Indie music videos typically have low budgets and feature simple settings like parks, studios, and cities that are accessible locations. The artists and bands usually have a retro, dull clothing style featuring blacks, greys, and browns. Props like instruments are important to show the artists actually performing. Performance videos commonly include both live playing and narrative elements, while keeping shots wide to show the band as a unit, close-up for members and instruments, and steady-cam for chaos. Editing often uses black and white, with cuts at different paces to keep the audience engaged.

1. INDIE CODES AND
CONVENTIONS

2. Setting
Indie music videos are known to be quite low budget therefore there settings are usually
places like parks, studios, cities… these are all accessible places. The locations are usually
fairly simple because indie music videos tend to focus on the artist/band. An example of
this is the Arctic Monkeys ‘Teddy Picker’ music video, This appears to be a low budget
music video as there are no visual effects and different camera shots (dollying).

3. Clothing
Indie artists/bands usually have a retro look
which is created through the use of costumes,
hair and makeup. They tend to wear quite
dull colours like black, grey, brown, khaki etc.
An example of this is shown in The Kooks
music video ‘Be Who You Are’ as they wear
quite retro looking suits, one man wears a hat
that also looks fairly retro/vintage.

4. Mise-en-scene
Props are very important in a music video as they
ensure that the video looks realistic. For the indie
genre the key props would be instruments (drum
kit, guitar etc.) which shows that the artist/band are
actually the ones playing the instruments. In
addition this is very typical for indie music videos.
There may be extra actors in the music video, they
could be the main characters in the narrative of the
video, they’d have to portray their part through
their appearance as well as the way they act. An
example of this is seen in the Arctic Monkeys song
‘Snap Out Of It’, the main character is played by an
actor rather than a band member. Furthermore,
drums and guitars are shown throughout being
played by the band.

5. Performance
Its very common for the indie genre to have live
performance in their music videos, as this shows the
audience of the video what their live performance is
like. However, over the years indie have included
narrative in between the performance as this gives
more meaning to the video. Furthermore, this shows
that the artist/band do this job as a passion rather
than doing it for the money. This became a popular
way as the audiences attention was grasped more as
this was more interesting than a live performance. An
example of this is Cage the Elephant – ‘Trouble’, this
features the band playing their instruments with
narrative between these shots.

6. Camera
The usual type of camera shots are wide
shots as this shows the band as a unity
and close up shots to establish each
member as well as their instruments.
Steady cam is also used to portray chaos,
this makes the audience edgy. Long shots
are also used to set the scene in narrative
videos. Examples of these shots are in
Catfish and the Bottlemen – ‘Soundcheck’,
these shots are repeated throughout as
this adheres to conventions.

7. Editing
Black and white music videos are very common with the indie genre as this shows more
emotion, as well as giving the video a old fashion feel. Shots are cut fast/slow depending
on the pace, therefore keeping the audience entertained and interested. An example of
this is The Neighbourhoods song ‘Sweater Weather’, this music video is entirely black and
white and has cutting, which is fast and also slow therefore following conventions.
1 Second cut
14 second cut