Analysis of an Alternative Rock Music Video

The alternative genre allow many artists to experiment and think 'out of the box' in terms of their videos. This is due to the fact that the genre itself is seen as a category in which the artists that struggle to fit in other genres fall into, this makes this area more popular because it is different and unique.

A few of the artists that fall under the umbrella of 'alternative music' are:

Green Day

Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Radiohead

The 1975

Imagine Dragons

Foo FIghters

...and more

I took it upon myself to watch a selection of music videos produced by artists who are part of this genre.

In terms of camera, I found that the use of long shots of the the band were extremely common. This shot allowed me to view each instruments and actually view them as a band. This is conventional for a alternative artist to do as the long shot gives us the opportunity to identity them and the genre they fall under. Not only this but this shot means we can also view the costume, this also allows us to identify the genre due to the out of the norm and casual clothing in which they wear.   

I found that close ups were another common shot within the alternative genre for the reason that it makes it easier to identify the mood and feelings not only surrounding the video but also the music and lyrics too.

In some videos, the ones in which were not completely based upon a narrative, the camera applies focus on the instruments once again establishing the genre and putting focus and attention on the use of different sounds.

Through researching these videos I have realised that in terms of editing, the videos cut between the narrative and a performance from the artist. The narrative shown in each video expresses the meaning of the lyrics, sometimes in a unusual and unexpected way. 

The large amounts of shots within each video conveys the idea of the genre on how it is very different from other genres, showing its distinctive way of pursuing music.

The setting used in each video of the same genre is hard to create similarities, however, other areas of the mise-en-scene show a vast amount of resemblances such as lighting. Despite the setting being different, which is expected through different music videos especially within the alternative/alternative rock genre, the lighting shows a positive relationship between these videos as the majority of them feature extremely low key lighting.   

Colour is an interesting aspect of the music videos with this genre, it seems the artists themselves play around with different colours shown. For example, 'The Stone Roses' video shown above in which shows a continuous colour of pink/pink. Another artist who plays around with colour, going against the typical conventions, is 'Coldplay' where they display a great deal of colour. 

I felt it was vital to look into the genre music videos since as an individual and a group we are creating our own in order to fulfil the brief. This will allow us to establish what the target audience of Alternative Rock expect to see within an Alternative Rock music video. By doing this, we will learn the conventions of this genre of music and can therefore decide, when making our music video, whether we want our music video to conform to the typical conventions of this genre or whether we will challenge these conventions.