For our music video we have decided to focus on the indie genre. We did this because we believe out of all the genre's available to us, the indie genre is the one we relate to the most and the one that we felt would be easiest/cheapest to film effectively.
What are the conventions of indie music videos?
Locations:
Indie music videos are typically filmed in outdoor locations, locations such as forests, beaches, fields, towns. This generic convention of indie music videos is highlighted below in Nina Nesbitt's video for 'Way In The World' as the location is a beach setting.
Costumes:
As the indie genre is supposedly 'individual' and relaxed, the costumes found within indie music videos tend to be very relaxed and casual, yet still fashionable. As again highlighted by Nina as she is wearing shorts and a crop top.
Props:
Due to the performance aspect of indie music videos which is widely used, props such as guitars are often seen as indie artists tend to play an acoustic guitar. Newer technology such as phones/ipads are not usually shown within indie music videos as indie artists like to create an old style, vintage feel to their music videos.
Lighting:
The lighting used in indie music videos tends to be fairly high key, naturalistic lighting as the majority of shots are filmed outside.
Narrative and Performance:
Within the indie genre, it is typical that the music videos will feature both narrative and a performance. In Nina Nesbitt's video for 'Way In The World' she is shown playing guitar, with close up shots of the instrument (performance) and then the rest of the video is narrative based as the audience are shown a story between Nina and her friends in the video, joking and playing on the beach, walking around the shops and enjoying a fire on the beach.
^ narrative
^ performance
In regards to which conventions we are and are not using within our own music video, we have decided on:
WE ARE USING -
- Simple, casual yet fashionable clothing
- Minimalistic makeup, perhaps red lipstick (as seen on Nina below)
- Outdoor, simplistic locations such as: forest, urban town settings
- Naturalistic lighting
- Narrative - we will be showing the story between a couple
- Guitar as a prop
- Casual, simplistic costumes
WE ARE NOT USING -
- High key lighting as we feel that natural lighting is enough
As can be seen, from the lack of items that we are not using in our music video our music video will include very redundant features and generic conventions of the indie genre.
Andrew Goodwin
Goodwin has identified a number of key features within music videos. They are:
- A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present (e.g. graffiti and tower blocks in grime videos, sunny countryside in folk music videos).
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
- Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
- Intertextual references to other media texts may be present
In our music video we are planning on using a number of these key features:
- A relationship between the music and the visuals - as we noticed from our research into the indie genre that aspects such as the pace of the cuts quickening/slowing due to the tempo of the music were often used.
- Genre-related style and iconography - as we will be using typical indie genre features such as outdoor locations including the forest, river and town locations. We will also be using casual, simplistic costumes that fit the indie music genre as the clothing used in indie music videos tends to be relaxed and individual.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist - we will be using this feature during our stage scenes as from our research into the indie music genre this aspect was used a lot, to engage the audience and keep them focused on the artist as they feel more involved.
We have not decided to use the following features:
- A relationship between the lyrics and visuals - simply because our song does not feature any particularly prominent lyrics that we would want to match to the visuals, nor would they make sense to be seen in the video due to the narrative.
- Voyeurism - as we found from our research that voyeurism, the notion of looking and the male gaze was a much more prominent feature of the pop genre opposed to the indie genre, as pop music is dominated by female artists often presenting themselves in a promiscuous way (e.g low cut outfits, sexual dance moves) in order to make a profit. Therefore, we do not see it suitable to use in our music video.
- Intertextual references - from our research into the indie genre we had not come across any intertextual references in indie music videos and so therefore have decided not use this feature as we want our video to be easily recognizable as part of the indie genre.
REDUNDANCY AND ENTROPY
Our music video is more redundant as we are creating a video that encases many generic conventions of the indie music genre. We have included redundant features such as:
- Outdoor locations
- Simplistic, casual costumes
- Simplistic hair and make-up
- Mix of narrative and performance
- Naturalistic lighting
All of these aspects lead us to create a redundant music video, which will hopefully mean it is recognizable as part of the indie music genre.
Benefits of having a redundant music video: sticks to the genre, easily recognizable.
Risks of having a redundant music video: audiences may find it boring as it is stereotypical and similar to other videos they consume, may be easily forgettable.
GENRE THEORY
Denis McQuail - “Genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers.”
^ This is a good quote by Denis McQuail as it explains how the concept of 'genre' can used as a device by any large medium (producers, film makers, writers, publishers etc) to produce consistent and efficient material, which can also relate to the expectations of its customers (e.g audiences, consumers).
This can be applied to my own music video as we can always refer back to the generic conventions of the indie genre to see what our target audience would want to see/consume.
Steve Neale - “Genre consists of instances of repetition and difference”
^ This statement is true as genre, of course, consists of many repetitions which are known to be 'generic conventions' as producers and people in the mass media create products they each copy and use certain aspects, repeating and recycling certain parts, which thus becomes a generic convention of the genre and makes it recognizable as part of said genre. However, an aspect of difference is usually found in these products to make them somewhat individualised and distinguishable from others.
This can be applied to my own music video as it highlights how it is important to stick to generic conventions thus to make the product recognizable as part of the chosen genre, however it is also important to individualise the product and make it different to make it distinguishable from others.
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