M3 - Codes and Conventions

CONVENTIONS
The typical conventions for all indie/rock music videos are as following:

Performance:

1. Typical for a live performance of the band or artist to be present.
2. About the passion of music rather than the success of the artists.
3. If the video is a narrative, elements of performance are added in throughout.

Narrative:

1. Narratives are used to tell a story by using sequences of clips, matching the lyrics of the song to help the audience along, linking to Goodwin's theory of illustration.
2. They keep your attention as what is on screen is constantly changing so the audience is constantly entertained. 
3. Leaves a lot to the imagination, for the audience to discover for themselves. 

Mise en scene:

1. Mise en scene plays a big role as it helps the music videos have their own iconography, traits and overall look. This is the reason why most indie/rock videos look so contrasting to one another.
2. Make-up, props and costumes are also major components as they help indicate the themes further, as well as the era they're meant to be in. 
3. Clothing is normally with many layers.

Sound:

1. Other sounds before the music video actually starts.
2. Effects to the sounds (distortion, echo, fade).

Camera: 

1. Full-length shots are normally used, along with wides and prolonged stills of individual objects or characters to establish them from the beginning. Normally to show clothing or surroundings, helping with characterisation. 
2. Establishing shots and location are primarily one of the first shots you see in these types of music videos. 
3. Different angles are constantly switched between. 
4. Extreme close-ups are used to get the idea of the feelings of a character and interpret inner emotions. 

Editing:

1. Old fashioned, dry, vibrant colour scheme. Meaning that filters are used commonly to give the videos a sense of another time. Special effects are added to sometimes make the video more exciting and memorable. 
2. Fast and slow cuts between the shots often reflect the pace of the music, creating either quick or slow atmosphere and pacing. 
3. Videotape filters are used regularly as well as ones that look like an old TV, creating voyeurism. 

The typical indie genre conventions tend to be out in the open in nature with easy-access, low budget locations. The normal colours are quite natural to match with striking colours on certain items or clothing. As with Mumford and Son's videos, these bright colours from a darkened background are quite prominently presented.

Because of this, we chose to enhance the colour saturation and exposure of the scarf and coat, making the outside area less colourful so the eye would be drawn more to the character.

Our music video

We used lots of important iconographies of the bunny rabbit throughout, showing (via mise-en-scene) a slow development, portraying a lot of emotions, despite it being a mask and not showing any different facial expressions, by body language. The character is really expressive and over-the-top.

Mumford and Sons

We made sure to include some elements of performance, even though it wasn't our main aim, as it is a very large aspect of the indie/rock genres.

Additionally, the composition of the shots in our music videos are on the cross points of the third lines to make the composition stronger at every point and every shot composition. We used lead-in-lines to direct gaze of the audience/viewer towards the most prominent parts of the shot, which are mostly the character.

my favourite shot

Another thing we tried to do was to play with shadows and darkness, taking conventions from the rock music videos (as they have darker themes and are often shrouded in darkness). Darkness and lack of light is obvious in many of our shots (the alleyways, the tunnel, the graveyard). 

As many other indie/rock music videos show slow or fast tilts from an object to another object or the sky, we decided to do the same to keep it firmly within this genre. I looked previously at 'Hopeless Wanderer' by Mumford and Sons which shows a similar transition (examples below).

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The shot types used throughout our video are also conventions of the indie/rock genre because we kept it at wide shots and close-ups, flicking between wider shots and getting gradually closer as time goes on. We used low and high angles frequently due to the genre conventions of this genre.

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PURPOSE 

As the purpose of the music video is to entertain and promote the artist, hopefully getting them much more recognition, we kept that in mind when creating strong iconography with the rabbit character which people might be able to associate with Plicketts Mahoo going into the future. 

ENTERTAINMENT VALUE 

'I thought it was creative and unique. It was entertaining because I was constantly gripped by the strange, alien visuals and haunting song.' - Benjamin Perry

Because of this review from a peer, we know it was a success as a music video as it was entertaining to an audience. When we showed this video to the artist himself, he was very pleased with the overall result as he felt it showed his message well. 

THE ARTIST

SYMBOLISM

Rabbits can represent:

• Innocence, naivety and childlike curiosity. The white rabbit from The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) embodies a lot of this as the titular character, Alice, follows him. He may represent her curiosity and is now well known and recognised in pop culture.
• In some circles, rabbits may be seen as lucky creatures or a symbol of good fortune. The white of the rabbit we're representing in the video links to purity - perhaps perfection to a degree that's slightly eerie.
• Rabbits are also associated with spring, Easter and fertility. This could link to the idea of rebirth, new life or vitality. 
• Childishness. This rabbit could represent a child dealing with loss.

Buster from the cartoon 'Arthur and Friends' is a character made to be appealing to children. He's made up of rounded, unthreatening shapes and this plays into the childish innocence of the rabbit archetype in the media at large.

This Covergirl fashion magazine cover plays into the cuteness and innocence of the rabbit - it emphasises the aspect of femininity or fertility we see sometimes in the representation of rabbits in media. It also plays with the perfect and pure image they project, perhaps a hint at the nature of makeup advertisement - typically, it pushes people to aspire for perfection.

This typical Beatrix Potter sort of scene with rabbits takes us away from the white, pure image of rabbits to more of a maternal, domestic vision. It plays on the fertility and innocence of rabbits by, again, anthropomorphising them and giving them human values.

This is a different kind of advertising, aimed at parents and children. It's bright, the bunny is active and lively, and the company would like to appeal to people in an innocent way.

As I've mentioned, the White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland is very widespread as a character. They're meant to be a little unsettling in this particular image, contributing to the overall eeriness or oddness of the story.

The were-rabbit from Wallace and Gromit plays on the age-old contrast between innocence and violence. Rabbits are expected to be small and silly, which adds to the element of comedy.

As our music video doesn't have much iconography, this could itself be iconography as it goes against conventions of our genre. If you consider the rabbit character iconography, then it could represent innocence and discovery, maybe starting a new chapter in your life after something majorly changing it.

This in a way symbolises the artist. They're new and undiscovered so hopefully, anyone who relates to the song would relate with the artist and seek them out as they agree with the themes and meanings. In the end, there are credits which show the artist and the name of the song. The spiky text represents the artist as well and could differentiate them between other artists as it's not just any normal font.

Nature could symbolise the basics of everything, it's where everything starts, everything originates. Nature strips everything back. In our video, it shows the character resorting back to the start. Nature could be the only thing not ruined in their life. Nature is all the animals, plants, and other things in the world that are not made by people, and all the events and processes that are not caused by people.

  
We chose to film locked off wide shots that allowed us to establish the environment, but also we later created effective jump cut sequences to show the passage of time and that they are trapped (not being able to move on), this works very well as all the shots were filmed from static. 

We used a lot of symmetry in the subway also to make it more striking as a composition along with the colours, it stands out and will hopefully be remembered. It represents balance and steadiness. It also has connotations of flowers, they normally look the same, showing a sort of regularity.

Rule of thirds was another technique we used. It allows the shots to look more even and dynamic, centring the character majorly on the lines as they move around, meaning that the rabbit character is always the focus of the video; the audience's eyes are drawn to it throughout.