archived-videos Doors In The Labyrinth - Excision (augmented lyric video)

[JoshL]

As a musician, youtube is a good source of discovery for your work. You want to be able to be found and shared, even if it is work-in-progress.

However, as a musician, that means I'm crap for visuals. Most people opt for an album cover, or a lyric crawl, or a slideshow of pictures. I could get some of my film friends to make me something, but I'd rather save those favors for when I have an actual release, not just demos.

I'm also favoring a sort of simplistic approach to an album cover for this, which is pretty dull for a video. The songs have long instrumental breaks, so a normal lyric video would be sort of dull (though important because it's not easy to make out what I'm saying sometimes)

So I've made an attempt to combine the two, and make it a little more visually interesting during the instrumentals. Something I can do quickly is also important to me at this point (this took me about an hour).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypJwGGAhus4

So my question to you folks is: is it worth the effort? Does it work, or would the lyrics over the cover be good enough? I've also tried the same concept without the lyrics, but I don't think it's visually interesting enough to sustain that, and again, with the style I'm going for, having the lyrics is a pretty useful thing. Anyone have any other suggestions for quick and dirty things I can try?

Thanks for watching/listening!

 

[Jack Lynt]

Nice job, Josh. Nice music. No, I wouldn't want either the moving graphics or the lyrics gone. So yeah, I think it's worth it. I think if you omitted either it would be difficult to sit watching the whole thing. Not watching it while it played in the background would be another story, in which case neither are important. But if you want people (or at least me) to listen and watch, then definitely those simple moving graphics with the lyrics helped a lot.

Okay, I can't say for sure, having not experienced it without either. But I'm pretty sure I want both moving graphics and lyrics there. Nice lyrics, by the way. Since they're good lyrics and nothing to hide, adding to the interest of the song, you should show them, as you have done. And the moving graphics added to my experience, making it sort of trancey or hypnotic or something, which is good.

 

[JoshL]

thanks, as always, for listening and for the feedback, richy! I am proud of the lyrics I've been writing lately, and realize there's a bit of disconnect between how I want to deliver them and people being able to understand them! Glad it's working, and I'll continue playing with variations on the theme. The project is starting out well; getting some radio play for the demos, and have my first show booked in a couple months!