MUSIC VIDEO CODES AND COVENTIONS

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. 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. Star - use of close-ups, sometimes direct eye contact with audience, to build relationship with audience. The star is shown with immense attitude with the use of close-ups which show her to be rash and confident with hints of aggression. She gets backed with the audience with her intense eye-contact, suggesting that she was right all along and is telling us the story. The direct eye-contact make the whole video more personal and give the watcher an insight to what she is like, creating a relationship with the singer and the audience. Avril is also shown snarling and scowling at the camera, she uses forceful actions to match the power of the audio. An impactful ending is paired with the closeup of Avril looking defiantly into the camera into the audiences to show, she has succeeded, she's won her man and also put on and completed the illegal concert.
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. The repetitive use of the star symbol representing her location and her gang's symbol familiarize the audience with the sign but slyly, as it is embedded to all of the actions, for example, doing day to day things, getting a coffee like the boy is shown to do; or more extreme like what the squad were doing to promote her concert- throwing the leaflets in the air. The visuals are also all focused on Avril and the wild life she and her friends live. When she announces that 'Five years from now, she sits at home, feeding the baby she's all alone'. She implys that this is a boring lifestyle and nothing compared to the wild life she lives. She thrusts a five at the camera, again being aggressive towards the girl that missed out on her sk8er boi.
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. The hand held camera angles also personalize the song to the audience giving a taster to the life they would live if they were the girls and boys in the video. The narrative is stepped into massively after the 2nd chorus as she gloats about herself and her boyfriend. The joy they have together, she and her boyfriend are shown looking lovingly into each others eyes as he gazes into the camera then back into her eyes, matched with the lyrics of her love story.
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 The opening is cut precisely to the beat of the of the fast tempo music. As Levigne's 'gang' marks the name of the location of their impromptu concert around the city, a montage is inserted showing the characters - Avril and the 'Sk8er Boi', and how they went to school like usual, and what their life is like as their invented persona of a typical 'Sk8er Boi' . Avril punches the air towards the camera in time to the beat after the 2nd chorus and this adds again to the frantic scenes shown.
6. Refrain - repeated chorus, sometimes with variations. The visuals used, intensify the pace and add to the zealous atmosphere of the whole situation. All the chorus' have the gang and Avril together showing and gloating of the fun they have and life they live.