Conventions

Overall our group has decided that we must focus our song and music style on rock music or at least some form of rock music, so far we have focused primarily on the indie rock genre and alternative as well as some grunge. Most of these sub genres have similar conventions since they all belong to the same primary genre of rock music. After researching through several music videos it has become apparent that the live performance (or at least a vocalisation of the lyrics) is very important, in a vast variety of examples the band (as is most often the case with rock music) can be seen performing the song. The narration of the video is often some sort of visualisation of the message of the song, due to the very fast tempo of the music the editing is often very quick and coincides with the music, rarely will a single shot last over 5-10 seconds unless the shot is focused on the lead singer singing the lyrics. Common shot features include close ups, in Sum 41’s “In Too Deep” multiple close ups of instruments and singers can be seen throughout the video. The areas seen in the videos are often associated as being very urban, in many videos such as “In Too Deep” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit” a large crowd can be seen dancing and jumping to the music, this is typical iconography of the genre, this often helps express a more of a ‘party’ atmosphere, again another typical feature of the genre. In terms of the live performance in which the band plays the music other areas often shown include streets, rooftops, abandon buildings or factories or actual live performances from an arena, occasionally other areas are utilized such as a sound studio. During the narrative it is more difficult to conjure up an image of typical areas since they’re associated with the message of the song and therefore will be vastly different, however common messages of rock music include rebellion, exploitation of partying or typical teenage antics such as drinking alcohol, having sex and taking drugs. Rock music bands are very notable for having a target audience of teenagers, bands such as Sum 41, All American Rejects and Blessthefall often feature very young teenagers to link with the target demographic. In terms of clothing and style of the videos, most videos are very distinctive as many rock bands are often linked towards their own style, along with different variations of rock music there comes different styles and fashion trends associated such as heavy hardcore rock music having links towards goth culture with the clothing colour black and dark imagery whilst alternative, indie rock having more of a laid back approach with simple jeans and a t-shirt. There are no specific shots which are necessary for a rock music video; however there are still common shots used in rock music videos such as a dolly shot, pan, zoom, extreme close ups and regular close ups all of which are typically edited very fast to emphasize a very fast, quick atmosphere interlinking with the ‘party’ and fast tempo characteristics of the song. Recently in rock music it has become popular to effectively produce a short film, Blessthefall’s “Hey Baby Here’s That Song You Wanted” and 30 Seconds To Mars’s song “Hurricane” are both short films lasting just under 10 minutes, whilst the songs which they’re made for only last around 3-4mins plus they have both been made within the past 2 years, in these types of videos the scale of the video appears upgraded, the video for “Hurricane” for example features many special effects and editing techniques such as slow motion and a very large cast, however this is only some of the artists and does not reflect the whole culture of rock music videos.