So if you've ever been to my Vimeo page you'll see it's full of short little videos where I've shot a bunch of random footage and edited it to music. The question that I have is, what kind of category of video is this? Its not really a music video, and its not a short film, so I'm not really sure...
I think once I saw the term Audio Visual Film, but I dunno if that's legit or not. Whatever the case, I really have enjoyed making this type of video, and I usually encourage all beginning videographers and filmmakers to start out making them. They teach you a lot about different aspects of video.
I've learned a lot about framing, camera movement, color, and cinematography in general by making them. I've also learned about storytelling by making them. You see, even though they don't have words, they tell a story about the day, the location, and the people in it. Often, when editing them, I will delete shots solely because they don't work with the story.
Another great thing about them is that they are super simple to make. A couple hours of filming and a couple hours of editing and you've got a video. The last video I made, HumanKind, was shot in 1:30 probably and then edited in maybe 2-3 hrs. This may seem like a lot, but for video, this is lightning fast.
I always use songs found on freemusicarchive.org because none of the music is known. I like this for two reasons: 1. I like to give people an entirely fresh and new experience when they watch one of my videos, and 2. well known songs are widely used in videos by people who don't know what they're doing so using a popular song, from my experience, in a video makes it look crappier.
Do people like watching them? Honestly, I have no idea. I like to think of them as little pieces of art, but I'm definitely biased so who really knows. Regardless, I will continue to make them as I get a lot of enjoyment out of it.