Artist/Genre Research

For our music video we have chosen to use the song Dirty Paws by Of Monsters and Men.

To look at related artists I went on to Spotify and looked at their page and below that there was a section for similar artists that related to the INDIE/FOLK genre. 

Bon Iver

 Mumford and Sons

Edward Sharpe

The Lumineers

After looking at all of these music videos of songs that are similar to our chosen one, I found that in most, like Ho Hey, I Will Wait and Home they all have members of the band playing instruments and singing. Out of the three I listed, two of these had a narrative as well as performance and the first song Holocene had a narrative of a boy making his way through a series of landscapes. My favourite video of these is Home by Edward Sharpe as it portrays a series of memories of the band travelling around together, emphasising a strong relationship and bond that they all share. There is a lot of costume and location changes which makes it interesting and no one gets bored of watching it. I also really like the special effects of the video as it makes it look older which fits into the idea of memories and its like looking back on life. The way it is filmed is quite amateur and the hand held camera again adds to the idea that not much effort has gone into it, but that it was about the friendships and bonds that the band members shared with each other. 

Homework - definitions

BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is a non-governmental organisation founded in 1912 by the film industry and they are in charge of censorship in film in cinema.

OFCOM is the regulatory system for TV and Radio.

IPSO are the regulatory body of the Newspaper and Magazine industry.

IMPRESS are also press regulators however, they try and imply fairer and better regulatory strategies.

ASA is a regulation system for advertising across all media boards.

BBC TRUST is the governing body of the BBC and want to ensure that all decisions are in the best interest of the licence fee payers.

Genre Research

What makes an indie music video?


For my research I looked at the following five different indie bands/artists:
- Oasis
- Two Door Cinema Club
- Imagine Dragons
- Arctic Monkeys
- Radiohead

Oasis

I looked at Wonderwall as Oasis' music video and found that there were lots of cuts especially cuts cutting closer to the object or the person, it was black and white and the characters were causing a quite feeling of unease or fear which added a quite low or dark tone to the video. There were also many fades within the music video from shot to shot.

Two Door Cinema Club 

For this band I looked at the music video 'What You Know' and unlike Wonderwall, this video was very colourful and there were a few parts within the video where there was fast paced editing which made the tone feel more happy and played along with the upbeat music. However, the artist in Wonderwall was dressed similarly to this one as they were wearing quite monotone clothing.

Imagine Dragons 

I chose to look at the video of the song Radioactive which also has quite a dark tone to it. There are lots of close ups and a tracking shot followed by a close up on a woman's eyes which seems to suggest a narrative video however it is very surreal, a bit like the Oasis video as the artists or directors of the video have chosen to put the main focus on toy monsters fighting with an added dark tone as there is an evil leader who believes no one can beat him. The losers of the competition are locked up which, again, adds a dark tone to it.

Arctic Monkeys

For this band I looked at the video of R U Mine? and I saw that it is also black and white as well as Wonderwall and it is similarly displayed as it seems like it is being shown to the audience on a TV screen. However, this video is a hand held camera which adds a quite original effect. Although the video is a hand held camera which documents they may be trying to indicate some sort of narrative, it is a performance video too as the artists are miming and at the end, performing.

Vance Joy 

For this artist I looked at the music video Georgia which displays a more flowing narrative due to the long takes and the birds eye view of the soldiers as well as the close up of the man holding onto his cross necklace. The colour tone is also similar to Oasis and Arctic Monkeys as it is sepia and dull colouring to add to a melancholy tone. However, towards the end of the video we find out that it is quite satirical as they have the male characters crying at a part of a film they are directing and the women have straight faces.

Artist Research

FLUME

Flume's music is very electro pop/indie so the target audience would be from around 18-34.

Their website is very vibrant and colourful and they also use the album cover for their website background as well as the same font. 

This is the official website of Flume where it includes a shop to buy the CD's and tour tickets. It also has links to all the social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

This is an official music video from their most recently released album called Skin. The song is called Never Be Like You and has a very surreal concept to it and the distorted effect seems to move with the beat of the song.  

Music Video Homework

Performance Video:
A performance video is when the music video focuses on the artist or the band performing their song, a popular example of this is boy bands in an arena performing their single. For this is used a video of David Bowie's Valentine's Day:

Narrative Video:
A narrative video tells a story within the music video and often, but not always, connects to the lyrics and style of music. This is effective as it engages the audience as they want to find out the resolution of the story however, there is often unlimited dialogue so its hard to make a narrative music video. For this I used Katy Perry's The One That Got Away:

Conceptual Video:
A conceptual music video is one that is often abstract and based around a single concept rather than a single story, it is creative and surreal and doesn't usually have to make sense. For this example I used
Oasis' Stand By ME which has a various amount of stories going on. FRAGMENTED stories, they are all broken up.

Music Video - Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin claimed that it was selling the artist that made the music video important, not telling a story.

This is from the music video of One Direction's Nobody Can Drag Me Down. I looked at a boyband video and the typical conventions you would see in a boy bands music video is of the band singing with a short dance sequence. This music video demonstrates this as they are all lip syncing together. 

Another idea that Andrew Goodwin suggested was that the visuals fit with the lyrics of the music, in this music video of Riptide by Vance Joy, each lyric is presented by a literal representation of the word. For example, the lyrics 'i wanna be your left hand man' there is always a shot of a left hand.

This is an example of the record label having specific codes which advertise the artist by focusing on, in this case, Nicki Minaj, and sexualising her to make herself more well-known and highly advertised. This is another of Goodwin's suggestions that music videos do.

This screenshot is from Justin Timberlake's Mirror, this is an example of a looking music video in which the audience is forced to focusing on the artist or whatever the artist is looking at, in this case he is looking at himself in a mirror which makes it more obvious for audience to focus on him.

This is from Mcfly's Love Is Easy, this is an example of an intertexual music video as there is references to another movie or text in the music video, in this music video there is a reference to 'Its A Wonderful Life' with the dialogue 'do you want the moon?'.