Music Video Techniques

• large number of cuts
• special effects
• cutting to the beat 
• varied camera language 
• green screen 
• lip-syncing 

large number of cuts:
172 cuts Le youth- cool
99 cuts Bastille- of the night

Le Youth- Cool 

A good example of cut scenes is a video with 100 or over cuts. an example for this is Le Youth- cool around the first 60 seconds there were about 68 cut scenes this is because the song its self is upbeat and a fast song. sometimes depending on the genre of the song may have different amount of cuts Le youth- cool is a dance song so you would expect the video to match the tune of it fast but for one cut scene the time for it would arrange to 0.5 -1.5 seconds. this is a good example because it has a large number of cuts and it goes well with the song. the technique has been successful because by adding that many cuts they wanted it to be a fast paced video. i think that having a fast based beat to the song and having a music video that is synced with the song is more appealing to the audience because it shows how much effort the artist has put in and make the audience stay to watch all of the video.

 Bastille- of the night 

A bad example for a large number of cut scenes is Bastille- of the night because during the first 30 seconds there was only 2 cut scenes from a road to a man in his car driving but near to the end when the beat started to get faster there was more cut scenes but still not enough think that the video was successful staying to the story line but was starting to get disoriented for the audience. the video was not successful with the cuts because it didn't match the beat nor the lyrics. I think that the artist was trying to show how much one person can take because the police man felt like he had enough of seeing all these dead body he just wanted it to stop. I think this benefits the audience by showing a story line but i also think that the video was getting boring after the first minuet 

Special Effects
Good: lana del rey- summertime sadness
Bad- Mondonna- Get Together

 lana del rey- summertime sadness


A good example of special effects is Lana Del Rey because compared to other videos such as Mondonna- get together you can tell that summertime sadness has much better effects that get together the effects in Lana's video are much smooth and clean more realistic. the effects its self go really well with the song because the transition between the effects are fast and work well because the song its self is fast. apart from that the video was very successful with the special effects because the artist was aiming for the 3D effect to go along with the music video. the video was good because the effects were clean and professional they way it was set out in the music video. i think that the benefits of this video is that its different because the special effects is more 3D than normal effects  

Mondonna- get together


Mondonna is a very good example for a bad special effect music video this is because she wanted it to be animated aswell as having a lot of effects but when effect clash they don't look good in the music video. I think by watching the video you can tell its not sync well because when the song is going fast the effect is going quite slow apart from that the song was good but at times there was good effects  but the effects was a blur at times. i think that the benifit for this video is that the lyrics match the video but the effects don't look good

cutting to the beat 

Good- Calvin Harris & Alesso - Under Control ft. Hurts
Bad - Sub Focus- Endorphins ft. Alex Clare

Calvin Harris & Alesso - Under Control ft. Hurts

A good example of cutting to the beat is Calvin Harris & Alesso- Under Control ft. Hurts. This music video is a good example because when the song gets faster the scenes cut to the pace of the beat for example when Hurts say "when the day light comes" the beat starts to pick up and go faster the clips in the Music video started to go at the same pace as the beat but before he said "when the day light comes" its slow and the clip takes more time to cut 

Sub Focus- Endorphins ft. Alex Clare

A bad example to cutting to the beat is Sub Focus- Endorphins ft. Alex Clare. this is because the song its self is a dance song but if you were to watch the video without no audio you wouldn't think its a dance song. i say this because as a dance song the music video should be cutting to the beat if the beat is going fast the music video should go fast just for 2 seconds at the start when the beat starts to pick up its fast but thought out the chorus its quite slow and failed to cut to the beat

Varied camera language 
Good - The Wanted - Show Me Love (America)
Bad - Maejor Ali - Lolly (Explicit) ft. Juicy J, Justin Bieber

The Wanted - Show Me Love (America)


The wanted- show me love is a good example of good varied camera language because not only did they show a story in the video on a relationship falling apart they also showed them self's as if they have been through a similar situation. this is also good because they used the different typed of camera angles to show the story in more detail.

Maejor Ali - Lolly (Explicit) ft. Juicy J, Justin Bieber

Maejor Ali - Lolly (Explicit) ft. Juicy J, Justin Bieber is a bad example of varied camera language because the video was of one camera shot a "wide shot" and a close up. i think this is a bad example because it does not  show a story in anyway. the song its self is about a girl all they have in the video is girls dancing. i also think this is a bad video becuase its done in one area and dont shot no camera language with the audience 

Green screen
Good- Sebastian Ingrosso, Tommy Trash, John Martin - Reload 
Bad- Big Sean - Beware (Explicit) ft. Lil Wayne, Jhene Aiko


a good example of green screening is Sebastian Ingrosso, Tommy Trash, John Martin - Reload  this is because because the video looked realistic even thought more than 75% of the video was a green screen. this is a good example because they avoided the shadows from the light and it looked really clean and flowed well. they wanted to make a effect of time travel because i think the start of the video was the ice age and time travels to our time but as the ice age is no more they used a green screen and it looks very good 

A bad example of green screening is  Big Sean - Beware (Explicit) ft. Lil Wayne, Jhene Aiko because through out the video part of his head has been cut out and there are some shadows at times overall i dont think this is a good green screen video i think that it was a low budget music video that they didn't out a lot of thought in to it 

Lip- Synching
Good- OneRepublic - Counting Stars
Bad- Iggy Azalea - Change Your Life (Explicit) ft. T.I.

a good example of lip syncing is OneRepublic - Counting Stars. this is because through out the video the music was synced with his vocals the lip syncing is not slow not cut off nor is it delayed. this is also a good lip syncing music video because there was no faults 

A bad example of lip syncing is Iggy Azalea - Change Your Life (Explicit) ft. T.I. this is because in the video when she is "singing" the lip syncing is cut of to go to the next cut this happens through out the music video this technique has not been successfully because it dose not look good nor did it work