Real Media Artefact 3 (music promo)

You belong with me- Taylor Swift

You belong with me is a narrative based music video where we are told the story about how the boy is with the wrong girl and should be with the other girl, in this case its Taylor Swift. Taylor swift is dressed in a certain way which to the audience is portraying her as being a geek, as she is dressed stereotypically for this social group. Throughout the music video we see the boy and girl together and how upset this makes Taylor swift but towards the end of the story as the audience we can see they will and then do end up together.

The relationship between the lyrics and visuals is very blatant, in the way that most of the lyrics are identical to the actions we see throughout the entire video. For example the line is ‘I wear t-shirts’ and the action we see is her showing us her t-shirt, another example is when she is singing ‘your on the phone with your girl friend’ and we can see the boy talking on his phone. Both of these examples show that the visuals have been amplified to make it very obvious that the lyrics match what we as the viewer see. I think the reason why the director has chosen to obviously match the lyrics and visuals is because it makes the video fun and memorable, also suiting to the genre of music and the target market that may watch and listen to the song.

As well as the lyrics matching with the visuals so does the music. Throughout the song what we see on screen matches the changes in the music. At the beginning of the music video we see both the people sitting in their rooms relaxed and calm, whistle this is happening the music is slow, therefore matching the visuals, as the music then gradually becomes more up tempo the people start to move about, again showing they both match, and when the music finally gets up tempo the visuals become more energetic as the girl begins to dance round her room and jumping on her bed.  At the chorus of the song the visuals are big and energetic just like the music, then when it goes into the next verse the music tones down and becomes less up tempo, therefore the visuals do the same, as we see her slowly taking off her glasses. This is true for the whole song.

Throughout this music video there are many close-ups of the artist, this is done to promote them. The record company is looking to sell this track to young teenage girls, as this is the target market normally for Taylor Swift.  The image of the artist being convey is a ‘girlie girl’ with lots of energy, innocent and in love, which is how Taylor Swift is convey in most of her videos, this is also her motif as she is always being shown as a young innocent girl, therefore this video conforms to her motif and doesn’t represent a change of image.

At the begining of the song the editing is quite slow to match what we see. Taylor Swift is upset about the boy being with another boy, therefore the editing is slow to match the feelings and mood of the lyrics and the visuals. As the song progresses into the chorus the editing becomes a quicker pace to match the tempo of the muic, it also matches the visuals as it becomes more lievly and more actions to each shot.  

With this video I feel that the artist and other people in this video are not displayed in a sexual way. I think the reason behind this is because the artist targets her music at teenagers therefore it would be inappropriate to portray Taylor Swift in a sexual way rather then her usual innocent ‘girlie girl’. This is also true for the camera work, costumes and dance as none of them imply sexualised display.

This music video references to ‘looking’ in the beginning where we see through each of there windows. The reason why the director has done this is to make the audience feel engaged and part of the video, making it feel personal. The director has also chosen the reference of ‘looking’ when she is in the mirror looking at herself in different outfits, again I feel that the director chose to do this to make the audience feel part of it, and chose a mirror to stick o Taylor Swifts motif of being a ‘girlie girl’.

Therefore from my analysis I can see that this music video conforms to Godwin’s six elements of a music video. However in this video there are no intertextual references from other music videos or iconic films.

Overall I can clearly see that this video by Taylor Swift is a narrative based video and is telling a story throughout. It conforms to the typical pop music video with a teenager boy and girl in love, the geeky girl wants to be with the boy but the more popular one is with him. It uses the technique of close ups to promote Taylor Swift as an artist, the lyrics and visuals work together as well as the music and the visuals, the director has used the ‘looking’ technique frequently to make the viewer feel part of the video, making it feel personal. Finally this video shows Taylor Swift as her usual ‘girlie girl’ self as shown in many of her other videos.