My Genre and What Makes a Good Music Video

My Chosen Genre:

My chosen soundtrack has elements of English Folk music, therefore, my music video will not follow mainstream music video conventions and will follow the path of an independent label's music video. For example,

You can tell this is independently made due to the type of music (Indie rock) and also the use of live performance and hand-held camera work. In contrast to mainstream artists, hand-held cameras are not typically used and are usually filmed in studio locations (for example: Ariana Grande - Problem). There is also extensive use of props in mainstream music videos (things that are too expensive and corporate to be able to create with a low budget.) The use of live performance in this music videos tells me that, independent music videos focus aruond fan bases and promoting themselves. Whereas mainstream videos normally follow a narrative and not really any live performance.

I have chosen to create an independent-looking music video after I researched and talked to various other past A level students. One person I spoke to about their video was Euan Baker. His music video can be found here.

These are screenshots from a conversation we had whilst I was establishing ideas:

(Excuse the poor spelling mistakes)



What makes a good Indie music video? Conventions 

From doing some research on the web, I have been able to gather a range of information about genre conventions for individual music videos. This is what I have managed to depict.

• The video has to be unique in some way and not the cliché 'Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, he breaks her heart followed by long repetitive shots of each person solemnly walking in the countryside'. It has to be edgy, it has to be raw material that even if it isn't 100% original, it could be manipulated from something else.

• Do not take the lyrics into account at all times and like most mainstream music videos, don't use the lyrics and meaning literally at all times when shooting a scene or editing footage.

• A music video can be a form of expression, therefore, how you're feeling on a particular day could determine the outcome of that days shooting. Therefore, this can create different moods within the music video and can also bring it to a personal level. 

• I think you have to connect with the song and fully understand what it means to you as a person before you can leave it to visual interpretation for your audience. Say you feel sad when listening to a melancholy melody, this could be a different story to someone else. Therefore, with this in mind, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter how you portray the music video - just create it with good quality and interesting visuals. 

• I think by treating this project as a piece of art really helps as most directors of music videos go onto filming much wider and greater things and are known as artists within their own right. For me, I am creating a piece of art for the world to view and judge and create their own opinions about, and really, isn't that just what still-life art is anyway?