Lever - "Lucky" - ID# 303

Barrington

Music Video

Entry Description

The band Lever performs their single "Lucky" at the Arcada Theater in St. Charles.

Recent Teacher Comments

• 3/7 3:49 pm - Looked very professional. Good camera movement throughout. Great setting and original song. This would work as a great beginning to a music video. Add a story or other visuals on top of this and you could have a killer video. This would be an excellent audition video to get a gig, but needs more to be an effective music video.

Judge 1

Positives: Location. The theater stage was a great place to set this straight performance video. Simple, effective. Camera work. Well done handheld or floating head shots. A fair amount of variety that suited the nature of the song. A few more extreme close ups or performance detail shots of the instruments, hands strumming, cymbals, whatever, would have been nice. Also maybe a few wide shots from the audience or the balcony would have lent additional value to the piece.

Improvements: Color. The video starts in black and white and remains that way for at least half of its runtime and then, unmotivated and seemingly inexplicably, turns to color. This choice would have been a lot more effective and meaningful if it had been tied to something in the song or in a story. There was no particular explanation for why it started in black and white and probably would have been better to choose either all black and white or all color. Character development. Even though the video is a straight performance video, it's still important to introduce your characters. The only opportunity we have for this in the video as it's cut is the very beginning where the band walks in. Unfortunately, they're all silhouetted so we don't have the chance to see them before they're up on stage and playing. More time should have been spent on all the band members faces. Even though there's no narrative, I'd like to see and "get to know" who's performing for me. Additionally, since they're not a widely known band, some lower thirds or other creative application of titles with their names could have helped achieve this, too.

Judge 2

Positives: Great use of a historical setting for your video and great song. Good job getting multiple camera angles. (I occasionally shoot at the Arcada!)

Improvements: While this setting was pleasing, it doesn't take the same feel as a music video that tells a story.

Judge 3

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Judge 4

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