An exception to this is - YouTube channel “Primitive Technology”. It’s beautiful, it’s successful and this is what content should be. Unadulterated. Why isn’t media like this anymore? There was a thread about Disney’s camera techonogy in the 50’s and it was so well produced (see my comment history). People spoke with clear enunciation and intent. The world has become a chaotic mess and the only thing I want to do is meditate and get the away from constant bombardment of my senses. I don’t want HDR. I want good content, I don’t care about the material qualities (although 4K moon video makes sense because resolution is the content in this case).

Nothing ever is. Lighting, camera angle, framing (wide shot or close-up), color temperature, camera movement (handheld, dolly ), and focus are some of the things that influence how the viewer feels. Music is one the more overt elements, but nothing is unadulterated, even the sound mixing is an editorial choice - are the bird chirps audible underneath the hammering of the stone chisel?

For example this famous recent action sport movie / advert has just the sound design, no music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHrwcQQ38bA

It is sound design obviously, but it's interesting that they put that much energy into recreating the feeling of being there through the audio without music.

I feel there is a trend of these videos with just sound design or raw sound, rather than the usual epic music.