Macklemore.
Macklemore- Tyler West, Jeffrey Sasu, Jorgenson Paragas and Jordan Edwards
What works so well about this video is the perfect balance between comedy and seriousness, how they incorporated many different techniques not very often shown in music videos that just seemed to work so well. Giving the visual a cartoon/comic-book affect put a different twist on the song and what the narrative of the lyrics actually mean. Also the amount of camera angles, editing technique and transitions and to the high quality of the music video. Finally the balance between lip syncing Visual and the story is very evenly split. What the team who made the music video haven't done very well is a few points where the music video becomes more of a film. One very obvious point is where the music actually stops and a different track is put on while the caricatures have a small dance battle. This point along with the cartoon like transition to finish the video are some of the times that the video just didn't work. In regards to the location the song and narrative is very fast and so London was a very good place to film it as it is also a very fast place. the narrative of the song however did not at any point have any sort of relevance to London (excluding the speed) The one outfit that two of the characters were dressed in was very stereotypic of a burglar in a cartoon which again didn't have much relevance to the location but somehow made a very good understandable storyline. The other outfit that was being used was a suit which of course is really the dress code of London and created a link to the location it was filmed and the storyline of the visual. The amount of camera angles and correct camera angles are very good they use a lot of long shot jump cuts which works especially well with the narrative and storyline. When codes and convictions came into play there is not many that this video didn't brake. The pausing of the music the comic to realise shots playing a different track within the video are just some of the techniques that have almost never been used in music videos, and for some strange reason these all work rather well. The creativeness that has gone into this video is shown throughout the entire five minutes and although some of these ideas would have been spare of the moment it is easy to tell that all of the creators were putting a lot of thought in to making the video unique in the best that they could. The narrative element works pretty well with the performance of the band however the storyline and the lip-syncing band aspect all fall together and at some points it is hard to tell the difference between them as the joke aspect is at the same level in both parts. I believe that this music video would fall into the A-A* category but only just achieving around a 32.
Read All About It.
BLUE LIGHT- by Lily-Rose Clement
Within this video the narrative of the song has been incorporated in to the storyline of the video rather well. Throughout the majority of the video the cuts have been placed on changes in the song which makes the whole video flow very well and look accurately made. The genre of the music is quite dark in this is shown through the lyrics and sound of the music what the student has done very well is to show this through the visual and make the whole film in black and white. The uses of different camera angles and some advanced editing also makes the music video pretty good overall. What the student has not done so well in is that the visual dose not tell the most clearest of stores, it at times becomes very confusing as the caricature is jumping from one setting to the next with (other from the cut on her head) no structure. One final thing that is not grate is the amount of lip-syncing, there are only a few short cuts to the character actually doing this in the video. With regards to the location the song is rather a confusing one where you would expect it in a dark maybe miss understood place so i think that the woods is a perfect place for this song. there is a wide range of camera angles used in this video there are close-ups, high-angle, low-angle, tracks and pans just to name a few. Codes and convection are are followed mostly throughout this video for example having two secret visual parts to the video one part lip-syncing and the other telling a story. The overall creativeness of the music video is pretty good the transitions from cut to cut are interesting and the overlapping of scenes keeps the viewer interested in the video. The narrative Element works well with the performance of the artist as she keeps a very blank and almost emotionless face and body language throughout the performance working perfectly with the narrative of the song. I would give this video B/C as it fits most of the criteria for the upper end of this criteria box.
Read All About It- By Isabel Shen
Within this video there are a few techniques that work really well and some techniques that don't work so well. Some of the ones that do work well are the storyline, it is a very clear and simple to understand as it is obviously about bulling. The song works very well with this visual depiction of how someone who is being bullied feels. This is also backed up by the narrative of the song and the fact that it is mostly filmed in black and white. Things that just haven't worked very well are unfortunately littered throughout the video. The lack of camera angles and transition is one of the biggest issues with the music video, the team who created it probably didn't create an depth storyboard to get advice on to then follow. The fact that the first two thirds are filmed in almost completely black and white seems silly when the last third is filmed in complete colour. some of the transitions also seem a bit sloppy when not changing on the beat. The location is chosen well as bulling is most predominant in school and so it works well with the narrative and the characters who are teenagers at a high school. Any other location would have worked as well as the one they chose. In relevance to the camera angles they have used the correct ones such as slow pans, slight tilts and slow zooms which all work well with the narrative however they make the music video very boring. They could have still achieved the same slow affect while using more camera angles to make it more interesting for the viewer. the codes and convections of standard music videos have been completely followed here but not to a grate standard. There are two set peaces to the video one is the storyline and the other is the lip-syncing. As the story line is bulling it is not extremely hard to create a powerful visual that the creators did not succeed at, the lip-syncing was better but did not look perfect every time and so lowered the whole quality of the overall video. The video overall is not at all very creative there is only around 5 different rooms or places that they have filmed it in. The most creative part is when they use the newspapers as the background which is a rather simple idea. the narrative dose however work well with the performance of the artist as you do get a good science of how it feels to be bullied and what the person inside is feeling. The actor keeps a sad almost "given up" look on her face throughout most of the video. I believe that this video falls in to the D/E category as it meets this criteria but hardly any of the B/C.