The establishing shot of White Horse is pathetic fallacy since it softly fades into showing a gloomy day as the rain falls on the window pane. This reflects the lyrics and how sad Taylor feels as she is grief-stricken by her boyfriend.
The next shot appears during the long introduction of the song and features an extreme close up of what is presumably Taylor's mouth. It is a continuousIt contains dialogue between herself and her boyfriend asking her to give him "another chance". It is set at night to suggest mystery and the anticipation of her answer (which we don't find out until the climax of the song). This is a very clever way of keeping the audiences attention throughout the entire song as they would want to find out her answer.
Another extreme close up introduces the male protagonist. Since this is the first time he is revealed it makes the audience think that he is up to no good since it is quite obscure that we can't see his eyes, or the rest of his face for that matter.
This long shot exposes the mise en scene of the room and the only light that is visible in this shot is from the moonlight outside coming in through the window, and the two lamps in each corner of the room which creates ambiance. Taylor is following the conventions and stereotypes of a grieving girlfriend who's boyfriend has cheated on her through her vulnerable pose. She is sitting on the floor holding onto her legs which tells the audience that she is broken-hearted.
Flashbacks are used to show that their relationship wasn't always so bad. The flashbacks are distinct as they seem to be faded out slightly and have a much whiter light. Most of the video is dark and set at night and by making the insights into their past brighter it gives the audience a clear contrast to how Taylor felt/feels at both of these times.
Although it seems that the pair are having fun playing cards, the way the boy takes Taylor's queen of hearts card could actually symbolise him taking advantage of her.
This shot also caught my attention as the hands in the foreground aren't what the camera is focused on. Even though their hands are an important sign of them being in a relationship the focus is on Taylor and highlights her expression. The audience are able to make their own assumptions of how Taylor is feeling based on her eye contact with the couples hands.
As the story progresses we get a rapid change of scene to a cafe where we see Taylor and one of her friends having a talk about her boyfriend. At this point in the song it is revealed to the audience that she's being cheated on through the use of a voice over.
By this scene the audience now know why Taylor is so devastated and the dark atmosphere is shown again. In this shot she is shown looking at her phone at a Facebook message from her friend which shows intertextuality.
The climax of the music video is very intense and the way the camera transitions between medium close ups of the three people in the love triangle intensifies Taylor Swifts struggle. Each persons expressions are the key elements in making this scene work since it really shows how each person feels about the situation. Taylor's confusion, her
boyfriend's guilt and the other female's realisation gives the audience their own opinions on the situation.
This long shot helps develop the awkwardness of the scene by way the three people are standing and their positioning represents the love triangle that taylor didn't know she was involved in.
This shot is a close up of Taylor hugging her legs which links back to the scene at the beginning of the video where instead of using a close up shot, Taylor was filmed in a long shot. The shadows of her hair draping over her face make the audience feel sympathetic to her since it shows a developed vulnerability since this pose had reoccured throughout the entire video.
The establishing shot of this music video is shown in a natural frame to give the impression that Taylor Swift is just having a regular day at school. Taylor and her love interest have their backs turned towards the lockers at the left of the frame to give the viewer the experience of actually being with them in the natural school setting. It is shown as a point of view shot as the hallways are crowded and this makes the audience feel as though they are involved in the scene in the point of view as a student at the school. Before the introduction of the song there is a dialogue between the two main characters in the video which establishes the conflicts and issue that this music video is centred around.
Taylor is centre frame here which is very effective especially with the slightly vignette look surrounding the shot. She is the focus of this particular shot and her dress is accentuated as it drapes off of the bed. The lighting in this scene seems to be artificially lit and pointed straight at Taylor Swift and since she is centre frame this further highlights Taylor as being the centre of attention. Furthermore, the guitar is also lit up which highlights it as not only a sign for Country Music but one of the main words in the title of her song.
This shot is obviously set in a science class as there are many indicators such as the test tubes and goggles. This helps Taylor's target audience relate to her and her situation. It also helps that she is right of frame since it reveals more of the background. The background is blurred and the pull focus is on Taylor which is a convention of any music video especially if the artist is singing into camera since this draws the attention of the audience onto the main character in the video and the story instead of getting distracted by the vivid background. I've noticed how the director used the rule of thirds to position taylor in the perfect position for this shot.
Towards the end of the video and especially during the bridge of the song Taylor is in the centre frames of most of the shots wearing many extravagant gowns. By showing her standing in the middle of the frame it allows the reader to focus on Taylor and her image. It shows her power and is a huge contrast to the sad beginning of the song where the audience feels sympathetic for Taylor laying helplessly on her bed. The view has also changed since the beginning of the video and the camera is shooting from a lower angle which makes Taylor look more hopeful and determined to get over her crush. This is completely different to the beginning of the video where the camera is shot at a very high angle which makes the audience believe that she is totally overpowered by her emotions and heartbreak.
In this shot Taylor is right of frame exposing the mise en scene of the bed and the bed side cabinet. Shortly after, the camera starts panning to reveal more of the room. The camera pans a lot in this video which in my opinion creates a whimsical atmosphere and goes well with all of the long notes in the song.
Taylor is left of frame in this shot as well as being filmed in a close up which really exposes her facial expression. In this particular shot she doesn't appear to be very distraught which indicates to the audience that this story has a happy ending. However in the next shot, and very last scene she is shown to be hidden which could suggest that she is just hiding her true feelings.
