Last week while I was trying to find information on the video for the song Drive, I came across the fact that at the beginning of this year, Incubus held a contest for the video to their song Dig. They gave out excellent multi-camera green screen footage of the band performing the song and let people do the rest. Sadly, I only found out about this last week, I would have loved to have entered.

So here is the next best thing, a criticism of the 5 finalists. I’ve ordered them in order of production value.

Video Number 1:

Director/Editor: Justin Hanna
DInFlux Estimated Production Value (DEPV): $2.99 (cost of a notebook and pen)

A perfect example of a very simple concept executed well. Good job in handling the green screen, and the gritty hand drawn animation works out great (I like the heart beating at the end.).

Video Number 2:

Director/Editor: “Derry” ?
DEPV: $50 (cost of a step ladder, some used sheets and paying your neighbors chubby daughter to come out to the beach for the day.)

Here is a perfect example of someone who had much bigger ambitions than skills. Yes the girls are somewhat photogenic, proven unquestionably by the flood of “omg so cute” YouTube comments. I’ll even give them credit for taking a step ladder, and some off white sheets and making a set. And that is where it ends.

The concept is trite: Lets show random people going through a range of emotions with a soft song, and then we’ll have them sing it too, in slow motion. But I’ve seen worse on TV, lets move on to the horrendous technical execution. I’m sure this video was “crafted” together in iMovie. The keying is beyond bad, the picture in picture fails miserably at doing anything, and the handy cam footage is amateur at best (I still don’t know if its crappy footage or they were trying to posterize some shots). My favorite part is at around 1:16 when the green screen crop start cutting off the singer. Sick effect.

Want to improve this video by 300%? Remove all the Incubus shots, and add more shots of the girls. At least then it’s full blown trite and you might win people over on the cute alone, some of those girls have screen presence!

Stay tuned for a review of the other 3 finalists tomorrow!

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ... You might also like these posts:

1. Music Video Review:
   Incubus - Dig (Part 2)...
2. Music Video Review:
   Incubus - Drive...
3. Music Video Review:
   The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar...
4. Music Video Review:
   REM - Losing My Religion...
5. Music Video Review:
   Rammstein - Sonne...

 Email This Post