Analysis of ‘If So’ by Atlas Genius

Genre elements ConventionsCharacters – representations, stereotypes, behaviour, body language, specific actors/stars

There are 4 main characters in this video, three of them being the members of the band and the last one being a female that stars in the video. The characters are all represented as being quite happy and fun loving because in many shots they will be seen smiling or laughing. All characters are wearing very modern, contemporary clothing showing that they all are very in touch with their fashion which is very stereotypical for an indie band.

Narrative events –how is the narrative ordered and structured? Can character types or other narrative elements such as opposites/ stages of equilibrium/disequilibrium be applied to photos/video?

This particular music video is conceptual the screen is split straight down the middle is almost every shot and both sides will be a shot from a different location at a different time even though they filmed and edit the music video in a way that makes it appear like the characters or objects in each shot are interacting with one another. This technique is very effective in engaging with the audience because it is a hard concept to grasp and believe in because the audience will know it cannot be real, although the video makes it appear as though it is.

There is no real order to the shots because they are all so random it can go from a shot taken at night to another shot taken in the middle of the day at any point in the video. There is also no set style to all the shots, for instance at one point in the video there may be two shots, one with a character in each and then two shots one with a landscape in each.

This particular music video is quite original which also helps engage the audience, although on a whole the conceptual style of video can be seen in many different music videos within the indie genre because it is like an art form and many of the bands and artists involved within this genre all see themselves as having created pieces of art when they make a music video.

Iconography – props, symbolic codes/fonts/colour schemes

Some of the iconography includes the very contemporary clothing that we see all the main characters wearing because from the clothing alone you could recognise what genre of music this video fits into.

There are also many brightly coloured backgrounds to the shots in the video which is conventional to conceptual indie music videos. All of the locations are in very interesting places and there is never a dull shot making for a very bright colour scheme which is again very stereotypical for the indie genre of music.

Setting- mise en scene in moving image/photos

The setting for this video takes place all around the world although the various shots are taken from a magnitude of different locations and it would be hard to put just one label on the ‘setting’ for the video. What can be said about the setting is that many of the shots are taken in places that appear very sunny which brightens the mood of the video and this uplifting mood is conventional for indie music videos.

Technical and audio codes – camera use, editing, lighting, diegetic/non diegetic sound, sfx/page layout: the Guttenberg principle/rule of thirds

The editing used constantly splits the screen vertically so that two shots are displayed and they are edited in a way which makes the characters/objects in each shot appear to be interacting with each other. This layout of two screens at once makes the video very interesting for the audience to watch.

All of the sound for the video is non-diegetic because it comes from the music track and the video is not a performance style video.