4. History of Music Promotional Videos

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3. Conventions of the Music Video

2. Codes and Conventions of Genre

Codes and conventions of Indie Music:

Indie music videos are quite well known for being quite outdoorsy and 'out there'/unusual one example of this is Blossoms' 'Getaway' where we see a lot of shots outdoors and in different landscapes along with different visual effects that effect the narrative even more. Indie music videos are typically quite low budget.

Cinematography:

• A lot of zoom is inloved in the video
• conventional zoom to close up of the lead singers face, rest of the band has stationary medium close ups, shows us front an without telling us.
• Close ups of the lead singer and the band actually performing the song

Mise-en-Scene:

• Shots of the band show them to wear modern indie styling i.e. black blazers, leather jackets etc
• Shots of the band also show them to be playing the conventional instruments for an indie band e.g. guitars, bass guitars, drums and keys.

Editing:

• The editing is at a very fast pace in the video, matches the often upbeat tempo of the music played in the indie genre and this song.
• Often a lot of colour filter effects are used on indie videos as seen in this video and other videos such as FOALS' Birch Tree and Ocean Colour Scene's The Day We Caught the Train in which they both use a sort of sepia coloured filter. 
• Often use of fast editing to be in-keeping with the face pace of the music

Sound:

• The song itself is very typical of the indie genre, especially of the modern indie genre too. We hear the conventional instruments played but also to the same typical structure of indie music, often with an extremely catchy hook or chorus in the song.
• The song is quite fast and upbeat, conventional of popular indie songs.

The following music videos  have inspired some a lot of the ideas for the music video that I will be creating. All of these videos have the same style/feel to what I want to achieve in my film, I would like to make a music video in the style of a home video, most of these videos share this style seen through either the editing of the frames to make it look like it came from a 1980s style camcorder or through the cinematography/mise-en-scene as the shots may well have actually been obtained through a 1980s camcorder.

FOALS - Birch Tree



Cinematography:

• Use of the pan at beginning effective in setting the tone of the video as it introduces the setting of the beach.
• Use of Super8 camera in order to obtain the 'home movie' quality of shot.
• Long shot of just lead singer, allows audience to engage and realise that the person in shot is the front man of the band.
• Establishing shots of the beach emphasis of summery warm location boosting the tone of song.
• Low angle shot of the top of palm trees, using borrowing cliches from other mediums like films in order to show the location (Los Angeles)
• Moving establishing shots are also conventional of the genre's music videos.
• We see very conventional use of close-ups on the band members' faces throughout the video, this creates a relationship with the audience as it gives an incite to the band members along with what a day in their life is like.

Mise-en-scene: 

• The use of the sunny and bright location is quite conventional of the genre, it gives the summery/indie festival vibe.
• The location of the music video is L.A and this video shows there to be a contrast. We see that the film looks like a very low-budget music video, evidenced by the style of the 'home movie' used in the video, however, the band has travelled to Los Angeles, California and FOALS are from Oxford, England, this meant that they would have spent quite a lot of money on this video idea. This is not very conventional of the indie genre as we see a lot of music videos to actually be fairly low-budget.

Editing:

• The use of the 'home movie' style filter on some of the footage is very effective in creating the sort of day in the life narrative of the video, the editing between this footage and the regular footage shot shows a contrast in the theme between old and new. 
• A lot of regular cuts are used in the video
• Towards the end of the video we do see some flash transitions between some of the Super8 shots
• We also see a cut to footage shot of a car's reversing camera screen, this shows the theme of new and old in the video - which is what a lot of indie videos like to do as it is sort of a nostalgic genre, especially with the style of clothing too - as it shows the modern camera (car camera) being shot in the fashion of a Super8 camera.

Sound:

• The actually song itself is very conventional of the indie genre with the typical instruments used  in most indie rock bands; power chords from an electric or acoustic guitar, a bouncy but solid bass line from the bass guitar and often an electric drum beat, electric synth keys are also a conventional instrument sound used in indie songs.

Ocean Colour Scene - The Day We Caught The Train

Cinematography:

• Again a lot of zooming in and out on the main focus of the music video, much like Blossoms' Getaway video, in this instance the main focus is the band.
• More close-ups of the lead singer while singing, again like the Getaway video
• Use of waterproof camera and underwater shots and not typical of the indie genre but they are used frequently in this video
• A similar use of a backwards tracking shot is seen in this video and Getaway, we see the band on electric scooters being tracked by the camera and we seen the main female character in Getaway running being tracked in the same way.

Mise-en-scene: 

• The costume of the band in this video leans closer to the 90's casual indie style, with the checkered shirts and the bucket hats, the dress sense here is a lot like the very influential indie rock band Oasis.
• The location is also very conventional of the genre; similar to the other videos that I have analysed, they are all set in rural areas: Getaway was set in woods and on cliffs; Birch Tree began set at a beach and the tropical motif of palm trees was seen throughout; and in this video we what looks to be some sort of European countryside, possibly Spanish or Greek.

Editing:

• The editing in this video is very fast and contains many fast cuts
• It also contains quite a few long takes
• The editing is also non linear like the majority of indie music videos, it don't necessarily tell a story but is more just a collection of images and again showing a sort of 'day in the life' of Ocean Colour Scene, creating that relationship with the audience again.

Sound: 

• This song has a more of an acoustic sound, we are often shown the acoustic guitars in the shot, this is in-keeping with the 90's music scene also, a lot of the music made by indie bands in the 90's was acoustic, again like Oasis

Other Similar Indie Videos:

Arctic Monkeys - Baby I'm Yours


Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home

1. My Brief

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options.

• a website homepage for the band

• a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package)

• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package)

I have chosen to this brief along with the second option, the cover for its release as part of a digipak.