This document provides an overview of codes and conventions commonly found in indie genre music videos. It discusses the broad and diverse nature of the indie genre and some of its subcategories like indie-pop, indie-rock, and indie-folk. It then examines typical elements of indie music videos like their narrative style, use of camera shots, sound design, editing techniques, mise-en-scene aspects involving lighting, props, costumes, locations, and color palettes. Examples are given of specific music videos to illustrate these common conventions.

1. Codes and
Conventions of
Indie Genre Music
Videos

2. Indie genre is large and broad with many sub-categories.
It’s commonly known as a niche genre due to it’s small
audience intake – normally being on the backburner in
music charts with pop and dance songs ruling them.
It’s also known as ‘Alternative’.
The sub-categories are broad. To name a few:
Indie-Pop -
Indie-Rock –
Indie-Folk -
Post-Punk –
It’s mostly implementing aspects of other main genres with
a personalised style of the Alternative genre.
Originated from British post-punk, the counterpart of indie-rock, combines guitar pop with DIY ethic,
melodic, less abrasive and relatively angst-free.
Prominent labels were founded in the 1980’s. The term then associated with bands that and genres
that remained dedicated to their independent status.
Arose from indie-rock scenes influenced by folk. Hybridizes the acoustic guitar melodies of traditional
folk music with contemporary instrumentation.
Rose from the punk movement. It is a broad type of rock music that experiments with many different
musical influences. By the mid 1980’s the political movement of it had dissipated while providing the
impetus for the alternative and independent music.

3. An example of bands for more common
examples of the sub-genres:
Indie-Rock
Front Bottoms
The White Stripes
Indie-Folk
The Paper Kites
Mumford & Sons
Indie-Pop
EDEN
Melanie Martinez
Post-Punk
U2
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4. The Style

5. Indie genre music videos often contain a more narrative style. Sometimes implementing aspects of
performance – creating a mixture.
Rarely do the artists play parts without form of performance, be this lip-syncing or playing
instruments (guitars are very commonly seen).
The Paper Kites – Bloom is a mixture piece. Having the story of two people meeting through ‘the
string of fate’ – using cans as means of communication. However it also has the band playing their
instruments around a tree, very simple shots and a few close-ups of lip-syncing for focal points.
The narrative is told with very little interruption from the performance; the band only showing
briefly for a few shots geared more towards the ned of the video.
Covey – Comes and Goes however, shows a solely narrative video. Though there isn’t much of a
plot. It’s concerned mainly with nature still shots to show off the landscape, a single male actor is
filmed walking through various locations until he reaches a boat – which becomes a focus.
It comes across as a more visually appealing peace and fits the pace of the music as calming. By
not fitting to main conventions of telling a story, it holds an interesting appeal.

6. The Camera

7. Establishing, wide, mid-shot, medium close-up
and on lesser occasions unless there is a high-key
point of interest extreme close-up – are the main
types of camera shots used in Indie music videos.
Using Satellite Stories – Campfire as an example.
As a lot of the focus is on the surroundings, it’s
more common to see shots that allow for a view of
the landscape – hence establishing and wide shots
are seen a lot.
Performers are included in around 60% of the
shots and the rest are solely situated to show off
the area.
Angles vary; predominantly using eye-level to
keep a sense of realism, more often than not high-
angle shots will be shown. Low-angle being less
common because of the way it doesn’t exhibit the
landscape but rather the sky (which may be rather
bland but works well as a backdrop as shown to
the right). Though a birds-eye-view – not
commonly used – does show up in a lot of Indie
music videos, making it somewhat of a common
convention to expect.
It’s usually used to be an establishing shot.
Both tracking and panoramas are used, though
stills and hand-held take up most of the videos,
tracking shots are more common.

8. The Sound

9. Regarding the use of diegetic sound (as the non-diegetic is the
music track), more often than not Indie music videos will use it.
Be that through the use of an opening (something other genres also
do) or interpreting points of sound that would be present in the
video to underlie the music.
Keaton Henson – Lying to You does the latter. With the dog
barking in the opening shot, as well as the odd car driving by or
using its horn.
By doing this it helps draw out a style of realism whilst maintaining
the initial realm of the video.
With parallel sound however, this is where Indie music videos
diverge from the norm.
Most of the time the video doesn’t fit to the pace of the music.
Being out of time with the rhythm of sound, the videos have a
tendency to film longer shots and cut them together to focus more
on the visual aspects.
Doing this allows for more freedom with the shots and the beat of
the music doesn’t hold back.
Pacing often comes in with performers movements rather than the
editing.

