The Foo Fighters video for their song "Walk" follows typical conventions of a rock music video. It contains a quirky narrative of the lead singer leaving his car frustrated and walking to an unknown destination. It includes elements of mise-en-scene like props that show the singer's rebellious attitude. The camerawork speeds up during instrumental parts and focuses on each band member during the concluding live performance. Sound is used diagetically at first and pauses the song to further the storyline, with dramatic scenes timed to the music. The video ultimately brings the narrative back to the live performance aspect of being a music video.

1. FOO FIGHTERS VIDEO ANALYSIS
CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF
A ROCK VIDEO

2. The codes and conventions
• Every music video has a basic structure and no
matter what genre is, it’s usually similar/the same.
The structure goes Narrative, Mis En Scene, Camera,
and Sound.
• Now with a rock video a live performance is usually
thrown in to the mix amongst a usually quirky
storyline, and Walk is no exception to this, making it
the perfect example

3. Narrative
• The narrative to this video starts off with Mr. Grohl looking rather fed up
of sitting in traffic. He looks around him and is instantly irritated with all
that he sees.
• Once the song begins, so does the narrative. We see him leaving his car
with just his guitar and starts walking. It becomes apparent to the
audience when he checks his watch/phone that he needs to be
somewhere and so the story begins.
• The lyrics to Walk coincide well with the video with the narrative having a
‘I’ve had enough, I’ll do what I want’ vibe, which is more or less what the
song is about. We see the protagonist facing tedious and aggravating
situations and him then acting out in his own way because of them. Rock
videos do this very well.

4. Mise En Scene
•
•
•
Props. The car is the first major prop used and when he gets up and leaves it
the audience is shown his ‘rock’ style attitude – he doesn’t particularly care
and is obviously quite annoyed at life (stereotypical rock star attitude?). This
view is further supported when he throws his phone away when he sees its
out of battery. Whilst a normal person would just put it back in their pocket,
our rock star protagonist has just chucked it away. As well as his attitude
coming across, this is quite a humorous act, another favourite to include in
rock videos.
At 02:16 where he starts hitting the cashier with what seems to be some form
of liquorish (again, slapstick humour, common in rock videos)
Commonly in rock videos the characters shown are usually the band members
like in this video. Sticking with the element of humour, it’s entertaining to the
fans to see the band starring in their video instead of using actors. This is
common in rock videos for the humour element as well as a way to stay in
touch with the fans and to show the audience that the band don’t take
themselves too seriously, whilst on a high budget video.

5. Camera
• The scenes at the beginning start out very slowly
and leave a couple of seconds before switching.
Throughout the video, the scenes change quicker
– especially when the chorus or an instrumental
comes along. This keeps in with the song seeming
as a rock song does usually speed up at these
particular moments, and especially towards the
end the switching between scenes gets more
frequent. The shots of the live performance take
time to focus on each band member whilst
ending on Dave with him being the protagonist of
the story and also the lead singer of the band.

6. Sound
•
•
Typically rock videos are a couple minutes longer than the song lasts, and that’s
because of the extra sound used to fit in with the storyline. With this particular
video the actual song doesn’t kick in until 1:04 where our protagonist steps out of
his car, but up until this point we are given the diagetic sounds of his surroundings.
It’s also in typical rock video style to pause the non-diagetic sound (the actual
song in this case) to refresh the storyline, and potentially add in some dialog from
the storylines characters (seen at 05:26).
Rock videos tend to keep their dramatic scenes in time with something like a big
drum/guitar solo (02:18) to add emphasis to an action or infact the song. This is
seen throughout this video and is timed perfectly with the actions.

7. Live Performance
• Commonly the live performance kicks in towards the
end of the song which is what happens in this
particular video (our protagonist arrives on the scene
at 04:31). In this case the live performance ties
together the whole video, as we see this is what he
was trying to get to the whole time. The live
performance brings the audience back and reminds
them that this is a music video opposed to a short
story with music to it.
• The last few scenes tie back in with the narrative which
is just quite a fun way to end the video. Rock videos are
known for their quirks and Foo Fighters are no
exception.