What makes an Effective Music Video

There are thousands upon thousands of music videos out there today, with so many flooding the market, originality has decidedly gone down the tubes. However, there are some artists that still live up to what fans expect from their music videos. 

But what makes a great music video? 

1. Must be unique- This is one of if not the most important thing when it comes to creating a music video. Its boring when time and time again I see music videos for slow sad songs where the artist or group are walking down an empty beach or a lone room to promote sorrow and loneliness. If the video is unique hopefully the more people will like it therefore it will become more successful, this is something that I will have to keep in mind when designing my video. 

Such as this Coldplay track 'Yellow', this would be the original for me when looking at sad music videos. The loneliness of this video is/was unique, this has been done a quite a few times since.



2. Tells a story. It can be a bizarre story that doesn't make much sense until the end, but the viewer must feel satisfied at the conclusion. It does not always have to be a story straight through the song, as long as the music and lyrics seem to suit the video and there is not too much contrast. 


This is a good example for the statement above, there is a clear straight forward story for this video. A high percentage of lyrics for this song are meant to be a conversation between the artist and a fan. This works perfectly for this video as it matches perfectly.


3. The artist or director must not feel confined to matching the visuals of the video perfectly with the lyrics. While good in some cases it tends to be a sign of a novice video director as it can seem like the video is following a step by step video template.

4. Makes a lasting impression and/or is memorable. This applies more to the older music videos, the forerunners to great music videos, that might not have the best production values but people still remember them and are often sampled by other artists & mediums. Sabotage by the beastie boys is one of these memorable videos, they were a funny and talented group and this shows through all their music videos such as 'Sabotage'. 

 I need to realise that a great music video does not mean a great song with a mediocre video, but a great music video can have a mediocre song. There are some amazing and iconic songs with okay music videos. The questions I need to ask myself are, Do I think of the music video long after i've seen it, even if i've only seen it once? Did it captivate me when I first saw it? These should be the questions I ask myself when determining whether it is great, so I can incorporate the best bits into my video.