Music Video Examples (a critique) P1 (a-f)

Music Video Analysis

Xilent - Boss Wave (Official Video)

Editing:
Boss Wave blends retro 8-bit game graphics, live action and CGI. The music's pace is in sync with the actions occurring in the video, this is demonstrated by the shots themselves as they became shorter and shorter lasting about 1-3 seconds each, heightening the intensity of the content.

VFX:
This video includes highly detailed 3D characters which are well animated and composited perfectly into the frame.
Another use of special effects I found interesting was the Heads up display inside the robot. These were tracked to the main characters head and would follow where he looked, this worked well with the fisheye effect.
Two dimensional graphics also played a large role in this video, as the story is about an 8-bit game the video features clips in which the scene is shown with 8-bit graphics. To represent this 8-bit style in a 3D environment 3D cubes where used as blood, which fit well with the themes.
To give this video the look of an action movie the editors have 'crushed the blacks' to give a more cinematic feel to the video. Also on some of the shots a gradient overlay of yellow and blue has been used, this along with optical flares brings the scene to life. Overall the VFX in this production makes the video very entertaining.

Narrative:
Boss Wave's video does bring the song to life and give it a story. As the music is 8-bit dubstep, similar to that of old video games the video artists have used these styles to plan the video and create a narrative about this video game character defeating various enemies to get to the boss round and defeat him, however it turns out that it was just the imagination of a hardcore gamer. I liked this narrative as it was consistent and chronological.

Camera:
This music video uses a variety of shots. To create a sense of action the cinematographer has made use close ups to focus the audiences attention. Most notably however was the use of a tracking shot which really broke the shot sequence that had followed up until then.
Although this clip features a lot of camera movement most of this has been done in post production so it was easier for the CGI editors to include the 3D models how in the real time footage there were good uses of panning, arc shots and also a zolly shot.

Mis-en-scene:
All human characters in this production wore just normal clothing.
This video take place most in the streets of an unknown city but also the gamers back garden and house.
There's no artificial lighting in this production apart from lights in 3D programs to represent the daylight in the real time footage.


Friday - Rebecca Black



Editing:

Thanks to the terrible lyrics in this song this video has suffered the consequences, resulting in a mash up clips that don't really correspond to the words naturally, this has resulted in clips that are too long and too short this along with the poor lip sync gives an overall negative look.
Special effects wise this video performs very poorly, the use of green screen in the car scenes is very poorly keyed and results with rough edges around the actors.

Narrative:

The song and video are both mainly syntagmatic with occasional flashes to an terribly animated calendar and dark room with coloured lights in which Rebecca is singing. Some scenes also feature a black guy in a car rapping who seems to play no role in the narrative whatsoever.

Camera:

The camera work in Friday is equally as bad as everything else, the shots are generic and repetitive with little variety. Most shots were either medium close ups or close ups reflecting how little thought was put into the production.

Mis-en-scene:

Costumes used in this production are nothing special there just standard pieces of clothing that do very little to attract the audiences attention.

This production features multiple locations these being; Rebecca Blacks home, a motorway and a party.

The parts of this production that was filmed on green screen were very poorly lit revealing how Poor the production quality was.

Acting was equally as bad as anything else in the video the actors are young teens and featured driving cars expressing totally inappropriate actions. Most acting is just actors smiling at Rebecca Black with very forced smiles.