A2 MEDIA  PORTFOLIO

 

Usually what attracts me in music videos are the visuals; i.e. cinematography, the setting/location, the way lighting/colours/effects are used to tell the story or rather compliment the music/lyrics. Below are some videos which are beyond being called that but should rather be referred to as short films because the amount of work in terms of directing/planning/etc is unbelievable which really shows in the end product. For instance, Kanye West's Runaway (only the extended music video is included here as the whole short film is about thirthy minutes long) is a true piece of art because of the quality work in terms of direction and costumes and using ballerinas in a music video of a rap genre song. A contrasting video to Runaway could be considered to be Wild For The Night b A$AP Rocky. The video is set in Dominican Republic and the only thing which Runaway and Wild For The Night have in common is good fashion sense of the artists. I like the video because of it's inclusion of such part of culture in Dominican Republic/Carribean Region you don't often get to see and it almost feels like a first-hand experience in a way because some of the footage is so raw and compelling. A$AP's videos in general are one of my favourite to watch because I enjoy how in each one of them the A$AP had a lot of say in (sometimes even directing it all by himself) or how it's just simply aesthetically pleasing.

 

Most of these videos include quite a bit of performing of the song by the artist; however, Sam Smith's I' m Not The Only One only has a little bit of performence and instead concentrates on the narrative which eventually is a woman knowing her husband is being unfaithful to her and dealing with the internal conflict within herself that it brings. The video acts as a complimentary story to the song and stays with you whenever you hear the song without seeing the video.

 

There's quite a few more videos which I admire a lot, but here's some which I consider to be my all-time favourites: