Conventions of Indie Rock

This is some research i gatherd from wikipedia about indie rock music.

Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s and earlier. The term is often used to describe the means of production and distribution of independent underground music, as well as the style of music that was first associated with this means of production. Indie rock artists are known for placing a premium on maintaining complete control of their music and careers, releasing albums on independent record labels (sometimes self-owned and operated) and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, airplay on independent or college radio stations and, in recent years, the Internet for promotion. Musicians classified as indie rock are typically signed to independent record labels, rather than major record labels, although there are many examples of indie musicians switching to major labels mid-career. This practice blurs the lines between indie and mainstream music and is often the subject of debate amongst fans. Indeed, some bands that have spent most of their careers on major labels are still occasionally referred to by the press as indie rock because of their sound or aesthetic.

Planning for our advert and CD cover

After gathering all the research for existing adverts and CD covers we then had to start developing our own ideas. We sketched out various different layout ideas first to see which layout looked the best, then we decided on what kind of artwork we wanted to use for the poster and cover, we decided to take a photo of the characters in the video in the room where the majority of the shots were in the video, we knew this would give a good clear house style throughout our project.

here are the plans:

The Final Products

Here are the final products for the CD digipack and promotional poster

Promotional Poster

Album cover

Spine

Back cover

Storyboard Evaluation

We created a storyboard so we knew exactly what we needed to do in every shot, this meant we could get an accurate idea of the framing, props, mise en scene, shots, camera, angles, lighting etc.
However whilst we were filming, we decided to make some changes that we felt would benefit the final result of our video. We scrapped the idea of having a narrative and kept the video perfomance based throughout, we wanted to create a raw live music feel from the bands point of view to show the viewer the pro's of being in a band. We tried to make the video feel like a band rehersal with its chilled, indie rock atmosphere.
We kept everything else with mise en scene, and places where we shot.

Storyboard

The storyboard is in no particular order

Notes, LIsts & Planning

Here are some examples of the notes we jotted down along the way of making our music video, we made notes of shots we needed to re-take, people who could help us, characters for the film, props and venues. There were alot more sheets of notes but i couldnt find them in my folder.

Questionnaire analysis

We composed a questionnaire for students in the lower school and the sixth form to complete, this was to get a very clear idea of what our target audience was interested in.

we established that our target audience was from the ages of 14-19, male and female.

The Questionnaire

1. Gender?

2. Age?
3. Favourite band?
4. Can you name your favourite music video?

5. What do you like to see in music videos?
6. What has impressed you in music videos recently?
7. Do you prefer performance based videos, narrative based videos or a mixture of both?
8. What sort of setting, mise en scene and lighting do you like to see in music videos?

summary of results:

Males seem to like.

Performance based videos/live videos. Dark lighting/club vibe. Randomness in videos. Lights/atmosphere. Band Shots. Mise en Scene, Warehouses, rural/urban settings. Hand-held cam shots. Black and white effect. Quick successive shots. Frequent Jump-cuts. Narrative/Easy to follow

Females seem to like.

Band performance. Mixtures of narrative & performance. Strobe Lights. Band shots. Narrative. Mise en Scene = Everyday situations. Storyline, ''Mini Drama''. Mood lighting to reflect the song

From the information we collected we can now look at our summary of results and incourporate them into our video e.g. lots of band shots, hand-held shots and quick successive shots.

As me and my partner play in bands and have a big knowlage in the genre of music we are doing, i feel that we should do the video from a more band perspective, with lots of band shots, live shots and make the video funny and light hearted.