Lighting Features of indie Music videos

As a way of undertstanding the lighting features of music videos I decided to look at 12 different music videos and create a tally of some of the key features presentedin them so that I could get an idea of the types of lighting to includein our music video so that it will have indie rock respesentations.

Featuring m

uted down colours

More Daylight t

han Nightlig

ht

More Nightlig

ht than Dayli

ght

Even Daylig

ht and N

ightlight

Dark Rooms

Bright C

olours

Shadows featurin

g Often

Black and W

hite

No Natural L

ighting

Majority N

atural Lighting

Darkness

with brig

ht bulbs o

r small b

lock co

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Lighting features of Indie Rock Music Videos

Amount of Times Featured

One of the main noticeable features is music videos is the amount that contain muted colours, by this I mean rather than being vibrant the colours are duller for example rather than a yellow a mustard colour and blues appearing more grey below are some screenshots of this. I feel this helps to create a more mellow tone to a music video it makes it a little less happy and represents a deeper meaning.

It is clear nightlight is predominant in indie rock music videos not only this but there is also a lack of natural lighting being used meaning that scenes in doors don’t have windows or that when people are outside in the videos it is night time again this represents a deeper meaning to the video. Darkness is often associated with sadness or negativity and indie music often has lyrics telling a story of sadness so this is a reasoning to this.

Although most music videos did use muted colours achieved through filters or autumnal lighting I did notice that when music videos were filmed in dark rooms bright coloured lightings were used or blocks of bright colour were used I the back ground however still being predominantly dark. These lights also helped to create shadows which I noticed a lot in videos on people’s faces or to create silhouettes of artists. The silhouettes in videos create a sense of mystery and covered emotions of the artists or it could represent the fact the lyrics do not link to them and their emotions. By using a little bit of colour in a dark room it doesn’t stop the representation of deep emotion however gives a form of silver lining.

The things lacking from the music videos I looked at were bright colours because these would give off the wrong representations. Another thing I only saw in one music video was black and white which I found quite surprising due to the conations of black and white.

By doing this research I am now more confident with the types of lighting I should use in our indie rock music video and will begin to do some experimentation.