Further Research on Indie Rock Music Videos

Alt-J - In Cold Blood

A self aware sense of humour I’ve seen before in Kasabian’s music videos is highly prevalent in this concept/narrative video. The video appears to parody a David Attenborough-type nature documentary, in this case about a mouse. Theres a black comedy twist to this trope however as while in the first half of the music video the nature documentary is authentic looking (complete with a voiceover) and has a forest setting the second half shows the mouse wandering into the aftermath of a crime deal that has gone wrong complete with bodies and violent imagery. The video revels in some bleak and grisly mise-en-scene that sharply contrasts the natural beauty and peacefulness that sums up the beginning of the video and can be expected of nature documentaries. The subverting of expectations creates a somewhat funny but also unnerving effect with the video and befits indie rock videos which have a penchant for creative/unique concepts and self-awareness.

Maroon 5 - Harder to Breathe

To begin with the whole video uses dark colours and a lot of shadows for the mise-en-scene. This is a genre convention for the indie rock genre as a lot of the songs use a dark narrative and the visuals link to the music. A theory stated originally by Andrew Goodwin. The pace of the editing is very fast pace as this links to the pace of the drum beat in the background of the song. Most indie rock songs contain a beat like this therefore a pace editing pace is a classic genre convention for indie rock. However, this video also breaks genre conventions. For example, most indie songs are written to portray a deep and meaningful story. But this video contains no narrative and concentrates on the star image of the band. Although star image is a motif of Maroon 5. During the performance in this video a master shot is used as well as secondary shots. the master shot is stationary and views the whole band. The seoncdary shots are hand held and form close up shots on the performers and their instruments. Electric guitars and drums are classic images of indie rock therefore it is a genre convention to show these instruments in the video.

Elbow - Grounds for Divorce

This is an interesting video which first appears to be a relatively simple performance style but is edited in a very subtle but clever way. Every time the music repeats they use the same sequence of shots to accentuate this recurring melody. This idea of repeating and rewinding certain shots runs through the whole video and is used particularly well in shots where its effects are exaggerated e.g. when they start the snooker game. This is actually a similar concept to our video.
The general video sticks within the genre conventions as it is made up of a 'live performance' and, although it definitely focusses more on the lead singer, there are shots acknowledging each of the musicians and backing singers in turn. This is something which we can take note of when filming the performance aspects of our video, to get the balance of screen time for each of the band members right in accordance to genre conventions.

The general colouring of this video is muted with very few bright colours or 'stand out' props or costumes. This is not something we can take inspiration from because our band have said they like bright colours and often use them in their promotional techniques. Therefore this is something we need to include in our video despite it not fully conforming to genre conventions.
They also have elements of choreography within it with the girl dancing in the bar. This adds a layer of interest to what would otherwise be a purely performance based video. We don't need something like this in our video as it will be interwoven with a narrative which is actually the main focus of the video, therefore giving it layers of meaning beyond what this particular Elbow video has.
Interestingly, here, the concept lies in the editing rather than in the actual camera work or mise en scene. All it's individuality was added after the video was shot through the use of the repeated and recurring sections of footage that go in time with the music. It's a clever idea and one that makes the video memorable so it stands out amongst all the other indie rock performance based videos.

Dan Croll - From Nowhere

This video from artist Dan Croll is similarly tongue-in-cheek and comic, putting the song within the context of a staring match tournament, a setup which isn't made initially apparent which helps the audience be drawn in. The video uses lots of awkward content to be quirky and funny, and can be compared to the works of Wes Anderson in this way. From the use of symmetrical shots parallel to the subject, a pastel colour scheme and performances full of quirkiness and awkwardness, the video gets its distinct style. The video also includes slow-motion effects and zooms as well as lots of eye contact to camera to not only represent the staring match but also add to the video's humorous tone.

Everything Everything - Cough Cough vs. Dan Croll - Bad Boy

Both of these videos incorporate an aspect we find interesting: the shift from black and white to colour, as follows.

Cough Cough - The shift at 1:00 is sudden and takes the video from one polar opposite to the other. It's masked by white light that makes the shift not too jarring and out-of-place. It also helps to emphasise the shift in the song from verse to chorus.

Bad Boy - From 2:11 to 2:55, the music video slowly introduces more colour gradient each time it cuts. This culminates in a colourful sequence at the end. The change isn't that noticeable which adds impact to what is happening on-screen.