RADIOHEAD//JUST
Radiohead are a British indie rock band form Oxfordshire, they released their debut single Creep in 1991 and achieved fame in the UK with the release of their first album Pablo Honey. The music video for Just from their second studio album The Bends is a narrative performance video, which is less common for an indie rock video as from my research it is clearly more common for indie artists to do conceptual performance videos.
The use of the mid-shot showing the view of the business man's back is unsettling as it is voyeuristic in nature and makes the viewer feel like they should not be watching it. also, the colours in this video are extremely washed out and desaturated witch adds to the sombre nature of the narrative and lyrical content - this adheres to another convention of indie that has become apparent during my research. Indie videos seem to either have washed out and muted colours or vivid over saturated colours depending on the tone of the song.
There are a lot of closeups on the band members performing and even more of Thom Yorke which is extremely conventional as it presents the band as organic and authentic, which is an important part of indie music but was even more important during the 90's when this song was released. It makes the idea of musicality seem accessible but just out of reach which is an important part of Dyer's star theory which states that artists should be both present and distant and accessible but inaccessible at the same time.
Subtitles are used to drive the narrative, the font is a white typewriter font which has associations with vintage and outdated clothes/objects which are very fashionable in indie culture. Also, it allows for the narrative to be concrete which is especially unusual in indie videos as there is usually more of an element of inference to be made as it is more common to have a conceptual element to the aesthetic of the video.
The use of a blurred vignette draws the focus to the centre of the screen and therefore particular characters or settings. This is particularly effective during the performance and narrative scenes when closeups are used. furthermore, it also gives the video a dreamlike quality which arguably gives the video a more conceptual/narrative feel to it rather than merely performance/narrative.
During the performance scenes time manipulation is used to slow down the shots of the band playing their instruments, this separates them from the narrative and also adds to the dreamlike element. The idea of making a video seem like a dream fits into the aspect of escapism but here it is used more to make the viewer contemplate their own life and how the cryptic message in the narrative would apply to their own life and how it is relatable to them.
The way the narrative is left open ended due to the answers not being subtitled adds a sense of mystery and allows an elect of inference for the audience. The notion of leaving lessons, messages or something that could cause discussion is an important part of indie music videos from what I'm seeing in my research. The use of less saturated colours is similar to what I have seen in Teen Suicide's music video as well as Elvis Depressedly. However, I think that instead of using this kind of colour palette and going for a more somber tone we want to go along the conventions of more recent indie videos and use bright colours and lighting.
In conclusion, this video is extremely conventional of the indie rock genre, however, the conventions shown in this video are not ones we would be likely to use in our own product as we want to achieve a more upbeat and exciting video that can adhere to the social relationships element of uses and gratification.