Music video narrative analysis

Music video narrative analysisBrief I selected ‘When you’re gone’ by Avril Lavingne to analysis. This music video was made up with 3 similar stories and presented in video alternately. I choose one of them to analysis cause they are similar.

Start

Piano plays the prelude ,at the same time, an established shot of a big house and a couple standing outside the door is presented. The color of the frame was dark and grey, it hinted that is a sad story.

When the song was started, a medium shot of the couple who were featured showed they were clasping their hands and looking at each other without saying anything.(lyric: And the days feel like years when I'm alone). As we can see, the man wore army uniform and the woman wore a white dress. The low angle serves as a foil to the love between the couple is strong and close.

The lyric said: When you walk away I count the steps that you take, Do you see how much I need you right now? At this moment, An established shot presented the man wearing new army uniform and walking away the house .His wife just still stood there and looked at his back .This shot was presented in the same frame as the first shot.

Lyrics say:When you walk away I count the steps that you takeDo you see how much I need you right now?

There is a tilt following the woman’s eyes and focusing on her belly. This shot suggests the woman has a baby ,she needs her husband but he has to leave home to protect more people .It is quite consistent to the lyrics.

lyrics: When you're gone The pieces of my heart are missing you When you're gone The face I came to know is missing too

The frame showed the wife was watching television, the TV programme were releasing the news about the war. The lady was holding her necklace tightly which showed she was nervous and worried. And her sad face suggested she extremely missed her husband .

A point of view of her phone showed there was no message from anyone , she did not get any message from her husband. She even had no idea whether her husband still survived or not. It made her worried and made her sad.

The last part of this story was illustrated that his wife went to army commendation meeting as other women. This is a point of view of her mobile-phone , the words in colour black showed: I am okay, I miss U. The screen of mobile phone is very clear so that audiences can see it quickly at the first sight. Moreover, the sentence ‘I miss U’ is the same as the lyrics, it reinforced the theme of the song is people missing someone they loved but left.

This is the last shot of this story in music video. A close up at the side of his wife showed she was smiling happily , she was at ease when she saw the message. The message seemed to give her lots of courage to get stronger in her life and let her have confidence to take care of their baby on her own.

Artwork of ‘when you’re gone’

Avril Lavigne has said the song "is about being with someone you love, and you have to say goodbye, and all the little things you miss about them". As we can see from this album artwork, the colour of it is dark but mix with dark red. In my opinion, red means love, but dark color hints sad and leave. And the artist Avril is sitting in the middle of the picture and looks at viewers, it looks like that she is waiting for someone ,may be waiting someone she loves or loved. The picture is concise and really simple.