Genre Conventions

Conventions of Indie Music Videos

Camera

In a lot of indie music videos, there are a lot of medium shots, this is often to show the artists whilst they are playing their instruments, however this can also be used to see the costume of the characters, and the props they’re using/holding.

Close ups are also very common in the genre. They show us the emotion with the character; they’re also used commonly whilst someone’s singing. Extreme close ups are also used to show us more detail in the video, an eye crying, for example.

Pans are often used to show the setting of the music videos narrative. It shows the audience the location, which can be essential to the narrative. Pans are also used whilst filming the live parts of the video, panning to show all of the band playing, and also panning around the audience.

Mise-En-Scene

The setting for indie music videos tends to be easily accessed and low budgeted. For example they’re often partly filmed during the artists concert, they’re often filmed in cities, woods, etc.

The indie genre in general tends to have a specific look, in which shows throughout the video, with the artists wearing the generic clothes, and also sometime the characters. The artists and characters also wear minimal makeup, which reflects the genre accurately.

Props are also used throughout all videos, the most common, but are always seen are, instruments (e.g. microphones, guitars, pianos, etc.). This establishes who’s the artist in the video. However, props are also used to help ensure the scenes look realistic.

Live Performance

It’s also common for indie music videos to include live performance, it’s low budget, but also the basis for what the artist believes in, and what most indie artists most enjoy. This focuses on the talent of the artist, which would hopefully ‘sell’ them, and bring a bigger audience to the band.

Narrative

There is nearly always a disjunctive narrative in indie music videos. The narrative is usually interesting and holds the attention of the audience.

Editing

The editing in indie music videos seems to all have some kind of effect added over the top of the video. These are usually black and white, or other techniques, which make the video, look older

Editing also very commonly matches the pace of the song and the narrative. The pace of the song is usually slow, so in a lot of indie music videos there’s a lot of slow motion, and less cuts than what would be seen in a faster video. However, indie music video editing also takes the narrative into account, the pace changing to what’s happening in the narrative.