Philosophical inquiry

What is an animated music video?

Is it just when a band commissions an animator to do a video?

I watch a lot of animation, and a lot of wonderful films I've seen beg the question: Am I an animated music video, or an animated short, or both?

Lots of animated shorts have no dialogue but just music. Clearly that doesn't mean anything with just music and no dialogue is an animated music video.

Why does it matter? Because I ponder just what I should and shouldn't post here. My inclination is to stick mainly to things that are obviously animated music videos in the conventional sense, while throwing in some things that straddle the line.

For example, Robert Valley's Massive Swerve feels like an animated short, but it's set to a pre-existing piece of 'pop' music, just not commissioned, and it works great as an animated music video IMO.

Then there's the pioneers of animated music videos, Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren and Noburo Ofuji.

I may be doing special feature posts in the future to highlight videos that straddle the line.