Favourite music video analysis

Mine - Taylor Swift



Genre

The genre of this video is pop whereas the genre of Taylor Swift is Country/Pop. Like most music videos their is a narrative to this music video; a boy and a girl meet and end up dating. They then move in together and get married. We then know they have fight but they sort it out and then it shows them having a child at the end. If you don't know the lyrics to the song then what's unexpected in this video is that they have a fight. This is unexpected because the song is really upbeat which gives off happy vibes and you would not expect something wrong to happen.

Narrative

The narrative of this video starts with Taylor walking into a café and a boy coming up to serve her. It then flashes back to them walking down the beach and hanging out. It then shows clips of them moving into a house and having fun. The boy then proposes to Taylor whilst on a boat and then it shows them fighting at '2:30am' and then Taylor runs out but her fiancé chases her. He apologises whilst it shows flashbacks of when they were happier together. And then it shows the future with the
couple getting married and having children. There is definitely a theme of love which is shown through the storyline and the lyrics. There is also another running theme of heartbreak which is shown through the flashback to when her parents were fighting when she was younger and when she had a fight with her fiancé. 
There is a recognisable structure from Toderov's 5 narrative theories;

• EQUALIBRIUM - The couple are shown at the beach and having a great time.
• DISTRUPTION - When the couple have a fight it unsettles the calm. 
• RECOGNITION - when the girl (Taylor) runs out the house she realises that her relationship could end like her parents.
• ATTEMPT TO REPAIR THE DISTRUPTION - The fiancé runs after Taylor and apologises, ultimately sorting out the problem.
• EQUALIBRIUM - They get married and have 2 children.

In this music video there is female protagonist who is the main part of the narrative, there is a male 'hero' who comes into her life and saves her from thinking that all love ends badly. The antagonist of this narrative isn't a person but its a subject of stress and the male getting home from work late which
leads to a fight. The lyrics of the song are reflected by the video as literal and help us understand, we can say this because there are lyrics that say "and I remember that fight, 2:30am" and the clip is showing the couple having a fight whilst its dark outside.

Representation

There is representation of gender in this music video as the female is shown as a damsel in distress type character. This is because there are flashbacks shown of her as a vulnerable child which is stereotypical as girls are prone to showing emotion more than boys. There is a male character in this video who is represented as the 'Hero' because he 'saves' the girl and makes her feel loved unlike her parents who were always arguing. This shows connotations of being stereotypical because boys love to save the girl but also non-stereotypical because he gets emotional when they have the fight and boys aren't suppose to be emotional.

Audience

I would say that the audience for this music video is 13-23. This is because Taylor Swifts fanbase is full of younger girls who will watch this video and enjoy it but also older teenagers who could relate to the narrative of a boy and girl who meet and fall in love. The locations used in the video are heavily for the teenage market, e.g. the beach, a café and a house.

Technical Codes

In this music video there are a lot of close ups of Taylor Swift when she is performing the song and whilst she is playing the female character. There are also a lot of mid shots used in the scenes at the beach as it shows the scenery in the background. Considering this is an upbeat song, the editing is relatively slow until it gets to the end of the video where they're trying to show the wedding and children and the family growing up together. The editing isn't fast during the argument scene which lets the audience know that it might not have been as heated as it looked.

Visual Codes

The video has a couple of different locations. The first one is at a cafe where the boy and girl meet whilst he is at college and she has just left home. The second main location is when Taylor Swift is being her celebrity self and singing in a forest with pictures of her and the boy hanging from trees as memories. The third location is of a beach which is shows the couple looking happy whilst messing around in the water. The fourth location shows the couple moving into a house
together and unpacking their belongings and being 'in love', The fifth location is when the couple have a fight in the kitchen of their house which is after the boyfriend proposed to Taylor. And lastly there are quick shots of the, now, married couple in the house with their

newborn baby and then sitting at the table for his birthday 4 years later. These all show connotations of normal locations that you would find yourself at with your boyfriend and then husband (e.g. house, beach). There are dominant colours of Blue, Brown and Green used in this video. The Brown is used for when everything is going well between the boyfriend and girlfriend like when they are having fun at the beach and moving into a new house. However the Blue is used during the argument scene which connotes sadness and heartbreak which is reflected by what we see with the girl crying.

Organisations
 Taylor Swift is signed to Big Machine Records who are an independent American record label specializing in country music artists. Big Machine is based on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee, (Taylor moved to Tennessee when she was 14) and is distributed by Universal Music Group. The company helps to promote Taylor's music through the use of music videos. She is promoted through her acting in all of her music videos but as a teenage girl (age 19) in this music video which she was round about the time it was published (2010). Taylor is distributed through different medias such as social (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), TV, CD, iTunes and music channels. She doesn't have her music on apps such as Spotify because she doesn't believe she should work so hard on music for people to not buy it and stream it for free on Spotify. This means her fans (who are young) have to pay for it or watch it on YouTube. 

Analysing this video will help me when creating my own because it shows me that now all upbeat songs need to have a happy narrative the whole way through. The different colours used for the different scenes is something I can take on board because it really shows the mood of the scene and makes it easier to relate back to the audience.