When we first watched the existing video for ‘Don’t look back into the sun’, we liked the shaky, handheld quality of the camerawork. However, when we were planning our video we decided not to do this as it meant we had more opportunity to experiment with camera movement and angles. This did not stray completely from existing Libertines videos as ‘What became of the likely lads’ is filmed on a high quality camera.

To keep some similarities to the original video, we used the male actor as the Pete Doherty character and featured him on the digi-pack and advert. This means that the audience can immediately identify him and are more likely to be interested in a narrative that the lead singer is involved in. Although this is not consistent in all Libertines videos, Pete Doherty does feature in quite a lot of them, especially the earlier works.

We stuck to the conventional structure of an indie music video and Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory incorporating a narrative and having that as the main focus of the video. We wanted to incorporate a story between a couple, as this is a common narrative used, however we did not want to push the stereotype of relationships or romance cheesy or too romantic as that would not effectively represent the band and its ideologies. Instead, we wanted to focus on a couple having fun and messing around, as typical young people do. This gives the video a more light-hearted, laid back feel and is something that a lot of young people (our target audience being aged 16-19) whether it be with a friend or a partner.

In terms of actors, we decided to use a male and female in order to appeal to our almost balanced male and female audience. This also links to Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male and female gaze and the idea of voyeurism as the actors may appeal to either sex. However, staying to the conventions of indie music videos, we decided to not place a large focus on this and focused more on the narrative and what the actors are doing. Our initial research found that most independent indie videos may use some elements that relates to the male or female gaze however it is more usually videos from genres such as pop or hip-hop that use the actors more primarily to appeal in a voyeuristic way to the audience.

One way in which we followed convention of Libertine’s videos was through the locations. Council estates are locations found in multiple Libertines videos. (Don’t look back into the sun, What became of the likely lads) we decided to emulate this in our video in order to reflect the ideologies of the band. The use of the council estates could be to represent that The Libertines feel that they are speaking for the masses. It is also easy to determine that the locations used are British estates, alluding to the band’s British roots. They often feature establishing shots of locations with band members in it so we decided to follow this and use it in our video.

Another convention of indie videos that we followed was the use of city locations. These can be found in many indie videos, especially The Libertines (Gunga Din, You’re my waterloo, Don’t look back into the sun, Time for heroes to name a few). As well as The Libertines, we also took inspiration for our locations from other bands within the Indie genre such as the Artic Monkeys.

One way in which we developed the locations used in the original music video was by using more unusual locations such as the pool table, the beach and the pool. However, these were not chosen completely at random as we had taken inspiration from locations used in our initial music video research. We thought the use of the pool in the ‘Snap out of it’ video was effective and liked the brief use of a pool table and pub in the ‘Why’d you only call me when you’re high?’ music video. This is not dissimilar to The Libertines as their ‘Heart of the matter video’ takes place in a torture chamber, which is also quite unusual.

In terms of Andrew Goodwin’s theories on music videos, we followed some of his conventions in order to make our music video more authentic. We shot various close ups of the male actor as he was essentially the lead singer and front man of the band. If we follow Goodwin’s theory, this satisfies the needs of the record label (in this case Rough Trade) and markets the band through the music video.

We decided to not include any live footage of the band, despite the main focus of the original video being live footage because the vast majority of our audience that were surveyed said they preferred a narrative structure. We did include however, lots of camera movement, particularly tracking as the original video featured many shots of walking, this is something we re-created in our video. We also used a panning shot with the actors in it as a way to establish the location.

We followed the convention of editing to the rhythm and prominent beats or sections in the song in order to make the music video more visually appealing. We made sure that when we changed locations in particular, it was on the beat or a change from either the verse to the chorus. We also used specific lines in the lyrics and edit transitions to them . For example, we transitioned from the beginning sequence to the next sequence on the loud ‘YEEEEEAH’. We used a go pro to film a fast spinning shot that moved towards towards a bright light. At the end of the song, we cut extremely fast between still shots of the pool to fit in with the final strums of the guitar before the last note.

The cutting rate and speed was varied throughout, to match the tone of the music. We had a fast cutting rate between the shots in the club section in order to build the video to a climax before Doherty shouts ‘Let me go!’ The cutting rate is slower in the verses as the tempo of the music is more relaxed.

We recreated the dark lighting and the interior house location in the first shot of the original video but adhered more to Goodwin’s theory on narrative structures by using a shot of them getting back into bed at the end of the video so the piece has a cyclical structure.

We also used the lighting to mirror the live footage used in the original video in the club sequence. We recorded the flashing lights of white, red and blue seen in the concert footage. Going to concerts and clubbing also fit in with the interest of our target audience of 16-19 year olds.

We both followed and developed conventions of indie music videos through the use of mise en scene. One thing that is common throughout indie videos is that the clothing the actors wear immediately relates to the genre of the music. However, the clothes that the actors wear in our video is rather plain and non-descript, mostly dark. Although, it does lean more towards the indie genre. This is done however by other indie artists like the Artic Monkeys in their video ‘When the sun goes down, where the outfits worn are similar to those worn by our actors. For example, outdoor clothing and the grey coat worn by our male actor.This is similar to the clothes worn by The Libertines apart from the red jackets. Because the clothing doesn’t stand out as being only applicable to one genre, it means that the music video can be accessed by a wider audience, especially as the song is quite upbeat and not too rocky. This linked to our target audience who had a variety of favourite genres.

In the night time shots, the female actor wears a red dress, this is to replicate the significance of the red jackets often worn by The Libertines. There is also the use red lipstick which is shown and emphasised with an extreme close up. This subtly shows the significance of the red and may also link to the idea of patriotism as many Libertine’s videos feature British flags. The red meant that we could continue this message without being too explicit.

We decided not to use the posters in order to convey the subliminal messaging that often seen in Libertine’s videos. This is because when we filmed the shots that we had planned, we felt that the posters and looked too artificial and obvious and the shots didn’t fit with what the laid back feel of the video. We thought thought that this wasn’t too much of a problem as it is not a convention of indie videos in general and is not in all Libertine’s videos.