Locations of Music Videos from Reggaeton Artist Daddy Yankee

Geovis Project Assignment @RyersonGeo, SA8905, Fall 2021

By: Katrina Chandler

For my GeoVisualization Project, I chose to map locations of music videos by the Reggaeton artist, Daddy Yankee, using ArcGIS Story Map. Daddy Yankee has been producing music and making music videos for more than 20 years. I got the idea for this project when watching his music video ‘Limbo’.

Data Aggregation

Official music videos were selected from Daddy Yankee’s YouTube channel. Behind the scenes videos on Daddy Yankee’s YouTube channel and articles from various sources were used to locate cities where these videos were filmed. Out of the 56 official videos, excluding remixes and extended versions, I was able find the locations for 27 of the Daddy Yankee’s music videos. It should be noted that this project has minimal information about Daddy Yankee as the focus of it was the locations where the music videos were filmed.

Making the Story Map

To display my project, I decided to use story map tour as it allows multimedia content and text to be displayed side by side with a map. I started by logging into ArcGIS story map, selected new story then selected guided map tour.

I entered a title for my project then looked into changing the base map. I also wanted to change the zoom to a level appropriate for the music video locations. To do this I selected map options (in the top right corner), changed my base map into imagery hybrid and changed my initial zoom level to city. I chose imagery hybrid as it will help me locate the cities better and I prefer the look of it.

I added my multimedia content, i.e. YouTube links, by selecting ‘add image or video’. I selected ‘link’ and pasted the video link in to the appropriate box. I added text stating where the video was filmed, when it was released (uploaded) on Daddy Yankee’s YouTube channel and any additional information I found.

After entering the multimedia content and text, I added the location on the map that corresponds with the slide. To do this, I selected add location, zoomed into the city and then clicked to drop the location point. Another way to add a location point to the map is to ‘search by location’.

While dropping location points on the map, I did not get all as precise as I would have liked the points to be so I edited them. I selected ‘edit location’ then either clicked and dragged the point or deleted it completely and dropped a new point. In the figure below, there are red edges around the 22nd point. This signifies that the point has been selected and can be dragged to its new location. It can also be deleted by clicking on garbage bin icon (at the bottom centre of the picture). If deleted a new point was reselected.

Dependent on what the user wants, the level of zoom can be different on each slide. To change the zoom level, simply zoom in or out of the current map then select ‘use current zoom level’. This worked well for me when I wanted to show exact locations of where a video was filmed. Slides 6, 11, 14, 18, 19, 22 and 26 in the story map show pin point locations of the following respectively: the Faena Hotel, Hôtel de Glace, Comprehensive Cancer Centre of Puerto Rico, Escuela Dr. Antonio S. Pedrerira, Puerto Rico Memorial Cemetery, Centro, Ceremonial Otomi and La Bombonera Stadium. Pinpoint locations were compared to google maps to ensure the correct placement of the location point. These pinpoint locations are where the music videos were partially or fully filmed.

To change the design of my story map, I clicked ‘design’ at the top of the page and selected the Obsidian theme. To change the colour of my text, I highlighted it, clicked the colour palette and selected the colour I wanted.

There is an option to add multiple media to one slide. To do this, click the ‘+’ icon at the top of slide and upload a file or add a link. To play the music video, select play (like how it is on YouTube) and select full screen if you like. To open the YouTube link in a new window, click the title of the music video. If the user wants to reorder the multimedia content, they have to click the icon with three horizontal lines and a new window will open. There the user can reorder the content by dragging it to the where they like it to be seen. In order to see the multimedia content in one slide, the user clicks the right (and left) arrow as seen below. To see the credited information, hover over the information icon (i) at the top left of the page.

To add a slide, select ‘+’ at the bottom right of the story map. To change the layout, select the ‘…’ at the bottom left of the story map and customize. The first option is Guided where you can select if you want the story to be map focused or media focused. The second option is Explorer where you can select if you want the slides to be listed or in a grid format. To rearrange a slide, select it and drag to the new position.

Although this project is based on media content, I decided to use guided map focus as it is best suited for this GeoVisualization project. The order of this project was based on the dates the music videos were released on Daddy Yankee’s YouTube channel. It is in chronological order starting with the newest upload to the oldest upload. Below is a picture to visualize the locations of the music videos from this project.

Issues

A few of the music videos were filmed in multiple locations. I was only able to add one location point per slide so I select the point based on interest or where the majority of the video was filmed. The song Con Calma had 2 filming locations, however Daddy Yankee filmed his part in Los Angeles so Los Angeles was selected for the location point. Another issue was that eight of the music videos were filmed in Miami, Florida and no precise locations were found for these videos. To allow the viewer to read the name of the city clearly, at the selected zoom level, point locations were placed around the name of the city instead of directly on top of it. This was taken into consideration for all locations. Unfortunately, one of the precise locations (Puerto Rico Memorial Cemetery – slide 19) had a fair amount of cloud cover so the full location could not be seen clearly. I also had an issue changing the story map title and slide titles text colour. Data collection was the most difficult part of this project. The sources of this data (articles) are not scholarly peer reviewed and can be considered a limitation as the accuracy of their data is unknown.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/92479ba9d89a437595161e3957339bcb