Past Student Work Analysis - "Absolute" by The Fray

I think this is a really, really good music video! One of the things this group did so well, is research the genre of the music, thus their music video matches the genre of the song so, so well! This is something they also would have got high marks for as it conforms to one of Goodwin's Seven; 'music videos demonstrate certain genre characteristics.
Another thing I thought worked really well, is the lighting. We haven't really thought much about lighting and this has made me want to look into what sort of lighting would be good for our video as I think it made the video really effective. However, this may have only been so effective as it is a performance video. A narrative video may not work so well with such harsh and obvious lighting as it may take the realism out of the story.
I also really liked the relationship between the music and visuals. The editing was in time SO well with the music; and for example, when the guitar chords were really important, there would be a shot of the guitar. Which worked really well! I think it's really important to emphasise the important things with extreme close-ups, and perhaps we will take this into consideration with some of our close-up shots... Maybe they should be extreme close-ups? As the effect it has on the audience is a lot stronger!
They also followed another one of Goodwin's Seven; 'the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist'. Again lots of extreme close-ups were used; which really highlighted the importance of the artist.
I also really liked the frequent references to the "slight" narrative in the video. Although it is a very heavily performance video, it also has a small narrative to it. This worked really well as it didn't distract from the performance, and it was versatile enough that any member of the audience could relate and take their on interpretation on it.
Similarly, I also liked all the random scenic shots in the video. It didn't distract from the video, as it fit in so well with the narrative. Really good video!!!
This is also probably the best lip-synching student example I have ever seen, which makes it so believable and effective!