The music video is making a comeback! 

Cinematographers and camera crews everywhere celebrate!  A good deal of a beginning DPs income used to be from music videos and many over the years have transitioned from that world to narrative features.  Music Videos are quick to shoot, given high production values, and widely viewed.  That is they WERE in the hay day of Michael Jackson and MTV.  YouTube made it easier to spread, but also cheaper.  Producers were now pushing major music videos with extremely low budgets like $10,000-30,000 rather than the 2 million budget days of Madonna and TLC. 

Finally, that high end video industry is taking off again.  Hopefully, we can get out of some of the generic studio crap of the last few years and into some interesting territory visually. 

I will center on Rihanna to show what I think is successful and what is not.  Personally, some of my favorite videos belong to this particular pop artist.

Best - “Only Girl (In the World)” (Only available in 480p which breaks my heart)

         I name this video the best because visually it has style, intrigue, and fits the song perfectly.  There is the right amount of repetition to feel cohesive without losing your interest and the right amount of build.  The idea is so simple: Rihanna is the only girl in the world.  The team managed to create a world for her and specific to her, one that looks space-like and unique, but was shot just outside of LA. The color scheme is done with Digital Intermediate and shot on film for a crisp, gorgeous product.  

Good - “Man Down”

        This video follows a storyline, as many do, and is executed so damn well.  Although Rihanna requested to go to her home in Barbados to shoot, they shot across the way in Jamaica instead. The color correction and style for the video is worthy of a short film credit.  The video manages to bring real emotion and really highlighted the “I Shot the Sheriff” influences of the song visually. Warm tones, smooth camera movements, and precise spot lighting are the stars of this video.

Worst - “Diamonds”

       The amount of praise I have heard for this video is surprising.  The video is not cohesive in the slightest and uses water, flare, smoke, and shine to dazzle and distract from the fact that it has no direction, style, emotion, or real cinematic talent.   In my humble opinion, this music video contains the worst elements of the worst music videos.  Slapped together shots of different visual elements without an overarching theme to complement the song, the artist, or the idea.  It’s easy to tell there was no shot list, but rather just visual pieces they picked up in front of a black seamless in a studio and a 1.2 HMI.  The lowest form of amateur film-student cinematographers could churn out this video in a day so that you can “oooo” and “aaahh”  at slo motion water and smoke.  Bleh.

*I love the influx of responses and opinions from these posts (even negative), so keep em coming!*