Analysis of ‘Avril Lavigne – What the hell’ music video
The music video I am going to analyse next is ‘what the hell’ by ‘Avril Lavigne’. The song was released on the 10th of January 2011 off of the album ‘Goodbye Lullaby’. The song itself is 3:39 and the music video is 3:46. ‘Goodbye Lullaby’ was released on the record label RCA. The video was produced by Max Martin and Shellback. The song was written by them also with Avril Lavigne.
The video starts with a quirky cluttered room, with a bed there are two people sleeping in the bed. It is morning and the only light from the scene is coming from the window. The camera then begins to zoom in on the bed, this tells the audience that the characters in the bed are about to wake up and the song is about to start. As the camera is zooming the words Avril Lavigne appear at the bottom of the screen, they look like they have been painted on by a brush the camera then continues to zoom, the audience can now see that one of the people in the bed is Avril. The words at the bottom of the screen then change to What the Hell so if the audience haven’t seen the video before they can tell who it’s by and what it’s called. As soon as the words disappear the song begins to start and it jump cuts directly to a large shelf that was seen at the side of the last shot, the shelf is full of shoe boxes, vinyl’s, folded up T-shirts, dinosaur toys, and a ornament of a star right at the front of the shot, the audience may link this to the fact her tour is called The black star tour. There is also a line of male trainers in front of the shelf telling the audience that the other character in the bed may be male.
It then shows us a close up of Avril for the first time; she starts to glance around the room the camera then jump cuts around the room so the audience can see what else is in the room. Within these jump cuts there is product placement for Sony with a vaio laptop and a Sony 3D TV, where you can see stars drawn with chalk on the wall once again reinforcing her tour also you can see lots of male caps lined up. When seeing the laptop on the table you can also see two skateboards, symbolizing to the audience the genre of the music.
The lyrics begin to start and we see a mid shot of Avril leaning over to the man in the bed, he wakes up as it is as if she is just waking him because of her singing. He is trying to kiss her but she won’t let him. She then begins to climb out of bed; he face is still kind of shaded as the light is coming from the window behind her. She pulls on a white shirt that has been crumpled up on the floor the shirt could symbol purity which is the opposite to what she is singing about as she says that she has kissed her boyfriends best friend, the shirt also contrasts her black underwear. She leaves the bed and there is a wide shot of her walking towards the mirror, the draws and the mirror are both vintage looking which is a contrast to the modern looking bedroom, while she is walking towards the mirror there are once again star statues. There is then an over the shoulder shot while she is looking into the mirror while she is doing her hair. We then go to a close up were the camera is still for a second and we see Avril’s hand reaching for a perfume bottle this is once again product placement for her own perfumes, this might encourage the audience who like the song and video to buy the perfume we can also see her tattoo of the black star. We then go back to the over the shoulder shot as she continues to sing to herself in the mirror and spray herself with the perfume. We then see a medium-full shot of her and the male character that has just walked up to her. She hugs him and then we see a medium close up as she is pushing him through a door. We then have a big close up as her face takes up ¼ of the screen and she begins to smile showing the audience that what she just did was not in anger. There is a slight zoom and we see Avril spraying herself with the other perfume bottle. We then see another mid shot of the other side of the door she is leaning on and we see the male character banging it, the room seems to be a closet.
We then jump to a scene of a street she is now dressed in dark clothing which is conventionally Avril Lavigne, we can tell straight away that the street is in America as there are yellow taxis. We are then looking through the taxi’s window as she begins to climb in as the driver is helping someone get something out of the boot this scene matches the lyrics as she is saying ‘all my life I’ve been good but now’ . The audience then see a mid shot of the taxi’s wheel, then loads of smoke starts to appear near it as she speeds off down the street. The audience then discover that the street is in New York as the camera shoots the side of the taxi and it says NYC Taxi. The camera then moves to above the steering wheel and we see Avril face on as she is singing, flicking her hair and checking the mirrors. She checks herself in the rear view mirror she begins to adjust it and it falls off she throws it on the seat next to her, this could be her telling the audience that she doesn’t care about the rebellious things she is doing, she is also singing the line ‘I don’t care about’ . The next shot goes back to the driver of the taxi who is mad and behind him we have the male character trying to chase the car on his bike. She is then seen hanging out of the cars window still singing the song showing the viewers that she is carefree. We then have a wide shot of the street with the car skidding round the corner and the man on the bike following, We then see the bike pulling up alongside the taxi, he mouths something to her through the open window however she blows him a kiss and speeds off as she sings the line ‘what the hell’. We see her coming around another street corner she begins to open the door and climb out even though the car is still in motion, the camera then tracks the nose of the taxi as it crashes into another car.
The camera jump to her walking alongside a brick wall that has been painted red, she once again stands out as she is wearing black. We then see her walking through a gate were loads of men begin to look at her as one of them is holding a basketball the audience are to assume they are in a basketball court. The camera cuts to a long shot and we see the basketball net and a few more guys playing the audience can still tell it’s in the city as it is a built up area and the walls have graphitti on. She then begins to walk through the guys smiling at them, she then feels one of the guy’s muscles, he has a black shirt on with a silver start reminding the audience of the theme of her tour. She then gets the basketball where the camera cuts to a low angle shot of the basket ball net where she scores, she then starts to hive-five all the guys while the singing the line ‘I just need some time to play’. The next shot is the male character riding up to the gate on his bike she then looks shocked and mouths ‘that’s my boyfriend’ telling the audience who the character actually is, as she has said this all the men gather round him and try to stop him catching up with her.
The next scene we see her walking through the door with all vinyl’s stuck to it, this could remind the audience of the house earlier. The camera is then tracking her down the shop as the shop keeper turns to smile at her. The camera then cuts to a sign next to a mannequin flashing saying vintage clothing this confirms to the audience were she is. She then goes around the shop and goes to a glasses stand and picks up a pair, the glasses she put on are in fact her actual glasses that have been seen in other videos of hers. We can see the door in the background and her boyfriend walks in. She is miming to herself she see him, pulls a funny face and then runs away down the shop. She continues walking around the shop and picks up random clothing of the rails as she is walking towards the changes room she stops to look at a separate area of clothes; once again we have more product placement this time for her own clothing range abbey dawn she then throws the other clothes in the boyfriends hands and looks throughout the clothing range. After getting changed she leaves the shop and she is wearing a top that says ‘what the hell’ this is available to buy so if the viewers like the song and clothes they have a chance to buy them. She then appears in a dark corridor her boyfriend is stopped in the shop to pay for her clothes and he follows her. As the music begins to become upbeat again she jumps out of the corridor and onto a stage with a band who are also wearing clothes from the male range of abbey dawn and there is also a crowd of fans, the viewers then get to see her perform and get to see close ups of the instruments. Avril is dancing around showing the audience the energy of the song and also the crowd are having a good time this may influence the audience to go t one of her gigs. We then see more product placement for Sony, as we have a close up of the Sony Ericson Xperia mobile phone which one fan is filming the gig on. She then jumps onto the crowd and crowd surfs to the back of them were they put her down and she sees her boyfriend, she then smiles drags him and then the next shot we have cut to an aerial shot of them falling on the bad that we have seen at the start of the video as the song is ending. They are both looking up at the camera he falls asleep as she sings the last of the lyrics, she then winks at the camera. This could be telling the audience that she has had her day of fun and not caring as referenced in the lyrics however that day is over as she is going to bed with her boyfriend and they will wake up to a different day.  |
| These are the statistics on the music video, I found this on YouTube and it discusses about the audiences gender, location and how they found the music video. |
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