10. The Editing Technique

11. Editing techniques used in Indie genre are broad.
Regarding cutting and shots, they usually consist of clean cuts and a variety of shaky shots (to mimic
a hand-held camera) and smooth ones (using a tripod for stability). The trick of Indie genre is to keep
it organic looking but also professional, this requires a balance between amateur looking shots and
expertly conducted ones.
Examples of the use of advanced editing is with animation and CGI.
Gorillaz – Feel Good is an example of stylised animation used throughout the entirety of the video.
The Gorillaz always use this type of animation in their videos – inputting sections of real life footage
for comparison – with the use of their personified characters to identify between each band member.
However the use of partial CGI shines through in Ibeyi – Oya, where constructions of the landscape
(trees) and performers is shown to turn into some form of 3D rendering, allowing the audience to see
‘through’ the images.
It’s a clever trick that needs the use of motion and imagery sensors to capture the details of
positioning and shape of each part that becomes computer generated.
Though the entire music video does not consist of this, it adds a nice twist that fits to the atmosphere
of the song.

12. Mise-en-Scene

13. Lighting
The Sun is the main and almost always used source of lighting for Indie genre music videos, as they
mainly use natural lighting.
On the off occasion for indoor scenes, artificial lighting is used to keep a crisp and visually appealing
shot for audience viewing.
Artificial lighting examples would be in Kodaline – High Hopes on the lower row, where the use of
professional lighting is subtle enough to make the hospital lights look as though they’re powerful and
realistic.
Though most music videos in this genre use predominantly the Sun as a lighting source for the more
‘natural’ effect. Using shadows cast to create particular moods. The Paper Kites – Featherstone
does this very well with the trees acting as a block to create interesting shadows and points of light.
It also obscures the sky which in turn creates a form of over exposure as the focal point is on the
performers and landscape. This means that it has a glowing effect on the outer edges of the
aforementioned. It brings about a calming and ethereal mood to the entirety of the video which suits
the theme and rhythm of song.
The use of lighting like this is important to set ‘a mood’.

14. Props
Props play a role in both the performance and narrative of Indie
music videos.
Focusing on Indie-Folk, there’s a theme of Instruments being
used as props in the performance side of the video. In the
narrative, instruments (commonly acoustic guitars) may be used for
the lead role when they’re lip-syncing – the performance becomes
part of the narrative.
The Paper Kites – Bloom uses not only the instruments that each
band member plays, but with the story, the only props used are tin
cans and string.
Often in Indie videos like this, there are very few props as it’s
based on simplicity and focuses on the aesthetic rather than
complex CGI or incredible props and costuming.
The tin cans are used to create an atmosphere (as shown with the
first shot) and also to help with the narrative – two people meeting
through the communication of tin cans and string; it creates
something romantic out of nostalgia.

15. costume
Costume
Costume plays an important role in designating individuals, protagonists, antagonists, the era, the
season, the weather, the age range, any key points, the genre, and so one without explicitly
saying. This convention uses an audiences knowledge of expectations for such things for them to
decipher them all subconsciously.
In Declan McKenna – Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home, the use of oversized coats and sweaters
connotes to cold weather, also the clothing is modern and suitable for older teens, there’s also the
stylistic choices to match the conventions of Indie which include the oversized clothing, dungarees,
clashing colours, earthy tones, layers of clothing to make performers seem bulkier but also more
cosy. The neutral tones in clothing help bring out the brighter colours (like the rainbow sweater)
and due to the lighting being less saturated, these colours stand out a lot more.
Indie focuses on more subtle colours – such as the main performer in this video who’s wearing the
dungarees over a jacket and two shirts. The colours are rather dull on the scale of what they could
be, but they match well with the background and lighting and give a bit more of a dirty and chilling
vibe. This is common in music videos of the genre, using bleary colours to focus more on the actor
or the surroundings.

16. Location
Common locations would be forests.
They come up more and more often in Indie videos – as well as other idealistic landscapes such as
beaches or fields.
Both Maggie Rogers – Alaska and Nothing But Thieves – If I Get High use forests as a focal point in
their videos for the location setting. Though the latter does show a lot of a rustic house as well in the
video as means of plot and placement.
Incorporating this setting type would fit Indie conventions in this style of media; using natural
landscapes to invoke freedom and a sense of wilderness. The videos often have at least some focus on
the plain beauty of nature, what with still shots and the use of pans and tilts to show off the scenery
between performance shots. These can be used to fill in gaps and show appreciation and aesthetic for
the surroundings.

17. Colour
To create an atmosphere or mood, colour is very important. It can invoke feelings and emotions
through the connotations of the colours present, as well as linking them into landscapes or visuals to
make them appealing to an audience.
Due to the nature of Indie music, there’s always a soft undertone; this becoming prominent for this
part of Mise-en-Scene.
Mumford & Sons – Babel used a lack of saturation for the entirety of the video. Though it doesn’t fit
to the song in particular (as it is quite upbeat), it does match the lyrics of longing as well as having
more underlying meaning – this was the last song the band did in their old style before moving on to
more modern sound, so it has more internal significance.
But, Bastille – Things We Lost In The Fire uses naturally created colours in the sky (as well as the odd
artificially created ones) for more visual effect. Coupled with the surrealistic landscapes, the colours
give more of a calming and soothing effect whilst also holding power. It’s obviously made to be a focal
point and keeps to a colder colour scheme.