The chosen song for our music video is by Alt-J. The band are a four piece band which formulated in Cambridge. Alt-J are a band which do not have a set genre, yet take the same experimental, synth sound as Radiohead do. However, the most common name given to Alt-J's sound is 'indie electronic' (or often elided to be 'indietronica') as a hybrid genre of music. I will be taking the influences and using the codes and conventions from similar artists as content for the music video.
Trophy Wife - Wolf
This unusual video is a combination of abstract and performance in the form of lip syncing. the simplicity of the video is that all the shots seen in the video are stationary with little amount of movement happening in the frame, yet is very effective in enthralling the audience. Despite not displaying much in terms of technicality, we can see through the costume and obviously the sound of the song that this conforms to the codes & conventions of an indie (electronic) music video.
In terms of cinematography within this music video, we see no movement in the camera, only a variety of closeup shots, the main shot size being a medium closeup of each of the band members of Trophy Wife performing a simple task of either: eating food, smoking or drinking an alcoholic beverage. the camera also shows extreme close ups and close ups of other details of the mouth with food in, the uncomfortable shifting of a tie or at the beginning of the video where we see a variety of items in each member of the band's hand as well as showing the audience their feet.
The ambiguity and abstractness of this video is also relating to the conventional narrative style of an indie music video to which is the same as the narrative to the music video that me and Kate wish to reconstruct: abstract images yet still maintaining some narrative, which may require the audience to consider the variety of artistic images displayed in the video.
Unusually, some of this video is shot where the characters are upside-down, which can be seen when wine is spilled over the member of the band pouring the wine back into the bottle, as well as the shot when the noodles fall from the top of the frame in an attempt to eat using hands. This effect adds to the peculiarity and abstractness of the indie genre that this video is labelled to one of which I will be exploring in my video and will be looking at abstract images and narratives. I will be using the stationary framing style in this video, however it will be mandatory to show movement of camera in the video.
Crystal Fighters - At Home
This video expresses a loose narrative, accompanied by visually appealing footage. The settings included within this video express the conventional mise-en-scene and location of an indie music video: a forest and a derelict, empty building. These settings tend to portray the naturalistic style of the genre, where the music is more important than high budgeted effects and techniques that can be seen on some of the more popular artists where the aim of the visuals are purely based upon appearance and attempt to enthrall the audience with the performers 'stardom'.
This video may have a montage style with a slight sense of continuity and understanding, however this editing style adds to the abstractness of the genre as well as having a cryptic narrative should the audience follow the visual cohesion and syntax of the video. Differing from the Trophy Wife video earlier discussed, this video has a more structured video for the audience to understand and follow; we would like to have a loose narrative to our video yet still maintaining some of the abstractness and montage style which we will convey through the stylistic features: cinematography, editing, mise-en-scene and performance. Within this video, we can see minimal performance in the video with a few shots showing lip syncing. We do not wish to make our video a performance video, however the video does require some amount of performance which is why we believe we should include a similar amount than seen in this video. The performance element is not a conventional element of an indie music video, yet if it is seen, the performance tends not to be an individual but the whole of the band.
The Sea and Cake - Harps
The narrative for an indie or indie-electronic music video, as discussed, is very often a montage of various footage. Despite this montage and ambiguity in terms of construct, we can sometimes see relevant narratives and underpinning themes within the footage portrayed through the stylistic features ; this video shows the friendship of two girls in a retro style. This retro style can be seen through the editing; the video has a washed out, 'sepia' effect to it, presumably done in post production; mise en scene; props used in this video vary from iconic images from what is considered in 2012 as retro, such as the four-wheeled roller skates and the cassette player; as well as even the sound, riddled with synth sounds. This retro display in the video is part of the popular innovative culture of revival for this certain genre, where individuals are aspiring more to look like they are from this era, buying products from this era and more importantly listening to music that replicated the era, such as this song. Therefore, we can also establish the target audience for not only this certain video but the genre as a whole: younger, more susceptible to influence, which are maybe aged late teens or early 20s, where this retro-revival generation is it's most prominent.
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