What makes a good/bad product?

To establish what makes a good and a bad music video we watched 3 low grade student videos and 3 commercial videos.

Unsuccessful Videos

When watching the unsuccessful music videos I noted down some of the things that made it unsuccessful.

Grade E video.

-Cinematography is poor, no variety of shot types and angle, no pans or tilt, and no shots that relate to the lyrics. For example sad lyrics are often accompanied by close ups.

- The narrative was random and does not flow or fit the song. It jumps from one location to another for no reason and does not fit with the lyrics.

-Editing is minimal, simple cuts from one scene to another. Editing does not flow with the music and no editing on the beat is featured.

- Mise-en-scene is lacking, lighting and location is bad in many cases, you cannot see the artist due to poor lighting and the locations do not fit with the song.

- No performance or narrative featured.

Grade D- video.

- This video tried to break conventions and be a little post modern by adding a quote within the video, this broke the flow of the video completely and served no relevance to the video or the lyrics.

- Mise-en-scene was again lacking in this video, a green screen was used during a performance scene however the locations used for the green screen where poor, for example a simple picture of a park.

- The framing of many shots was poor, cutting of drummers heads or arms etc.

- This video did feature performance which is good however it did not reflect the genre of the song and the cast who was performing look very bored taking the audience away from the video.

Grade D video.

-Video feature narrative which differs it from the others however it does not flow with the song.

-Editing was good in the video as they used screen flashes however at times the editing was too much and didn't quite fit in certain places.

- The location does not switch often and the shot taken in one location are rather long and drawn out.

- Despite this video having some narrative, it does not feature any performance.

Successful videos.

When watching some commercial videos I again noted down some things that made it good in terms of the techniques used and how it follows conventions.

Meat Loaf - Objects in the rear view mirror.
- Progressive and interesting narrative

- Narrative tells a story of childhood and relates to the artists life.

- Editing fits with the pace of the music, at time becomes fast paced along with the song and slow paced when the song slows down.

- Has a huge variety of angles and shot types all framed well.

- Editing syncs performance and narrative well with pans and cuts from locations.

- Mise-en-scene is good with nice lighting that reflect songs mood, costume and location changes are frequent.

This video takes advantage of the length of the song. With the song been around 8 minutes long you can tell a full story, this story is of childhood memories and is re lived in the narrative section and reflected on in the performance sections. The pace and flow of the video are synced with the song and problems in the narrative happen on the fast paced section of the song. 

Ok Go - Here It Goes Again

- The video features no narrative which in this case works out well as it is a comical video.

- The entire video is a single static shot. This is good as the video feature large amounts of action on the screen at once.

-Costume fits the song and the theme and lighting is good in the video.

- Performance elements in parts of the video.

This video is mainly successful as it become an internet sensation of sorts, this video was intended to be different and wow the viewer a little as the video is impressive because it is a one take video. This is breaking many conventions of music videos and is very risky but is a great example on how to do a comical video well. 

Kings of Leon - Sex On Fire
- Performance and narrative flow well because of the editing style used.

- The shot variety is good, the video feature uncomfortable close ups that relate to the song.

- The video fits the genre, with the costume and the overall mise-en-scene of the video.

- Pace and flow from one scene to another along with edits on the beat.

- Dark colours but the lighting is good as it emphasizes correct areas of people in the narrative and performance elements.

This video fits its genre very well, and relates to the song lyrics well as it uses good mise-en-scene that reflects what is being said. The narrative and performance split it good and is all edited together nicely using the beat of the song to flow from one scene to another.