Styles and graphical processing, another way to sub-categorize music videos

After defining the format of your clip, comes the choice of its graphic style. How are you going to process the image? Will you move towards a natural processing, a more graphical one or a mixture of both styles?

In this article, we will not enumerate one by one the different graphic styles that have been experimented until today; this could be really long and presents no real interest. We are going to simply review the 5 main types of images provided to you, right from your first reflections on conceiving your own music video.

• The Full-Realistic music videos
• The Fx-Realistic music videos
• The Full-Graphic music videos
• The Full-3D music videos
• The Composite music videos

Full-Realistic music videos

These music videos are placed on the natural aspect of the image, they primarily use the physical properties of the environment (light, matter, wind…) and play with the optical capacities of capture devices. They also can introduce some production techniques like the overlay or the adding of lights type Lens Flare, but the result remains natural. The decors can be either real places or decors recreated in studios, or even environments created with « matt painting », but again we are searching for a natural result. Among the most frequently seen effects and techniques, there are the stop-motion, the slow-motion, the tilt effect, the trans-nav…

Full-Realistic music video examples

Pursuit of Happiness – Kid Cudi Feat. MGMT & Ratatat [HD] from DatNewCudi / DP on Vimeo.

FX-Realistic music videos

This type of music video is based on the same spirit like the Full-Realistic ones, but the real difference is the particular use of special effects. We don’t seek to conceal these effects, but rather highlight them by preserving a photo-realistic look that gives a surrealistic result. If this is one of the evident choices for the futuristic scenes, this category is still not limited in science fiction and it can contain more minimalistic effects. From the moment that the base of a music video is like a natural type of video and simply one digital effect appears a little surrealistic, we can say that it is FX-Realistic.

FX-Realistic music video examples

Skrillex – First Of the Year (Equinox) from HK CORP on Vimeo.

Full-Graphic music videos

In the Full-Graphic music videos, the images are completely processed in a creative graphic style of type design, painting, vector…, they can contain realistic video elements that we consider as basic materials, used as for graphic purposes.

Full-Graphic music video examples

Full-3D music videos

This category gathers together music videos which all their plans or almost their plans are modelised in 3D.

Full-3D music video examples

Composites music videos

Since a music video introduces many of the techniques stated before, we consider it as a composite.

Composites music video examples

Conclusion

From the moment that we wish to determine in which category a music video belongs, we always need to keep in mind to do a proportional reasoning, within a certain margin of tolerance.

In other words, if a music video is made 99% in 3D, we will not place it in the « Composite » category, provided that the common sense lead us to consider it as a Full 3D music video. It is not always obvious to classify a music video into a specific family, a bit like associating some music with a particular genre.

Certain categories may seem a little difficult to separate at the start, like for example the « FX-Realistic » category and the « Composite » category, who are yet different, it’s the experience that facilitates this distinction. Some people are against the fact of classification of things, but this strongly facilitates the communication and allow us to bring readability to abstract concepts.