Noah and the Whale: ‘L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N’ (indie)

The opening shot is of a jukebox and it then cuts to a shot which is the same, just slightly more zoomed out.

The opening seconds of this song are essentially the same, it is just one shot up until about 30 seconds, the camera slowly tracks in to frame just the two band members sat down. Throughout the lighting changes to reveal a woman dancing in the background.

On the whole the light level is quite dark for the whole video, apart from when it switches to the woman behind the glass dancing. When the focus is on her the light will either be a white spotlight or it will be more of a red wash.As the instrumental intro ends the band member sat to the left starts to perform to camera, whilst the other remains in a neutral position.

Above you can see how over time the camera tracks in more, so you are almost uncomfortably close to the two people sat down. We can also see that sometimes when the light switches between the performers and the woman dancing behind the glass in the background, the light is sometimes red and sometimes a spotlight.

These shots are the first time in the whole video that the shot has deviated from that long, slow performance shot track in. It goes back to a very shaky. Unsteady shot of the jukebox, but this time there is someone potting on a song. This is also the first time in 20 seconds that the shot has changed from performance to narrative.

Mount Kimbie: ‘you took your time’ (Indie-electro)

Throughout this video I have noticed that unlike the previous one the majority of the shot types were narrative but they were however also almost all movement shots. The previous video did tend to stick on the same shot for a long time but no where near as long as the shots in this one. Some of these shots are around 15 seconds in length, the song is longer however so it takes up less of the video than you might think. The song I could do in this genre is also y the same artist however it is around 3 minutes 30 seconds which would make it a lot more doable and reasonable within the time we have, and also it means that I wouldn't need to make the shots as long which could be hard for me to do anyway as without a stedicam the shots could be quite shaky and the longer I am recording for in one go the more likely that are to go wrong.In this video I think the use of the black and white filter could mirror the moody undertone and also maybe the emotions of the characters in the narrative shots.Most of the shots used in this video are long or mid shots which make the viewer feel less sympathy or emotions towards the characters on screen as we don't see their face so closely and so feel slightly detached from their emotions. I have noticed in the other two videos I have looked at here they also have a common theme of using long or mid shot. This tells me that this is a common theme and a convention of most subgenres of indie music, I will do some more research to look in to this farther to see it is it true for all subgenres or not.

The videos in the indie and indie-electro subgenres appear to show life in a more truthful was and highlight harsh truths about life rather than making the performers like seem really fun and all easy like most pop video do. For example the first video i analysed has mentions of what appear to be domestic abuse and also the idea that runs through almost the whole album that this song features on which is that, life goes on! They try to touch upon more human emotions (rather than intense happiness and laughter which might feature in pop music) and in this case that is the idea that even if something doesn't go to plan it isn't the end of the world.

In the song for the above video King Krule is the narration of a modern day robber who is voicing his opinion on cowardice of society, and trying desperately to find a scapegoat as to why he chooses to do the things he does. (ie: robbing, murdering, and other various crimes). In this case having the video show a rundown area where you might stereotypically expect these crimes to happen makes sense and conveys the message quite clearly, as does showing a car on fire as this appears to me an arsonist attack.

Glen Check: ‘Racket’ (synthpop)

In this video, rather than having the shots remain as one long smooth shot that spans over 10 seconds or more, they have chosen to cleverly make use of jump cuts, this not only means that they can cut to the pace of the song but also that less time is taken up by the duration of each shot and therefore they can afford a more elaborate video with al larger variety of locations and shot types as they will have time to fit it all in. As I said the cuts are on the beat and in time with the music which is actually quite fast pace, so much so that I may have actually missed a couple of shots when taking screenshots. Like the first video I analysed the narrative shots in this also feature the performer and sometimes the performance and narrative shots are interlinked. There are far fewer narrative shots in this one than the second video, and in that sense the conventions fit more with those of a traditional pop song.

Like the other two I have analysed this video also uses filters but the effect is slightly different, in the first one it was to give the video a slightly dazed and nigh time feel, in the second it was black and white to mirror the moody undertones of the song but in this one it uses a filter which gives it what is in my opinion a more nostalgic feel. This is a feeling that I would really like to try and recreate in my video.

Conventions!

I am already starting to notice many conventions of the genre just based on these three videos, these are all subgenres or indie, including indie-electro and the final one is more like synthpop.The conventions I have noticed are:

-Often performance shots are few and far between, in the second one there are no performance shots at all and it is an exclusively narrative bases video.

-The shots used are mostly movement shots (mainly tracking, but sometimes pans too)This could be a challenge to recreate as it means that unless I have the right equipment and am patient with it the correctness wont be as good as it could as rushing could sometimes cause bumps and wobbles. I am hoping to buy a cheep steadicam anyway so this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

-There are very few cuts in most of these videos, the pace seems to mirror the ambience (especially in the second one) the third one which is more synthpop-ish, has far more cuts and editing techniques in it, mainly jump cuts, they cut on the beat and the length of their shots are less sustained and more like a traditional pop video.

-All of the videos I have looked at in this kind of genre have a very specific colour scheme which makes them appear slightly surreal, I think it could be a good idea to research more into directors like Wes Anderson who is renowned for the colour schemes in his films. Things like colour schemes and filters will add to the idea of nostalgia that I would like to try and portray.

- The third one uses jump cuts and cuts to the same shot instead of having one smooth shot which goes on for 15 seconds, this means the video has a more ‘jagged’ pop feel and they will be able to fit in more of a narrative to their video as they will be taking up less time by using jump cuts to speed it up.

- There is another song by Noah and the Whale and in the video for that song there is a lot of filters and also some rewinds happening. I think this would be fun to try and recreate as it also fits with the conventions to the genre I am looking at and I think it would make really long sustained shots that go on for 15+ seconds more visually interesting and creative. These sorts of things are very important to consider when making any type of music video but especially one where there isn't too much variety in shot types.