Codes and conventions of indie pop genre music videos: Cinematography, Editing & Sound

In the indie genre it is very common for artists to use live performance videos as their music videos. This focuses the whole video on them and the music itself other than focusing on a narrative playing out. There are also two different types of performance video. The first being the artist playing live to an audience at a festival or show. The second is them performing on their own for the music video. Examples of these videos are:

This music video is 'I Will Wait' by Mumford and Sons. The video is them doing a live performance of the song to an audience. In this video a live version of the song has been recorded to go with the video to give a live performance feel to the video. The editing pace of this video changes along with the pace of the song. During the chorus the video the edits are a lot quicker. The editing that has been used are straight cuts. This again conforms to the conventions of music videos.
A cinematography techniques that is conventional in music videos are close-ups of the artist/performer. This performance video also conforms to this. Close-ups put emphasis onto the artist.

They also use long-shots and extreme long shots that show the whole band performing on the stage. This is another convention of this type of performance video. In the long-shots you can see them with their instruments and also the outfits/costumes that they are wearing. 

The last image is a example of a extreme-long shot from behind the audience. This show how small the band are when compared with where they are and the amount of fans that they have. The image before is similar but from behind the band. In these shots you can see the setting of the performance. The stage seems to be surrounded by rock and trees. The majority of the lighting comes from the lighting on stage while the audience are in the darkness. I am not sure if this is a convention of this type of performance video.

Cinematography camera movement conventions that are used in this video are pan shots and tilts as well as zooms. 

This is a example of the other type of performance video from the same artist. This song is 'Little lion man' also by Mumford and Sons. This performance video has been staged and is not a live performance as in the last video. The editing in this video also uses straight cuts as it is the convention. Montage editing is again used in this style of video as it is the convention for the form. The pace of the editing is again matched to the pace of the song and changes throughout the video.
In this video the majority of the shots are close-ups and extreme close-ups. Close ups are conventional and were also used in the last style of video.

These two images are also good examples of how the lighting in this video is different when compared with the live one. This video has studio lighting giving it the more dramatic look from the use of things such as shadows.
During the first chorus a slow zoom in is used from a long shot. This part of the video emphasizes the band and chorus of the song. A slow zoom has been used because the pace of the song is quite slow here. In this long shot you can see their costumes. These costumes are conventional of the indie/folk genre that the band is in.

Another common type of Indie music videos are ones with more of a narrative.

This example of a music video with a narrative does not have any performance from the artist, therefor this video has a few different conventions. As in the last couple of videos Close ups and extreme close ups are used quite often, however the difference in this video is that they are of the actor instead of the artist. 

A few examples: 

The close up shots emphasis the actor and their expression. From the first image you can see that the character looks sad, this matches with the mood of the song at this time.

The shots in this video last for about 5 seconds or more. This is a lot longer than the last couple of examples. 

Sound: 

Sound is important throughout each music video. The main soundtrack is from the song that is being promoted through the video. Other sounds are also sometimes kept so that the video has a more realistic feel to it. The lyrics of the song (usually the chorus) is what decides the narrative of the video unless the video is abstract. Abstract music videos do not really give a meaning or story for the song. This video is sort of abstract however it does sort of tell the audience the story of the person/actor. The song also decided the pace and style of editing. 

In this video the music is slow to begin with, this is then represented in the editing through slower paced editing giving longer varying longer shots of 5 seconds or more. As the pace of the song increases so does the editing pace giving the video a quicker look. These parts of video only last between 1 and 3 seconds.