GENRE CONVENTIONS: Cinematography & Editing

(CS)
Possible Influences:

• The layering of the band onto narrative performance or just one of the band members
• Have black & white for some of the shots 
• The editing pace should link to the track pace 
• Have a limited amount of special effects

Layering:
The layering in music videos in the Indie/Alt - rock genre contains mainly performance footage layered on top of narrative or a cutaway shot or a scene of some sort. This gives a good visual effect alongside still haveing performance in the music video which is key to this genre. Below are a few examples on how it is incorporated.

Bishop Briggs - River

In this track you can clearly see the lead singer being layered over some interesting landscape. This happens throughout the video however it isn't consistent and there are both shots with just the landscape and just the lead signer.

The Cure - Picture Of You

The whole music video is the band which are distorted and layer into alongside onto a background consisting of a cartoon style of nature. This is basically just performance footage but to liven it up and keep the audience engaged they have used this layering technique instead of having a variety of close ups/ medium shots of each band member.

The Smiths- Panic

Like The Cure, the performance footage is layered onto scenery. However this time it is a black and white background with a coloured tint on the performance footage. There is a larger shot variety on the performance footage compared to The Cure however the layering is literally just the performance footage clipped on top of background scenery instead of being incorporated/blended into the background.

Colouring:
As blogged on previously Indie/ Alt - rock commonly has black and white footage.

The Cranberries - Zombie
(this music video has a mix of coloured and b&w footage)

Oasis - Wonderwall

Catfish and the Bottlemen - Twice

Kasabian - Underdog

Sam Fender - The Sound

Notice how all the B&W footage is of the band and performance footage. The 'Zombie' music video has coloured and b&w footage of both the narrative and performance. These bands have also done music videos with colour as well.

Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger

The Smiths - Ask

These are two examples of coloured footage from Oasis and The Smiths. This signifies that Indie can be both black and white and coloured and that it doesn't have to be one or the other. Both of them work and both of them can connote Indie/ Alt- Rock. Notice how The Smiths also has tinted layering of performance footage over the narrative footage with a close up of the lead singer.

Pace:
Generally the editing pace reflects on the pace of the song. Slower in the calmer parts and then when the beat drops it speeds up to make the drop more powerful visual.
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In this example of 'Sun Goes Down' by Arctic Monkeys you can guess where the drop is with the sheer increase in editing pace and the shakiness of the camera. The takes become much shorter than before and they become more action movie like. Compare the medium shot of the woman in the snow which is quite a calm shot and a longish take to the POV shots in the car of short takes quickly followed by one another. The next example (Barns Courtney - Fire) you can see the change in pace as well when the drop happens. this time the background changes and there is colour correction at the drop to make it more vibrant. The combination of changing the cinematography and editing to match the pace of the music video is part of Andrew Goodwins theory on how the music links to the music video.
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Special Effects:
Considering budgets for Indie music videos aren't very large due to the whole origin of Indie being independent and the do it yourself attitude. special effects won't be as prominent or at the same variety as a mainstream band or artist who has many companies backing them up for a music video production. Sometimes the most special effects you are going to get is a b&w filter with layering which are two of the common conventions for this genre anyways.
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Oasis - Wonderwall

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The focus is on the band and what they can produce/ how they play the instruments. The focus is not on visually striking special effects that are hard to produce and require a large budget.