Analysis of Music Videos - (Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me)

A2 Analysis of music video- You belong with me by Taylor Swift

I have decided to analyses a pop genre music video which ‘you belong with me by Taylor Swift. Her music video is narrative type that goes through whole video. There are many different types of shots of her singing that is a key convention in a pop music video. And the genre does goes with the song. The key theme of this music video is about love. And the representation of both men and women is seems equal as there are equal amount of men and women shown.

Narrative/ Camera shots: In the first scene there is an establishing shot where they shot the both houses to give an idea to the audience of the first setting. In some of the starting scenes it changes to the performance based from narrative e.g. when she’s starting however it keeps the story same. There is a narrative as from the start they are both is friendship relationship and the girl is totally involved with the boy so at night they are chatting from their house windows through the writing down their feeling on the pad. And those signs suggest that they must have sort of friendship to start with and it makes audience feels the situation as this happens to lots of teenagers in their ages. Then there is a long shot of a boy as he coming closer to the girl. This shot suggest his feeling towards to her. Then she’s sitting on the bench and the boy comes over to her and sits very closely that shows they are trying to closer. However there comes another girl which attracts the boy and sit on her car but she doesn’t seem very confident about her relationship with him that might shows the audience that very soon it can come to an end. And then the boy and his girlfriend gets into a fight at the sports match and there’s an over shoulder shot to show the boys feeling from the side view. Then the boy goes to party where the main girl meets him and she’s been dressed up like a princess and she’s wearing white that connotes her innocence and when she walks through the crowd, her body language suggest she’s being shy. The boy gets attracted towards the girl and they both comes together closely and at the end they kiss and both seems very happy and audience can see that through an extreme shot of both of them.

Lighting: The lighting they have used throughout the music video is very simple and decent to show the innocence of both artists however whenever they meet each other lighting gets brighter and reflect their faces so they can stand out to the audience. In of the scene where they are siting outside is a natural light that isn’t too bright or too dull to keep the balance between all the shots. If the lighting is dark then probably it wouldn’t go with the genre of pop and the audience would feel down.

Costumes: Till now all of them are wearing very casual outfit to relate themselves to normal teenagers and that what usually teens like to wear.

Editing: This song has lots of cuts in between and each shot is never longer than 3 seconds so to keep the balance of the music. Mostly there are fast cuts to show the sudden excitement to the audience. This song does have fast pace to show the audience of the scene reflecting the pace of song.

Prop/hair and makeup: The main artist not being too much over the top as she has light makeup on and she’s being nerd and wearing baggy clothes as her audience is young girls so her image is very conversed. However she’s still looking attractive whilst not caring about her dress up senses to others. However the boys girlfriend has black hair to connotes a bad girl and dressed in red that connotes of anger and darkness however the blonde girl dressed in white to show the purity.

For pop videos it’s very important that the lyrics go with the video as they both has to relate for a successful product and if doesn’t go than the audience wouldn’t fancy watching it and the artist might not able to make enough money as their videos wouldn’t sell through different music companies such as iTunes.

In start of the scenes from her body language throughout the video audience can see that the way she has dressed in mostly all of the scenes and how she has her makeover, it shows that she is been child-like and shows her innocence. However the boys girlfriend in the scene of where they are wearing school uniform when she comes up to him there is a mid shot of her being flirty to him while the boy speaking to her.