Codes and Conventions of the Indie genre.

Indie music originated in the US and the UK around the early 1980s after the post punk revolution. Independent labels where set up in response to growing corporate greed between The big three major labels. The major labels often only gave bands/artist royalties of around 3% of the value of their album, and if there music was not commercial and to main stream audiences tastes they would often find it difficult to get signed. As a result many bands and artist went to independent labels such as Rough Trade and Domino, independent labels have a more 'do it yourself' attitude. The Bands that fall under the category of indie are bands such as The Pixies, The Hives, The Las, The Strokes, Bloc Party and Elastica.

Codes and Conventions of Indie music are things such as casual neutral clothing, and example of this is things such as polo shirts, skinny jeans, Parker's, Harrington's and doc martins or desert boots. Many indie bands often aper to dress casual and slightly scruffy. This represents the image surrounded with the genre of indie or indie rock music of being rebellious and angsty. as well as this it is supposed to show that the band/artist are not about the appearance or the money but the music they create by presenting them selves in such a basic non flashy manner.

Location is often key to the codes and conventions of the indie genre, many indie music videos are shot in dim locations such as clubs. Alternatively they are also shot in urban, working class or deprived areas. Examples of this are The Libertines - What became of the likely lads. An example of a performance video also by The Libertines is 'Can't stand me now'. Many indie label music videos include performance as both a marketing tool to show off the talents of the band and a way of representing the genre's 'do it yourself' home made style that portrays them as been all about the music and the live performance and them as show men not them as actors. Originally indie music consisted of little or no narrative videos, however recently performance videos are mixing with narrative as a new modern twist on the traditional  performance video. This brakes the codes and the conventions. Indie music videos normally contain or are souly biased on live performance because of the nature of been independent. independent labels do not have vast amounts of money to throw at bands/ artists music videos. As a result it has now become a genre code and convention for an independent artists music video to be slightly rough around the edges and have a more home made style.

Another convention of the Indie genre is part of the cinematography.  Traditionally performance videos (often used in the indie genre) include many close up shots, wide shots, two shots, over the shoulder, pans, low angles and shots of the crowd. Close up shots are used mainly on the lead vocalist  and of the guitarist playing their guitar. Close up shots are used to display the skill of the guitarist, this is what the audience wants to see. Close ups are taken of the singer as he is the front man of the band and often the figure the fans feel more of an affiliation towards, as mentioned before this is what the audience want to see from the artist. A music video is a marketing tool designed to cater to an audiences expectations.

Two shots are often used to establish a relationship between band members, this makes the band seem more of a solid unit rather then individual performers. Wide shots also do this although they are traditionally used towards the beginning of the video as the performers are more stagnant and so the audience can establish the members of the band. Low angel, pans and shots of the crowd are used to create atmosphere and dominance.

 

Jump cutting is also an editing trick heavily used throughout indie music videos, this is to represent the often fast paced style of the music and often the fast paced life's of the artists. also the harsh slightly jarring effect it gives also represents the persona that indie bands often have of been rebellious.