Indie Rock Genre Conventions

1. Q1. In what ways does your
media product use, develop
or challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?

2. Research
• When we first began our research we had to identify the common
conventions that music videos held, whether that be performance based
music videos or narrative based music videos.
• We then had to explore the different genres before finding an artist/band
with a song we liked in our preferred genre. My group and I decided that
we were going to use the Indie Rock genre and have Lorde’s song ‘Tennis
Court’ as our chosen song.
• Performance: Most Indie Rock music videos include a performance from
the artist which allows the audience to solely focus on them and their
music and which is why the main settings are kept simple.
• Narrative: A narrative is often added to build a visual of what the artist
wanted to portray through their lyrics. It also adds entertainment to the
music video & means that their music is more memorable.

3. Indie Rock
• Indie Rock is a sub-genre of Alternative Rock that originated in the
1980s. Many musicians became disappointed with the alternative
label due to it becoming so conventional that they deemed it an
inappropriate name for the small independent bands who did not
want to be part of the mainstream movement. Over time the
bands in both genres slowly began to separate, therefore creating
the sub-genre, Indie Rock.

4. Indie Rock Genre Conventions
• Indie Rock music videos are known to be relatively low budget due
to their setting as they’re usually set outdoors in natural lighting.
The genre largely focuses on the performance from the artist
rather than the setting in which they are performing.
• More common conventions:
- Dark, casual clothing
- Close-up shots of the lead singer
- Lacking of emotion
- Band instruments are usually shown
- Urban settings rather than rural

5. Using the Conventions
• Mise-en-scene & Camera Angles: Props and costume play an
important role when showing the characters in our media product.
Brighter colours are worn in the performance section of the music
video whereas darker shades such as black are used in the narrative
section to reflect the dark atmosphere. When performing the most
common shots used are usually close-up shots as this gives the
audience a clear view of the artist. Establishing shots set the scene
that the artist is in. For example, the area around the artist and the
area around the characters is clear, and shows the setting that they
are in.

6. • Editing: Filters are often added to show a contrast between two
different scenes (i.e. a flash back and present day). Indie music
videos are fairly fast paced as they go along to the beat of the
music.
• We were able to show a clear contrast between the performance
section of the video and the narrative due to using different filters
over our shots in iMovie.
Performance: Bright colours projected
onto face, lacking in emotions.
Narrative: Dull colours, shows her as
troubled.

7. • My group and I decided that we were going to focus on the
performance in our music video so therefore our artist was included
throughout the whole duration of the video. Although we did decide to
add a narrative later on so that there was a deeper meaning to the
music video.
• However we challenged the conventions by not showing the whole
band or the instruments within our music video. I also challenged the
common conventions of Indie Rock album covers in my Digipak as I
used my artist on the front cover.
Following and Challenging the
Conventions