As you may know, I am a Video Editor – and one of the things (probably the main thing) that inspired me to work in television post production was actually music videos.

Music videos are one of my favourite things in the world and I spent hours and I MEAN literally hours when I was growing up watching them Even now in the modern world, I can find myself getting lost on YouTube watching music videos for hours on end – they are an addiction.

This month we are looking at a boyband that was a huge at the end of the nineties and the beginning of the noughties – *NSYNC. I was more a Backstreet Boys Fan then N*Sync however the one thing that could never go ignored was just how fascinating this bands music videos are. Some of their videos really did make a huge impact on the music industry and also on me as an editor.

*NSYNC have some amazing videos and actually have inspired me in lots of different ways. For example, the Charlie Chaplin to the intro of Gone (above) was one of the first clips I saw that actually got me interested in Silent Comedy and I took it as inspiration for a silent film I produced at College called Mister Alf (pasted below).

So, with it being May, which is an iconic month for the N*Sync Play on words and also because they have so many fun videos I thought it was time to explore the world of boyband music videos as we haven’t done that yet.

*NSYNC – I Want You Back

Why did you choose this particular video?

I came across this video a few years ago and it made me laugh because looking at it now it looks so outdated but at the time I am sure the graphics looked modern and really futuristic. I always found growing up that *NSYNC music videos were hardly shown in the UK so it was all about the hype that you hear around them that made them what they were. I had never seen this one and I like it because it is so old fashioned in it’s style and the dancing makes me laugh as well.

So, what is the narrative?

The five band mates are stuck on a space ship and they are dancing around in it whilst they are exploring trying to find the ‘girl’.

Favourite parts of the video?

The first shot again is a great scene in the music video and I love it even more now because of how retro it looks. I really like the graphics effect to make it look like a reflection and that they are looking outside, it connotes the emotion of the song and before the camera pulls out it gives you a sense that you are in the future.

Then the shot pulls back and you are welcomed to the space ship, if this was the early noughties / late nineties then this would be super effective, but it is obvious to see this video has not aged well. It has really become outdated but you have to really appreciate it for what it was. The 3D graphics were probably really modern and the fact that they pan through is super effective.

This is a really unusual show and I find it incredibly random as it is a really weird camera angle for a shot. I guess looking down at the camera connotes that they are high above the world and this is them showing that they are looking down on us as we are so far away. To be honest, I don’t know but I am not a fan.

We have to talk about the laptop that Justin is using to try and communicate with the girl throughout the video. The graphics and effects that are used to make it look like there is bad reception is really fun to watch. Also, if you look in the background and the colours around the woman they are very soft and pastel and you will notice that the background wall is the same colour tone as her skin.

The final thing I want to talk about in this video is the part where the girl keeps trying to make contact and he is broken into small pieces to connote that she is a hologram. Whilst it has aged badly like a lot of this video I do find it fascinating that an effect like this could be created in the nineties, would be fun to know how they did it.