Conventions of indie music videos.

As the genre of our chosen song is indie, before filming we thought that it would be helpful to research in to the conventions of this genre.

Live performances are very common within music videos of the indie music genre. With live performance music videos, a lot of attention and focus can be paid on the artist or band who is singing. By focusing on the artist/band, the emotion they are feeling and showing can be recognised and appreciated in more detail and the fans/audience may feel more at one with the artist and their special genre of music. Live performances intertwined with a narrative within indie music videos are also very common to see, this is usually done to break up the video so that there are more visuals to simulate imagination and emotion, yet audiences are not completely detached from the main focus which is the artist or band. The narrative within the video may not follow a particular story but may just feature shots of random visuals, sometimes abstract, for example a blurred person arguing with someone perhaps. The narrative will be linked in some way to the mood of the song though.
The music video for 'Nightcall' by London Grammar our chosen artist features a live performance and a narrative intertwined with eachother and the music video is very effective and clever in what it shows.

Here is the video for it: 

In terms of mise en scene, indie artists and bands tend to have their own unique look to them and this can be established through their choices of location, their outfits, lighting and props that are used. For example, in London Grammar music videos, the band tend to wear clothing that is vintage and simple, so not very much emphasis is placed on their clothing but more attention is paid to Hannah Reid (vocalists) voice and the emotion that the band are expressing as they are singing. In terms of location in indie music videos, they tend to be set in places such as parks, halls, studios and subways. They are usually filmed in these locations due to the video having quite a low budget. However, the artist can enhance the locations in many different ways so that they do not look as standard. Quite commonly, indie music videos are likely to contain some kind of instrument such as guitars and drums being played by the artist. It reflects the artists talent.

Low budget tunnel location.

Live instrument playing

In indie music videos, close-ups will be used in order to establish the artist but they may not be consistently used throughout the entire video because that would cause boredom upon some viewers. Therefore, a range of different camera shots and editing are used in indie music videos. For live performance videos, tilt and pan shots are commonly used to really capture the essence of the song and video and the atmosphere of the location. Effects such as black and white can be quite common in indie videos to make the videos appear older than they actually are to make the video seem more interesting and appealing towards audiences.