I've chosen to analyse the music video by Avril Lavigne- 'Here's to never growing up' which is directed by Robert Hales- This song falls into the genre of pop and characteristics of her video that show this include:
- Catchy soundtrack that draws the audience in
- Uptempo with a defined beat that stands out and familiarises the viewers with the song
- Appeals to a younger audience usually and they could easily dance to the song
- Regular structure with chorus' and verses which are repeated throughout
- Appeals to an audience in general not specifically- someone could be a fan of another genre but still like pop because of its catchy element
Singing Radiohead at the top of our lungs
With the boom box blaring as we're falling in love
I got a bottle of whatever, but it's getting us drunk
Singing here's to never growing up
Call up all our friends, go hard this weekend
We don't ever stop, and we're never gonna change
We can stay forever young
Oh whoa, oh whoa, here's to never growing up
We live like rock stars, dance on every bar
This is who we are, I don't think we'll ever change (hell no!)
They say just grow up, but they don't know us
We don't give a f***, and we're never gonna change
These lyrics above are just some examples of how the action fits with the lyrics. For example, the first part of the song in red "I got a bottle of whatever, but it's getting us drunk" shows that they are young and they like to party and have fun with their friends. "We're never gonna change, we can stay young forever" demonstrates that they don't want to grow up and are happy living their lives as young people and having fun. You can relate this to the music video because they are dancing and singing and drinking which is all very typical of teenagers and young adults so the audience can relate to this! "We don't give a f***" shows that they don't have a care in the world, they have nothing to worry about with their life, it's all about getting drunk and by swearing this is typical language of teenagers who like to have fun and be rude! This can all be shown in the video through the location of the video in a club with them dancing, partying to music. Young teenagers will find this easy to relate to because they will have been in these types of situations and it's one of those songs that doesn't get boring because of the content and the music- it's catchy.
When the artist is playing her guitar at the beginning with other guitarists accompanying her, there are close ups on the instruments to show the detail on them and they are quite funky looking guitars with glitter on etc so it makes the audience interested and to know that they are creating the music themselves which makes them unique. The video doesn't tend to change pace with the music much- the video seems to be quite fast paced, especially at the beginning because this is when there is most going on but when there's focus just on the artist herself it slows down slightly because she is the main bit of attention that people want to watch the video for. However, when there are crowds of people singing it's slightly faster to show the busy atmosphere but it's still easy to follow and you get to see different elements of the video, but mainly the artist. For example when there's a party going on in the hallway, the artist is just sat down on the floor and there's specific focus on her because we know to pay attention to her and you become more familiar with her as an artist and the video as well. About 43 seconds into the video, there is specific focus on the artist and the video slows down significantly- before hand it's quite quick in pace because it's showing pictures of people at parties and people having fun but then it holds back a bit so that people can get a feel for the artist early in the video.
The image that is being offered by the aritst is that they are current- they are singing very modern music with very modern costumes and design sets, for example they are in hallways and clubs and places partying and dancing around which all young people do these days so it creates a sense of familarity because they can relate to this as they will do it as well as an audience. The artist is also shown to be very fun and it's a catchy song so it will draw people in and more people will want watch the video and buy the artist's albums. Compared to Avril Lavigne's previous songs and music videos, this video is fairly different, however there are a few of her songs that have similar music videos to this one, but she is a changed person- she used to be quite gothic and emo like which meant her songs were quite often sad, depressing and quite dark in general, but now she's more fun and happy in her videos. One video that is quite similar to this one is "girlfriend" but this is one of the only ones that shares similarities. "Girlfriend" has more elements of rock in it than now which is more pop based and she wears a lot darker clothes, e.g. black in older videos but this new video is showing a different side to her. In her video "wish you were here" which was released late last year, it began to show a new image to her, with blonde hair and less dark videos, however this video was quite a sad song of hers, so even then she did a different style of video, but in this one "here's to never growing up" there's a much more lively vibe being created a new image to this artist which I think will increase her popularity.
Not at any point during the video is the artist on sexual display or any other people in the video- it's more about young people having fun and partying and getting drunk but not being represented as sexual objects. I think if the artist or the crowd in the video were shown to be sexualised it would create a negative impact because although people often quite like to see sexual videos, for teenagers it would possess them to want to be more sexual and might lead to them doing bad things if they see it in videos. No camerawork, costume, dance or anything else implies a sexaulised display at all during the video, they are just having fun, drinking and dancing but not taking it too far- this will hopefully put a positive image in the viewers head, in the fact that they can have fun but not take things too far. Throughout the video there is no reference to sexual things, but in terms of shots and camera work there is a lot of close ups on the artist herself so that people that may not have seen the video or artist before get an idea of who the main star is. There are a lot of establishing shots used, particularly in the beginning to set the scence and by doing this it creates a sense of familiarity for the audience as to where the videos set etc.
This video of "here's to never growing up" is mainly performance based- Avril Lavigne because she is performing live throughout the music video. There is a use of close up shots on the artist and lots of intimate camerwork and focus on her so that she can connect with her audience better. The video sort of tells a story through the lyrics because it's all about young people not wanting to grow up but they just want to live their life partying, drinking, dancing and socialising however there's more emphasis on the performance side of it.
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