At the beginning of creating our advanced portfolio we decided it would be highly beneficial to do some intensive research into the typical conventions of the Indie genre. Through finding all these conventions we were able to use as many as we felt relevant in the creation of our music video, digipak and magazine advert. We needed these conventions to fit our chosen band perfectly. After many conversations and debates as a group we decided to use and develop the indie record Atlantis by Seafret. This song has very deep and emotional lyrics in which we felt we would be able to utilise really well, they follow the theme of a breaking down relationship that one partner was unable to save. After much thought we decided to use a mixture of performance and narrative based elements for our music video, we felt as if this combination would incorporate the heartfelt connection of a narrative and the musical capability of a performance section. In order to expand my knowledge on existing conventions of the indie genre I analysed 15 music videos in order to see their similarities and what would work well if we incorporated it into our own project. I looked in depth into various techniques including camera angles and shots, mise en scene, editing strategies and allowing the video to be synchronous with the score. This research has allowed us as a group to include multiple conventions of the indie genre into our final product and ancillary task.

 

Overall we followed a large amount of the conventions of the Indie Genre, mainly being the conventional narrative of a relationship. We chose to base our narrative around the concept of a breaking down relationship due to one of the characters suffering with mental health issues. Due to the lyrics within our chosen track we were adamant that this would fit really nicely. Conventionally in an indie music video we as an audience see some sort of deep narrative, we decided to portray this convention through a mental health issue. The main female character in our narrative suffers from depression, to portray this we used a variety of techniques including non verbal communication, blocking, settings and make up. To show her conventionally in her isolated moments we decided to place her in large open spaces such as a forest or a large room. This highlighted her depressed emotions and enhanced the feeling of isolation. The use of make up or in some cases the lack of it allowed us to make our main character look very drained, tired and and low which are all side effects of mental illness. To study the conventions of mental illness as a group we looked at some music videos which went over the same topic. Pinks ‘Fucking Perfect’ goes over the story of a woman who is suffering with depression and how she changed her life in order to get well again. The main character in this particular music video was styled in makeup and costumes that connote mental illness. We drew inspiration from these types of music videos in order to ensure that we respectfully portrayed the reality of mental health issues. Throughout our narrative we demonstrate happy and sad moments between the couple, these are easily distinguished through the use of nonverbal communication and overlapping filters. During scenes where the couple are happy we chose to use a warm toned filter, the use of this created a very content emotion and allowed the audience to understand that in that moment the couple were in love. When we showcased the argument scenes and the isolation scenes between the couple we stripped a large amount of the colour out in order to demonstrate the loss of hope and happiness that the couple once had. The use of filters is highly conventional of the indie genre as it is a simple way to showcase large amounts of emotion. Non verbal communication was essential in the production of our final product as it allowed us to send our portrayed message to our audience without the use of dialogue. When it came to shooting the performance elements of our project we chose to stick to the indie conventions strictly. We chose to have a minimalist 3 person band all playing a variety of staple instruments, the instruments we chose to use in our performance element was an acoustic guitar, a bass guitar and a drum set. These were all instruments that we heard in our chosen song resulting in our music video and the score being synchronous and making much more sense to our audience. Costume choices for the band members followed typical conventions due to them being simplistic and in the current fashion at that time. The primary focus for the performance aspect of our music video was the musical ability rather than the costume style so we wanted to draw attention away from the look of the performer and more to what they were able to achieve musically. We used a large amount of mid shots and close ups throughout our entire music video in both the narrative and performance aspects. These shots follow the conventions of an indie music video as they allow the audience to form a more intimate and personal relationship with the performers and the main characters of the narrative (Personal Relationships Gratification). We felt it was really important for our audience to connect with the characters in our narrative whether it was the main female who was suffering with the mental illness or the main male who was struggling with the relationship. We used extreme close ups when showcasing our main female character, not only her face but other parts of her body. For example we have a small scene where we show our main female character laying in a hospital bed at the beginning of our music video, during this scene the camera pans across her body to show the audience scars due to self injury and canulars due to her being in hospital. This follows one of Barthes codes, specifically the semic code, our audience is able to understand the message being portrayed due to us showing specific connotations to that particular issue.

Although we followed a large majority of the indie conventions, some we did decide to challenge some for many different reasons. In some cases it was to allow our music video to have a more fluid transition and others were to enable us to showcase harder emotions. In the performance aspect of our video we broke a convention, typically in an indie music video we see the performer through low key lighting in order to keep a sense of mystery, this particular technique is seen in Hozier's ‘Someone New’ Through the entirety of the performance element we see Hozier through low key lighting not seeing his face only a silhouette. We decided to show our performers through high key warm lighting in order to create a calm and intense vibe to balance out with the hard hitting narrative. Our performance was intended to be the collective aspect of our music video to break up the sadder moments making it a less uncomfortable concept for our audience to fully understand. We feel as if we executed this really well. A large majority of indie music videos and soundtracks begin or end with a section of diegetic sound, as a group we decided this was an unnecessary convention to stick to as it had no substantial benefit to our narrative. We decided to showcase our message purely through camerawork, editing and mise en scene- especially non verbal communication. If we were to add diegetic sound, it would have ruined the initial build up that our chosen track had making it more difficult to lead into the narrative. Another way in which we challenged the conventions of the Indie genre is the fact that our performers and characters in our narrative were not the same people. Conventionally in an indie music video the artist plays the role of the main character in the narrative and the performer. We decided not to do this in order to allow our audience to form a stronger relationship with the characters within the narrative rather than just the performers, they form a connection on a much more intimate and emotional level with people in which they can relate with. The challenging of some conventions allowed us to create a unique and original final product that has many similarities but the occasional difference with the conventions of the Indie genre. This follows Neals theory of repetition and difference being an essential part of the conventions of a genre.