The very last scene in the video ends with this shot of Taylor hidden with half of her face covered by her guitar (which is what the pull focus is on). The way she is blurred out suggests that she is still hurting from what he did to her.
I used Instagram as a form of social media for polling our target audience on which logo they would like to see best for our Music Institution. the results were as followed:
There were 6 participants in this survey, all of which were girls (which could have affected the results).
We have decided to use the logo which got the most votes since it looks neat and professional.
We've just finished the rough cut of our music video and it's starting to come together really well. There is obviously a long list of things we can do to make it look more professional, such as add more transitions and zoom in using ken burns, but I'm not worried because we have a lot of time to make it look perfect.
In one of the clips Sophie still isn't really lip syncing in the right place so we need to correct this in the next draft of the video.
It seems that most of the people surveyed watch music videos on Youtube which is great news since it's really easy to upload videos to. I am in the same age range as our target audience and I also watch music videos on Youtube as it is popular and easy to access so this result didn't really surprise me.
Question 2
I'm glad that 100% of the people surveyed said that they enjoyed listening to music so this means that it will be highly likely that they will consider listening to and watching our music video, as well as buying our pigipak.
Question 3
YouTube and Spotify were two of the most favoured ways of listening to music when it came to the people we surveyed. YouTube is a great way to connect with out audience as it is very easy to upload to and get feedback from the comments. Not only will the song be publicised but the video can also be watched which will give us a larger audience since some people evjoy watching music videos as well as listening to the song. That is one way YouTube differs from Spotify as on Spotify the only visuals you get is the album cover. Most people (including myself) use Spotify on their mobile devices since they made it into a simple app with is accessible from anywhere you can get wifi or 3G/4G. I think the best way to start to get people to listen/view our song would be to upload it to Youtube.
Question 4
We got quite a mixed result for this question with 5/20 people sating that they don't download music at all and the people who do download music use a wide range of programmes. iTunes was the app which seemed to be the most popular amongst our sample of people with iTube and Spotify in 2nd place. Personally I use Spotify since you can get songs legally and for free. Many people download songs illegally from the internet which is awful since the artists and institutions in which the songs come from won't receive any profit. To prevent this I think it would be a good idea to promote the song on iTunes since it deemed most popular in our survey. We could also put it on multiple other aps such as Spotify and YouTube.
Question 5
This question was quite startling for Amy, Morgan and I since we are trying to advertise and sell a digipak and a music video. If more than half of our audience doesn't buy CD's we are going to have to find a way to encourage them to consider buying one, especially ours. After the survey we asked a few people who answered "no", "What would make you want to actually buy a CD?", the results were as follows... "They're just too expensive, I'd rather just go on iTunes and buy the 3 or 4 songs I want from the album rather than just the whole thing"; "They're a waste of money, I only like a few of the songs on them anyway, so it just depends what's on the CD"; "I don't need to buy CD's when I can get them all on Spotify"; "I agree, like I need to know a lot of the songs if I'm going to buy a CD". So in conclusion to this it appears that the songs on the album have a lot to do with whether or not people want to buy the CD. To encourage people to buy it, we could list some of Sophia's more well known songs in a larger or bolder font than the others. The promotional poster for the digipak will also have to be clear of what songs are actually on it by using flashy fonts and unique colours.
We carried out a survey for our digipak in order to see how different people consume music. We asked 10 males and 10 females in order to get a fair representation of our target audience. Question 1: How do you consume music video's? Music channels= 7 Youtube= 17 Social Media= 3 Other (please state what)= 1(Spotify) Question 2: Do you listen to a lot of music? Yes= 20 No= 0 Question 3: How do you mostly listen to the music? Soundcloud= 2 Youtube= 7 Playtube= 3 Spotify= 7 Apple Music= 1 Itunes= 2 Radio= 1 CD= 2 Question 4: Do you ever download music? If so where from. No= 5 Itunes= 6 Itube= 3 Apple Music= 1 Spotify= 3 Amazon Prime= 1 Youtube Converter= 1 Question 5: Do you ever buy CD's? Yes= 5 No= 11 Rarely= 4
Here are some of our favourite pictures that we took on the three days of filming. We think they could work really well for our digipak as they are not blurry and really show what out music viedo represents as well as Sophia's image.
I uploaded them to flicker so we can get some feedback.
Day 1 (Wednesday): We didn't really have much food to prepare for today as we all met at Amy's house AFTER lunch. Snacks were available throughout the day if anyone wanted anything and we stopped during our breaks to have some chocolate. After we finished we bought Sophie and Charlie a takeaway to say thank you for such a successful first day of footage.
Day 2 (Thursday): In the morning, before we met at Sophie's house, Amy picked up some meal deals from Tesco as she passed it on her way so we were all pretty full by the time we drove to the abandoned farm.
Day 3 (Friday): On this day supplying food was also really easy since everyone tried to bring things for the picnic scene. When we were at Normanby Hall we found some benches in the forest where we sat and ate some snacks that Amy brought.
The climax of the music video is very intense and the way the camera transitions between medium close ups of the three people in the love triangle intensifies Taylor Swifts struggle. Each persons expressions are the key elements in making this scene work since it really shows how each person feels about the situation. Taylor's confusion, her
boyfriend's guilt and the other female's realisation gives the audience their own opinions on the situation.
