Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaulation Question 2

Evaluation question 2 

Evaluation Question 1

How did research and planning inform your production?

We started by researching the indie genre to find out the meaning behind the word 'Indie'. (of a pop group, record label, or film company) not belonging or affiliated to a major record or film company. This told us that most Indie bands aren't signed to a major record label and therefore won't have big budgets within their music videos. We then started to search for the most popular Indie bands on YouTube, looking at bands such as: Arctic Monkeys, The 1975, Catfish and the Bottlemen etc. From watching their music videos we were able to gain good knowledge on different conventions used.

Instruments was a big factor and are shown in most music videos, especially Indie videos, therefore we did research into the types of instruments used and found out that the band usually consists of: 1 singer, at least 2 guitarist, a drummer and a bassist.


We found out that Fender instruments are the most popular within the Indie genre, especially Stratocasters, mustangs, jazz masters and telecasters.

 This gave us a clear image of what type of instruments needed to be used within our music video. However when we first created our storyboard it didn't contain any instruments and was fully based on a story, because of this we decided to change the storyboard around and concentrate more on a band playing live rather than a story with the music just playing in the background.


Fender Jaguar





Fender Jazz master



Fender Mustang




Fender Stratocaster



Camera shots can also be shaky within Indie music videos as they don't have a very big budget, therefore we had to make our video look 'homemade' as well. Another convention used within the music videos was that many were shot in black and white, Our storyboard however only contained colour all the way through and due to our audience research we found that the audience would also prefer the video to be in black and white.


This was the first draft of our Music video which was fully in colour and didn't really suit the song or the genre.







Therefore on our second and final draft we had changed the whole music video to a black and white contrast. The location also helped with giving the video an Indie feel.  The location started off at a local shopping centre as well as a family home as most indie bands first videos are set around the location where they live. However after getting feedback from our questionnaire we found out that most people would prefer the video to be shot within a rural area, therefore we visited Matlock, Derbyshire and found that to be the most suitable place to shoot the video.

Costumes for the characters were also firstly just casual everyday clothing: jeans, top and a jacket. Again we asked our target audience what they think the band members within our video should wear and found out that most people expect Indie bands to wear: leather jackets, black jeans and smart shoes.

Idea 1: This was our first representation of what the characters would look like.







Idea 2: This is how our target audience wanted the characters to be presented.

My Poster

This is my band tour poster. It contains the bands logo, an image of the band as well as tour dates which I mimicked from real tour dates I found on the internet so that I was portraying real artists within the indie genre.

 

 

My Digipak

This is the digipak that I have produced that will go alongside my music video and poster when finished. I am very happy with the outcome of my digipak I feel that it portrays things similar to what I own from the indie genre which is my favourite. This allowed me to create something that I would see within my own collection.

 

 

My Digipak plan

 

This is my Digipak plan:

 

 

Meet the Band

Meet the band from Owen Lawton

A2 Music Video

This is our completed A2 music Video.

The editing process

In order to edit the footage we have captured we have used Adobe Premiere Pro, which allows us to cut the clips so that they fit well with the music. We also used a black and white filter over all of the clips as that is a usual convention of the Indie genre. The good thing about Premiere Pro is that we could put the music over the top of the video so we could line up the guitars, drums and singing perfectly.

Update on my music video

Our first plan was to tell a love story throughout as that is what the song is about. The original story line was that a girl was going to be sat on her stairs looking through a photo album crying, to show the audience that she is clearly upset. The camera would then show photos of her and her boyfriend during different times in their relationship, the camera would then pan into the photos which would then turn into a video as if she was reminiscing. At the end of the video the boy would show up at the girls house and the would make up creating a happy ending for the video. Below are some photos during the filming of the video:

 



However once we started editing the video the clips didn't seem to fit the music very well and didn't follow the normal conventions of an Indie video. We also figured out that getting photos to turn into videos is very hard to make look professional, which again ruined the fluency of the video and the music. The actors were also too young which made the video seem unrealistic and we were short on places for the couple to go to make it seem romantic.

 

Finally we decided it would be better to completely change our idea and start from scratch. Therefore we went for a different approach and rather than telling a story through the video, we decided to create a home made video of the 'band' playing their instruments in a studio. combined with them on a day out and in the pub. The homemade video idea worked well as Indie bands tend not to have a lot of money and therefore cant afford a big filming crew or special effects. The clips of the band playing along with the music means that it ran fluently throughout the video, it also created a better image and felt more like an Indie genre video.

Subgenres within the Indie genre

The term 'Indie Band' refers to music produced independently from major commercial record labels or their subsidiaries. The Indie genre can be split up into two groups: Indie rock and Indie pop.

Indie pop
is a music subculture and counterpart of indie rock that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and subsequently generated a thriving fanzine, label, and club and gig circuit. The style differs from indie rock to the extent that it is more melodic, less abrasive, and relatively angst-free. In later years, the definition of indie pop has bifurcated to also mean bands from unrelated DIY scenes/movements with pop leanings. Subgenres include chamber pop and twee pop.

Indie rock

 Is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock. As grunge and punk revival bands in the US, and then Britpop bands in the UK, broke into the mainstream in the 1990s, it came to be used to identify those acts that retained an outsider and underground perspective. In the 2000s, as a result of changes in the music industry and the growing importance of the Internet, some indie rock acts began to enjoy commercial success, leading to questions about its meaningfulness as a term.

In the mid-1980s, the term "indie" (or "indie pop") began to be used to describe the music produced on punk and post-punk labels. Some prominent indie rock record labels were founded during the 1980s. During the 1990s, Grunge bands broke into the mainstream, and the term "alternative" lost its original counter-cultural meaning. The term "indie rock" became associated with the bands and genres that remained dedicated to their independent status. By the end of the 1990s indie rock developed subgenres and related styles including lo-fi, noise pop, emo, slowcore, post-rock and math rock. In the 2000s, changes in the music industry and in music technology enabled a new wave of indie rock bands to achieve mainstream success.

In the early 2000s, a new group of bands that played a stripped-down and back-to-basics version of guitar rock emerged into the mainstream. The commercial breakthrough from these scenes was led by four bands: The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives and The Vines. Emo also broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s. By the end of the 2000s the proliferation of indie bands was being referred to as "indie landfill".