Music Video Codes and Conventions

PREP MUSIC VIDEO CODES AND CONVENTIONS 
To prepare for the exam, we look at the media language of music videos, such as their codes and conventions below. For prep, copy the points in colour then add your own points in black. 

1. Performance - the singer / band are seen to be singing and playing (including lip synching), to provide authenticity, so that followers believe in the talent and can see their star. Record labels sign stars and promote them  to ensure sales.
2. Star - use of close-ups, sometimes direct eye contact with audience, to build relationship with audience.
3. The visuals (what the star and other characters are seen doing) illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics (the 'story in the words'). Illustration = the visuals play out the story more or less literally; amplify = the words in the lyrics are only the starting point and the story develops in other directions; contradiction / disjuncture = the visuals do not interpret the words of the lyrics and may even show something contradictory.
4. The narrative usually features the performer in 'real life' situations but often with experimental types of film making such as hand-held, dramatic camera angles, symbolic codes and lighting 
5. The visuals are usually cut to the beat of the music; the editing is often fast-paced; there is often use of montage, ellipsis and intercutting, stylish effects.
6. Refrain - repeated chorus, sometimes with variations

1. Avril Lavigne sings throughout the video using a mike and draws a huge crowd of fans around her when she jumps onto a car roof in the street. She sings with great passion, energy and conviction, holding the mike close to her mouth. Close-ups show her every word (lip synching is a feature of music videos.) She performs for her fans and for her 'boyfriend' the sk8er boi who features in the narrative. Screens often feature in music video and the sk8er boi is videoing Avril Lavigne as he gazes adoringly up at her. She returns his gaze as she sings about 'we rock each other's world'. The performance element creates authenticity (fans have proof of her talent) because we see her sing.

2. Avril is presented to the audience with a lot of attitude which shows during aspects like the close ups of her. She is shown as cocky, brash and self-confident. She is telling a story and her actions and contact with the camera hint at us that really she is right and the one with power. She invites us into her life and makes us believe the story she is telling and makes us believe that it is happening to her and presents it in the way that she is the hero and we should have no sympathy for the other women, which you believe because she is creating a one on one connection with the audience.

3. One narrative thread that dominates the entire video is the star symbol which marks their gangs territory. Essentially it is representing Avril, it is everywhere usually in the background giving the implication that she is everywhere or her presence is. This is all about her life and the way she does things and how she is a perfect match for the 'Sk8er Boi' and the other girl is the complete opposite and didn't understand him so clearly she doesn't deserve him. You see her boasting that she is the one with all the independance with a gang that follows her around everywhere and adores her while the other is sitting at home alone with a baby. 

4. There a lot of hand held camera shots in this for example when they are all in a car and it is being filmed the camera shakes a lot like the person carrying it is running. There also close ups of both of the lovers, Avril and the Sk8er Boi, gazing into each others eyes, they are in love and wrote this song together proving that they were meant to be together, complimented with the lyrics of the video.

5. The opening montages and are very fast setting the editing pace at that very fast pace, it is cut to the beat of the percussion, while Avril's gang mark their territory. The cutting shots and the actions on screen are fast paced because the music is like when Avril punches at the camera in time with the music and adds to the frantics in the scenes shown.

6. During the refrain the pace and visuals increase as you see her and her gang setting up the concert in rapid montage and also as the crowd start to pour in filling everywhere up as the chaos starts. This refrain is a repeated chorus but is more dramatic than the first as it builds up to a final conclusion before the police arrive.