SK8ER BOI

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
2. Star - use of close-ups, sometimes direct eye contact with audience, to build relationship with audience. The star of the music video is obviously Avril Lavigne as she sings throughout the video and the story she tells directly relates to her love story about her and the 'skater boi'. Moments when, for example, they are in the car and she is with her friends all looking into the camera, almost involving the audience in her song and making it as though she is singing to them.
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. Avril Lavigne spends the whole duration of the video jamming out on her guitar which relates to the sk8er boi and the genre of rock and roll that the song is based on. For example, she is holding and playing the guitar as she sings about how the skater boi is on mtv.
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
7. Intertextuality - references to other media, films, performances, events

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