By using a combination of performance and narrative shots our promotional package is conventionally Indie as many Indie bands use this technique. For example, Franz Ferdinand has done this with many of their music videos including 'The Dark of the Matinee', 'Michael' and 'Walk Away.' Even The Pigeon Detectives have used this technique in their music video for 'I'm Not Sorry.' However, these artists have used group performances as well as individual ones. We have challenged this convention as our performance shots are of individual musicians instead of the band as a whole. This worked in other media texts such as the music video for ‘Meanwhile’ by Mystery Jets so we thought it would be suitable for our music video too. These shots are synced with the music and are relevant to the specific bits of the song. For example, when rhythm guitar is most prominent in the song a rhythm guitar is shown. This is used in some Indie music videos but not many. Franz Ferdinand use this quite a lot, especially in the music video for 'Micheal' and The Futureheads used these kinds of shots in their video for 'Meantime' too. It is conventional to use a mixture of performance and narrative shots in digi-packs too. As a result we have used two performance and two narrative screenshots as images for our digi-pack. This convention is common for Indie music videos with a narrative as it gives the music a face and branding through featuring the band. This is because the audience would recognise the band members when they see the music video which would make the music video appeal to its audience which would also be attractive to institutions too. Institutions like to make money and in order for this to happen the audience must like a media text and recognise the music and band.
Indie promotional packs are very experimental in style, especially music videos and so is ours. The long shot of the protagonist walking sped up in the corridor may seem a little random. This is deliberate as we have used the experimental convention of Indie in order to make our promotional package appeal to its audience. Sped up shots are common in the Indie genre. We have also used this convention when creating the split screens. Split screens are often used in Indie music videos as proved by Mystery Jets and the video for their song 'Meanwhile.' Our four split screen shot was inspired by the past A2 music video for The Vixens song ‘Voodoo Child’ especially when the protagonist looks towards the space where the next shot appears. However, we have developed this technique by using many types of split screens. These include vertical splits and diagonal squares. We have even challenged a convention here as in individual shots in split screens are usually pure narrative or performance, as proved by Mystery Jets. On the other hand, ours combined narrative and performance shots which were then linked by the protagonist’s glances [when he looked in a direction shots appeared.] This is rarely used in Indie. We continued this with our ancillary tasks when the split screens were used as images for our Digi-packs. Other music videos that are experimental are 'Show Me the Light' by Mystery Jets and 'Micheal' by Franz Ferdinand. However, these music videos use ghostly effects rather than split screens.
Our promotional package both used and developed the form and convention of lipsyching. Indie music videos [and most music videos for that matter] are lipsynched to make it look like the mimer is singing be he/she an actor or a band member or both. To make our music video look professional and appeal to its audience and institution we did the same thing. We have challenged the Indie convention of including the lead singer in our performance shots as the protagonist is singing instead. This is very atypical for an Indie media text. We have also challenged this convention as the protagonist is also singing as well as playing the guitar. This is unconventional for an Indie music video as it combines narrative and performance shots in an exciting way thus making the song represent the character more. This means there is two people playing the same guitar tabs. This is uncommon in Indie media texts yet worked well with ours when linking the protagonist to the song through sound as well as mise-en-scene. We also challenged the conventions of Indie through combining narrative and performance shots through layering. This created an almost ghostly effect similar to that in the Franz Ferdinand video for 'Micheal.' This effect was also used in the music video for Disturbed's song 'Voices.' However, this convention is more common in the Heavy Metal genre. Examples of this can be found in most of the music videos I researched such as 'Show Me The Light' by Mystery Jets. This was very effective and worked well with the video whilst appealing to the audience as Indie fans like their music [and music videos] meaningful but experimental. This in unconventional for an Indie music video but works be because of the experimental style of editing in which those shots are used. This is conventional of the Indie genre so would be recognised by Pistola Kick's audience including those who made the music video for 'A Button Like No Other.'
By making our narrative and performance shots black and white we have used an Indie convention. Many Indie media texts are in black and white, this includes ‘I’m Not Sorry’ by The Pigeon Detectives and ‘Dark of the Matinee’ by Franz Ferdinand. However, just as many are in colour too such as ‘Meanwhile’ by Mystery Jets. We have also used the convention of making our performance shots black and white too as it suited the narrative best just like the Pigeon Detectives music video. The slow motion effects help here too when creating a lack of satisfaction vibe. These camera shots with slow motion editing are realistic; this gives our promotional package a sense of realism. This is because these feelings can be felt and people do drink beer slowly sitting in front of the television. However, we have developed the conventions of a narrative based promotional pack as a few shots are set in an office. This is very realistic and a non-conventional place to locate a music video. This type of setting is used more often in other genres such as Heavy Metal as proved by the music video for Disturbed’s song ‘Voices.’ Despite this, some Indie promotional packs can be depressing depending on the song. A perfect example of this is the music video for ‘I’m Not Sorry.’
We have also used the convention of linking all three parts of the promotional package: the music video, digi-pack and magazine advert. These are usually linked through theme. We have done this by making the background to the magazine advert the frontpage of the digi-pack which was a still from the music video. This is conventional of the Indie genre as the magazine adverts I found had the album cover as the background image. This was the case with The Pidgeon Detectives, Kings of Leon and Artic Monkeys. However, I cannot say whether this is the case with singles as I could not find any such magazine adverts. But we looked at single digi-pack covers and the My Chemical Romance single digi-pack cover for 'I Don't Love You.' The cover is a screenshot from the music video. This suggests that it could be same for Indie single digi-packs and henceforth magazine adverts too.
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