Genre Conventions

The genre that I chose to utilise for my media piece was Alternative/Indie music, so to establish what types of conventions, regarding mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound I should include in my music video, I analysed several other music videos of this genre. I watched videos by Arctic Monkeys, Alt-J, Bombay Bicycle club, The Hives, Peace & Little Comets to see what conventions they used, that could assist me in the production of my own original piece. After analysing these videos in much depth, I established that the vast majority of these videos within this genre were extremely similar.

Firstly, the costumes within this genre all seem to fall into the same category. Most of the artist/actors within these videos are clad in casual, dull clothing. This consists of simple things such as t-shirts, skinny jeans, leather jackets, casual jackets, winter coats, sand shoes, desert boots and shirts. This way the artist(s)/actor is presented as a working class person, or 'one of the people'. The Arctic Monkeys' videos "Why'd You Only Call Me When Your High" and "Leave Before The Lights Come On" enforce this strongly as all characters in these videos are dressed in very casual clothing to show that despite all their success and fame they are still 'working class lads' from sheffield. This is extremely different to genres such as metal and pop, as in pop the artists tend to wear extravagant, flamboyant clothing to stand out and make a statement to their audience. Whereas alternative music artists are conventionally represented as very informal and quite unkempt to enforce the ideology that indie/alternative music is independent and on much of a smaller scale than that of mainstream pop which is regularly globalised.

Another consistent feature within the videos of my chosen genre that I analysed was the setting. Arctic Monkeys 2005 single's 'When The Sun Goes Down' music video, tells the story of a prostitute on the streets of Sheffield,  in dull mundane settings consisting of streets and alleyways.

This attribute of indie/alternative music videos is enforced in Bombay Bicycle Club's 'Always Like This'. Despite this song being a performance based video rather than one that tells a narrative, it is still set upon streets alleys and estates. This shows that this genre of music is very urban, and carries a large 'working class' feel to it. 

The Libertines video "What Became Of The Likely Lads" also backs up this point as it too features a narrative told about two young boys who are brought up on a rough council estate. This carries the urban theme of alternative music videos even further.

Although the 'working class urban' theme is extremely common among these types of videos, there are many other types of narrative, performance and abstract videos as demonstrated in this video of Peace performing 'Bloodshake', which defies the costume and setting norms of other videos within this genre.

After analysing many different forms and types of alternative/indie music videos, i have gathered that there are many different types, but the unmatched convention of setting for these types of videos consists of streets alleyways and estates, so to ensure that I appeal to my targeted audience I will film the majority of my video in city streets and alleys. As well as this the most used type of costume appears to be casual clothing, so i will dress my main character in casual clothes such as a t-shirt, hooded jacket and skinny jeans.

I regards to cinematography and editing, most of the videos in this genre seem to demonstrate quite basic elements. There are primarily cross cuts to develop the narratives of these videos, so I will incorporate this into my video. In regards to indie/alternative music videos there appears to be a consistency of unconventional endings as I described in my LIIAR analysis of three music videos. Bob Dylan's 'Duquesne Whistle' and 'Arctic Monkey's Why'd you only call me when you're high' are great examples of this. Therefore I intend to include an unconventional ending in my video that defies a conventional 'happy ending'.