Music Conventions in Indie-Rock Music Conventions

Artic Monkeys - When the sun goes down

This music video is completely narrative showing the story of what we are lead to believe is a drug addicted prostitute and a man who's appears to be a pimp who takes obvious interest in the woman. It opens in a very gritty, dimly lit urban setting where we are introduced to both the characters in the form of close ups as the lyrics talk about each of them, for example we see a close up of the man when it sings about a "Scummy man" and all throughout the video the visuals directly reinforce the lyrics.
As the song carries on an we come to the chorus and the speed of the music speeds up so does the visuals as the editing become almost frantic with numerous quick whip cuts in an urban setting whilst driving.
During the second verse of the song we see a lot more cross cuts between the woman and the man as they both go in different directions in the story and we follow them through the use of cross cuts. The tempo has been slowed back down at this point as the editing transitions are primarily Z-Cuts following the story still in a dimly lit gritty setting.
Then the whole composition changes as we are introduced to a magician in the second chorus who suddenly adds in vibrant colours and alters the life of the song. The editing once again speeds up with lots of whip pans and cutting on action with the editing speed directly reflecting the song.

The Kooks - Sofa Song

This video is a performance video where the lead singer is lip-syncing along with the song whilst moving around a built up urban environment, the camera seems to be hand hold at this point, adding extra movement to the video, swaying along with the music. The video starts with lots of jump cuts of a city overlapped on top of each other whilst edited to the beat in order to set the scene of the song. Then during the first chorus we are introduced to the band members playing their individual instruments within a pan shot showing each band member from a 180`degree angle.

Oasis - The Master Plan

This is a conceptual music video as it is completely animated with all the band members represented as animated characters instead of a live performance. The video begins with a long shot of a city, which we presume is Manchester, panning over the buildings setting the scene for the video. The video includes the characters walking through London and then to a performance all of which is animated  using lots of whip cuts and invisible cuts which keeps the transitions very smooth to flow with the music which is over-playing. Even though it is a conceptual music video the director has still kept a relationship between the animated visuals and the lyrics of the song which is effective in keeping the audience engaged.

Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn

This video is a concept video however it could be thought of as a performance video as the singer is lip-syncing and the band members are playing the guitar but it seems to be for show purposes rather than playing to the actual song. It is all shot from an ariel viewpoint facing down on the band members as they are held up by extras dressed in complete black, moving around the screen, I think they have done this in order to try make the audience and the band to almost seem on the same level as equal so that the audience feels closer to them. It all seems to be shot in one take as there are no clear transitions which helps with the flow of the video.

Circa Waves - The Times Won't Change Me 

This is a performance video where the whole band appears to be playing together in one room. The use of whip pans is very effective in this video as it changes from the focus of one band member to another which helps the visuals match the flow of the music. There is also a lot of split screens within the video in order to show the different elements of the audio in a visual form for the audience. There is many different camera angles used throughout the video, mainly focusing on low angle camera shots so that we are looking up to the band members whilst they play.

Indie-Rock Music Videos Convention Summary

- Indie-rock videos are known to be quite low budget which means that the setting is quite simple a lot of the time ad are filmed in places that can be easily accessed this is because the focus of indie-rock videos is usually on the artist.

- It has become a convention to inter-lap the performance with a narrative in indie-rock videos however some break this theme for instance "Circa Waves - The Time Wont Change" is a purely a performance video whereas "Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down" is completely narrative.

- Typical camera work in indie-rock videos tend to involve lots of close up and low angle shots of the artist, the close up shots are usually instructed by the record label in order to show the band off and start to create iconography for them. The low angle shots are used to establish power and almost authority over the audience, once again in a bid to create some iconography of the band. A lot of indie-rock videos are also shot hand-held which gives the effect of being more real and making the audience feel in the moment.

- Editing in Indie-rock videos is very important in order to captivate your audience, clips tend to be fast or slow paced reliant on the tempo of the music and almost always cut on the beat. Cutting on the beat makes the video easier to watch as it is what your brain expects to happen which is why it is more comfortable to watch.