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.

Camera shots, angles and transitions research

I have researched various different camera shots, angles and transitions, not all of them will be used in the music video but i intend to use as many as possible.

Common shot sizes:

· Extreme close-up: Focuses on a single facial feature, such as lips and eyes.
· Close-up: May be used to show tension.

Medium shot: Often used, but considered bad practice by many directors, as it often denies setting establishment and is generally less effective than the Close-up.

Long shot

Establishing shot: Mainly used at a new location to give the audience a sense of locality.

Mise en scène" refers to what is colloquially known as "the Set," but is applied more generally to refer to everything that is presented before the camera. With various techniques, film makers can use the mise en scène to produce intended effects.

Camera view, angle, movement, shot

Aerial shot
Bird's eye shot
Close up
Crane shot
Dolly zoom
Dutch angle
Establishing shot
High-angle shot
Long shot
Long take
Low-angle shot
Master shot
Medium shot
Pan shot
Point of view shot
Reaction shot
Shot reverse shot
Tilt (camera)
Tracking shot

Transitions

Editing and transitional devices
Cross cutting
Cutaway
Dissolve
Establishing shot
Fast cutting
Flashback
Jump cut
Master shot
Point of view shot
Sequence shot
Slow cutting
Split screen
Wipe

Video analysis, Nirvana - In Bloom

Music video analysis

1st video, Nirvana – in bloom



This video is a performance based video, it is black and white all the way through which gives it an old fashioned image.

The story line is quite bizarre as it is normal at the beginning and then towards the end turns into two separate stories where the band is playing the same gig but in two different styles, one style is calm where the band are wearing suits the second style see’s the band in dresses jumping around and destroying everything. This goes with the grunge scene, as everything is
dark and aggressive.

The video is quite comical with the cheesy American tv show at the beginning.

The shots throughout the film are very simple and long, there are lots of wide shots where the entire band is in view and then a few medium shots of just single members.

The transitions are mainly straight cuts, towards the end the camera changes are like old fashions slides or fast panning and the camera changes change on the beat of the song.

Blood Red Shoes house style, poster & CD cover research

This is the same research i did for the ladyhawke sheet but i wanted to compose another so i could see what the house style was like for other album promotions and see what the singles, magazine ads and tour date ads look like as a bundle.

Ladyhawke artwork and advertisement annotations

I have taken magazine adverts for the promotion of Ladyhawkes album, i have gatherd the album artwork, singles artwork, promotional adverts and tour date adverts.

gathering all these images helped me establish the relationship between everything. It helped me understand the house style and how everything links in together.

Advertisement and Album college

This is just a collection of magazine adverts and album covers from various bands in the similar category to Biffy Clyro. This is just an introduction to my artwork and advertisement research it also gives me a basic indication of what my artwork should look like.

Video Analysis - arctic monkeys

Music video analysis
Arctic monkeys – the view from the afternoon



This is a performance and narrative based video, the video is set in the courtyard of a council estate and a young male is playing the drums to the song in the courtyard.

The video is in black white, this works well as it goes with the blocks of council flats that surround him.

The shots in this video are all relatively long, there aren’t any really longs ones but there are very little short ones too, they are vary around 2-5 seconds on average.

There is a good variety of medium shots and medium close ups, and are also a lot of shots of the buildings and the surrounding area.

At 2.16 there is a good close up of the kick drum on the drum kits, the lighting looks brilliant, the kick drum pedal glistens in the light which looks really effective.

3:01 there is a long zoom on the drummer’s hands, at this point his hands are bleeding, the use of zoom is used effectively here as the viewer can then notice his hands.

3:50, the use of slow motion works well here, the drummer snaps his sticks and the slow motion kind of puts the action into high definition as you can see the chippings of wood fly off the sticks and emphasises the impact.

Genres and sub genres

I have chosen 3 genres of rock which i think Biffy Clyro fall under, this gives me a clear understanding of there background, image and what crowd they attract.

Lyrics

I don't want to let you know,

your hearts an attraction but I know what you're looking for

it's me you're waiting for, you're not allowed to live anymore

and a whole child ago I would sleep all day

doing handstands in bottle bins to prove that I'm sane

and I'm not fooling around, looks like we made it

I can tell that she'd been flying

looks like we made it tonight

I'm the second devil on your right

or leftwith an eyeball melting out the corner of my mouth

your wings are bleeding you're not supposed to fly anymore

and a whole child ago I would sleep all day

doing handstands in bottle bins to prove that I'm sane

I'm not fooling around looks like we made it

I can tell that she'd been flying I saw her in the sky

why don't you just ask her yourself?

I annotated the lyrics to get a clear idea of the story behinde the song and to see if i could think of some shots in the video that would represent what the lyrics are saying in the song.

Image Board

I gatherd various different images from the bands albums, singles, magazine articles and live gigs. Gathering these images gave me an idea of the house styles used throughout different things, such as singles off all of their albums and features of them in magazine articles. I also managed to get an idea of what colours are associated with the band from looking at this image board.

Influence Board

To get an even clearer vision and idea of the bands background, i researched into the bands that influence biffy clyro, some of the bands i chose have also played gigs with Biffy Clyro so i noticed that there was a bond in music, image and audience.

The influence board also started giving me early ideas of the audience i needed to reach out to, with me and my partner in this topic being fans of this music we already had a first hand idea of who we needed to please.

Biffy Clyro Introduction

Once i chose the band i wanted, i gatherd information about the band from various different sources, it helped out me knowing alot about the band in the first place as Biffy Clyro are one of my favourite bands. I gatherd the information to get a good background on the bands image, style, clothing, hair cuts, tattoo's etc.



From these pictures and peices of info, i have established that the band are reletively heavy with their long hair and excessive tattoo's.

Chosing the genre, band and song

The first thing i did was create several different spider diagrams for my choice of genre, band and song, i already had a vague idea of what i wanted to do but this gave me a final idea










This is an example of one of the spider diagrams i drew up. I then did the same for my choice of band and song.