Codes and Conventions of the Band Have Mercy's Music Videos

As the band are fairly new on the music scene, they have very few official narrative and performance based videos, all of which have been embedded above.

The earliest music videos made when the band was signed to "Topshelf Records" in 2011 mainly consist of footage taken during the band's performances and tours which is unrelated to the specific song. These are described by the band as "live" music videos or "montage" videos rather than the conventional "official music videos".

Once the band was signed to "Hopeless Records" they released two "Official music 
videos" in 2015 for the songs "Howl" and "Two Years", both taken from the band's second album "A Place Of Our Own". These Videos follow the more conventional format of having narrative interwoven into the band performing the song. 

Having analysed both of these official videos, I have found that the band generally uses a male protagonist, who's progress is followed throughout the video. Flashbacks are also a common element of their videos. This gives the audience a greater understanding of the character in the song, allowing them to emotionally connect with the song much easier. 

As with most conventional music videos, the pace of the editing matches the tempo and beat of the songs, ensuring the footage appears relevant to the song.

The song lyrics are taken very literally in both of Have Mercy's official music videos. The narrative story for "Howl" is clearly derived from the opening line of the song "You were young when your father died". Similarly, the narrative story for "Two Years" is taken from the opening line of the song "Two years now, and I'm alone again". Therefore, when creating a music video for the band's song "Lean", (Taken from the same album as the other two music videos.) I should pay particular attention to the opening line of the song, and use this as inspiration for the video's narrative.