Critical Analysis of Music Videos 3

TAYLOR SWIFT 


Mine
This video cuts between the narrative of taylor meeting a boy in a cafe, in a relationship, moving in, proposing, having an argument, getting married and having a family interspersed with memories of how her parents used to fight. And the performance element in a forrest dressed with photographs of her dream life. The two sequences are very clearly divided using lighting. The performance is very bright, colourful and very saturated all the way through. Her dream life starts out bright and with a light brown tint but as her dream life 'goes bad' the lighting gets darker and less saturated. Eventually everything is sorted out and we return to the cafe as if nothing has happened. It is a very romantic and beautiful but in my opinion it lacks substance and it looks strange when their have made a family of 3 boys and they still look the same as they do in the cafe!


Fifteen

The organic and subtle animation fits very well with her style of sining and the acoustic guitar, making each scene flow into the next as the camera pans across and the next set gradually fades into existence. 
 Her surroundings reflect the stages of emotion in her life. e.g. morning lighting is fresh and warm symbolising the anticipation of her first day. and the storm with thunder and rain reflecting her sadness and anger at herself and what has happened to her and her friend.  Using pathetic fallacy is common in her videos  another example is white horse: raining outside when sad bright and sunny when happy).




Love Story

The narrative structure of this video is quite similar to 'Mine'. She meets someone in reality, dreams about them having a relationship and then she is brought back to reality and the audience is left with a 'will they won't they' question in their mind. However i think that this song is better suited to this style of narrative.  obviously they have a bigger budget for this one and so can dress the 'dream' set very authentically. It is a very beautiful sequence that will strongly appeal to her female fans, as the Romeo and Juliet / Pride and Prejudice theme is very popular with female audiences. 




You Belong With Me

This is very similar to a video by Avril Lavigne called 'Girlfriend' that I will be analysing. Main girl wants to be with main guy but he's with another girl (both versions dressed in pink at some point) eventually main girl gets to be with main guy and other girl is annoyed. In both versions, the singer plays both female characters. However I think that this version is executed better. It has a kinder, softer approach to unrequited love the main female character feels. The dressing up sequence will appeal to her younger female audience because she is trying out different personalities with each outfit which is what young girls do, to find out who they are. Another example of this video being targeted at young girls is the fact that she plays 'air guitar' and sings along to her own song with a hairbrush. And a final example is the crowd at 'prom' parting for her, so that everyone is admiring her. this is another common dream for girls going to a party.  From this video, I have noticed that in her videos, Taylor Swift uses footage of the characters talking without sound and plays the song over the top of it.  Colour is used to distinguish between the 2 female characters at prom. the mean girl is in red which has connotations of danger and lust, whereas the heroine is dressed in white symbolising purity and goodness. 




From this analysis I have learnt: 

• Her music promotes moral messages similar to Pink's. That it is ok to be different and not one of the 'popular' girls. This is important as a large part of her audience will be young girls. 
• She makes aspirational videos, aimed at females. Everything is beautiful in her videos which appeals to young girls.
• She doesn't use humour very much, her videos are often serious or sincere.