The Chronicles of Life and Death by Good Charlotte

The visual styles used in this video are very unconventional. The video begins with a comic-strip like animation, however, often switches between this and clips of the band performing the song; which is significantly more conventional. However, I believe that this is very effective as it provides an element of differentiation between the elements of both life and death which are the basis of both the lyrics and narrative of the video.

The story is again very unconventional and can be argued to be slightly controversial. The lyrics and video both enforce the idea that we are all born into this world with the inevitable and unavoidable departure of death looming over us. This is represented in the narrative by the animation. The animation shows the birth of a baby, who whilst is being cradled by his parents, is being shackled by a visual representation of death. This is presented in a familiar format to the audience as a character who looks has lots of common features to the Grim Reaper is used. This provides immediate connotations of gloom, darkness and death to the narrative. However, this is slightly relieved only at the end of the animation, when after we see the character grow old and face death, he is unshackled by the reaper like character to die in peace. This provides the audience with a small sense of enlightenment and optimism which is then quickly reverted when the reaper then immediately makes his way to shackle the next baby. This narrative uses shock tactics to create an impact on the audience in order to stimulate them to remember the video.

I believe that this video is effective due to its unconventional use of animation and performance footage smoothly incorporated into one another.