,” Mike
Drachkovitch, co-director of elec-tions
and recruitment, said.
This year, USG subsidized
30-second YouTube clips for
each candidate, which are avail-able
on the USG elections web-site,
Drachkovitch said.
“We were really inspired by the
YouTube presidential debates,”
Drachkovitch said. “We decided
to bring the interactive media as-
Election codes allow
candidates to officially
begin campaigning.
Campaign
season
begins
for USG
| see candidates, page 1 |
OPINION »
The decline of the polar
bear tests the Bush
administration’s denial of
Global Warming, writes
Deanna Maxfield.
PAGE 4
SPORTS »
The USC men’s
basketball team looks
to continue its hot
streak tonight against
Washington in Seattle.
PAGE 22
Alumna wins national contest, record deal
By INARA MANN
Daily Trojan
A few months ago, 22-year-old
USC alumna Kina Grannis was an
unsigned musician working in an
Austin, Texas coffee shop. Now, she
has a record contract with Inter-scope,
Geffen and A&M Records and
a music video that has been seen by
an estimated 90 million viewers.
Grannis was the winner of Dor-itos’
“Crash the Super Bowl” contest,
a national music challenge in which
musicians competed for cash prizes,
a record deal and the opportunity to
have their song aired after the first
quarter of the Super Bowl.
“I was sitting with the other two
[finalists] ... it was the scariest thing
ever,” Grannis said, explaining that
she and the finalists were all flown
to Phoenix and did not know who
the winner was until Grannis’s video
aired.
For the competition, aspiring mu-sicians
sent in clips of themselves
performing original songs.
A panel of judges, including the
Doritos team, executives from IGA
and musician Will.i.am, picked 10 fi-nalists
from the hundreds of people
who sent in their clips. Internet users
voted for two weeks and chose three
finalists.
An additional three weeks of on-line
voting determined the winner,
who had a 60-second, professionally
made music video of his or her song
aired during the Super Bowl last
Sunday.
Grannis’ song “A Message From
Your Heart” was chosen as the win-ner,
scoring her a record contract
with IGA, the same record company
that represents artists such as Gwen
Stefani, Fergie, the Pussycat Dolls
and Marilyn Manson, in addition to
her 60 seconds of Super Bowl fame.
Grannis said that both finalists
are “extremely talented” and dur-ing
their trip to Phoenix, the three
of them wrote and recorded a song
together. Grannis is hoping to release
their song soon.
Twenty-two-year-old Grannis,
who received a Bachelor’s degree in
social sciences and psychology in
May 2007 and completed the Thorn-ton
School of Music songwriting
curriculum, heard about the compe-tition
through a friend.
After being selected as one of
the 10 finalists, Grannis engaged
in an intense online advertising
campaign. The USC graduate had
a personal website at KinaGran-nis.
com, one she created specifi-cally
for the competition called
TwoWeeksForKina.com, Facebook
groups, MySpace profiles and You-
Tube clips, all of which helped her
gain a boost over her competitors.
Grannis said one of her best strat-egies
was to write a song for the web-site
Digg.com, an online rating site, in
which she and her two sisters sang a
witty and catchy tune in chorus. The
site acts as a search engine to find the
best music voted by users.
Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl”
was a campaign that allowed its cus-tomers
to be in control.
Chad Scurlock, Doritos associate
brand manager, said that, after ex-tensive
research, it became clear that
Doritos consumers were “especially
passionate about music.”
Thornton School of Music associ-ate
dean for external relations Chris
Sampson said the way in which Gran-nis
leveraged the Internet to reach
out to people and build a strong fan
base is an indication of how popular
music will be distributed in the fu-ture.
Sampson said the contest was ben-eficial
to artists because they gained
greater control over their work and
could place an emphasis on live per-formances.
USC alumnus Jason Yano said
he believes that promoting an art-ist’s
work through the Internet “gives
awesome artists like Kina ... a chance
to be exposed.”
Grannis said she had no Web
design experience previously; she
taught herself to build websites using
the Mac computer program iWeb.
Born and raised in Mission Viejo,
Calif., Grannis spent most of her
childhood writing songs and singing
for fun with her two sisters — Misa,
24, and Emi, 19.
During her freshman year at USC,
Grannis found more than a hobby in
music, often playing her guitar in the
Kina Grannis, a 2007
alumna, won a record deal,
Super Bowl air time.
| see grannis, page 7 |