This document discusses conventions of indie music videos and how they will apply to a college project. It notes that indie music videos typically focus on band member performance over narrative due to low budgets. For the college project, the video will conform to indie conventions like casual dress, limited CGI, and focus on performance due to a low budget. It will utilize many of Goodwin's identified music video features and be closer to redundant than entropic by sticking closely to genre formulas.

1. Genre Theory
Matthew Wilcox

2. Relevant conventions
In Indie music videos, most of the focus is on the Band members performing than
narrative. There a few potential reasons for this, one example of which is that it could
be because the production itself has a low budget. In a sky full of stars, for example,
most of the production cost likely went into the outfits- the actual video is one long
take done with a handheld camera, plus a few shorter ones from various viewpoints at
the end, and thus does not have much editing done to it. Another thing to note is that
indie music videos do not tend to feature much CGI, like you might expect from a pop
video. The costumes also tend to be a bit more conservative.

3. Conventions to Use
As a college project, this video will not have
access to a large budget. Therefore, we will need
to be creative in how we film in order to create
an interesting video. For similar reasons, we will
conform to the casual dress code that seems to
have taken root in the genre for costumes. Our
narrative shots will be low budget, and we will
need to use the available physical resources
around us to make the video look interesting.

4. Goodwin’s features
We are intending to create a conventional music video,
and as such we will be utilising many of Goodwin’s
identified features. We will certainly create a relationship
between lyrics and visuals, the latter illustrating the
former. We will also aim to illustrate the music itself in
performance-oriented scenes. As all the performers will
be male young adults in casual dress, there will be little
focus on voyeurism whilst shooting, though there will be
numerous close-ups. Intertextuality will be minor and
incidental only, likely limited to a few alcoholic products
and any background objects in the bedroom scenes.

5. Redundancy and Entropy
Though I hesitate to label our video as being
redundant, it is certainly closer to that
description than entropic. The video will be
conventional and, all things considered, perhaps
a bit basic. As it will subscribe to the generic
formula, it at least should be recognisable as a
music video and enjoyable. On the other hand
though, it may be not as attention grabbing as a
more entropic video might be.

6. Some Quotes
• Christine Gledhill said “Differences between genres meant
different audiences could be identified and catered to...
This made it easier to standardise and stabilise production”
• Basically, this means that genre allowed producers to
categorize and target a specific audience. This more specific
audience would be much easier to cater for than trying to
impress a wider audience, making production simpler.
• For our music video, this means that to make our video
successful, we should focus on making it appealing to the
music genre’s audience, rather than trying to make
something that will please everyone.

7. • Steve Neale said “Genre consists of instances of repetition
and difference”
• This means that various examples of a specific genre of
work will have both similarites and differences. Similarities,
because they belong to the same genre, and differences
simply because they are different products.
• This means that in our video, we should make sure that we
have similarities to other Indie music videos. However, at
the same time, it is important to realise that the
differences, what sets our video apart from the rest, are
just as important.

8. Genre and Auteur theory
Personally, as a creative individual, I like to think
of myself as an Auteur. I like writing fiction, and
though this is my first video production, I enjoy
expressing my creativity. I feel that creating texts
is as much, if not more, about individual
creativity as industrial standards and formulas.