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Codes and conventions of indie/folk

Every music video has some links to codes and conventions that relate back to that genre of music. For example, for a

rock genre the ideology that you would expect to see would be, perhaps, a performance video of the band filmed at a gig.

When creating my Music video I had to two main genres to look upon. One was the indie genre of music and the other is

folk. From the music it is clear that the sound is much more based towards the folk genre. Although I still included

aspects of indie conventions such as the use of an acoustic guitar that feature in my music video, digipak and magazinecover. Whilst looking at the folk aspects there were many conventions in which I could relate to. Here I have found key

aspects from other artists that I have chosen to look upon and use within my music video.

This is a list of my personal favourite folk artists:

Mumford and sons

Show of hands

These screen shots were taken from the music

video 'Country life. The key convention that is

portrayed throughout this video is the aspect of a

black and white filter. This would be done to help

portray the emotion of the characters and reflect

their feelings, but at the same time it helps to

connote ideology of depression and portrays a

bleak setting. They constantly show shots of theband for advertisement and promotion purposes.

This will allow the band to use it in their auxiliary

texts. This is one key feature that is used with

many bans. By allowing a passive audience to

spectate the band, visualising them, the

audience can then make the link through the

digipaks and magazine covers in relation towards

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Seth Lakeman

Looking at these three videos I have managed to find genre conventions that are shared and used by each one

band/artist.

These screen shots were taken from the

music video Lady of the Sea. During this

performance you look upon the convention

of isolation. This is portrayed in the video

with the singer Seth in an abandoned

warehouse. Having an isolated area keeps

the focus upon the character but also

connotes ideology of depression. Seth

Lakemans video emphasises the fact that

folk has its own genre codes and

conventions that are specific and unique to

this genre.

Dark shadows

Heaving lighting

Exaggerated shadows

Exaggerated music playing

Close up shots of the artists

Close up shots on Instruments Black and white

Small areas

Camera titling

Variation of angles

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From looking at these videos I was able to get a range of different conventions that look upon both

the indie genre but also the folk. By allowing myself to look into these videos I can now take these

conventions and include some of these into my own music video. That way it would ensure that I

have thought about the conventions and passive audiences are able to notice the similarities to other

folk/indie music videos but at the same time using inventive and creative ideas to portray on screen

only using these conventions as a bases.