Video Analysis

Taylor Swift - Fifteen from lala oreiro on Vimeo.

This is the video that I am going to analyse. It is called 'fifteen' by Taylor Swift and is about love and loss in a relationship and how young people get influenced by love.

At the start of the clip the artist is on her own and the scenery grows around her and he is then instantly given a long shot which then zooms into a close up shot. From this we instantly know that she is going to be the main character and that we are supposed to be concentrating on her. All of the scenery growing around her is really effective and could represent the world growing and changing around the artist. However, it could also suggest the changing of times and that the artist is growing up, as all of the scenery grows and not shrinks.

The school that she is talking about is all suspended in the country side. This could give the audience a real visual look into her mind but it could also suggest that she feels free in the country. The close up shot on her bare feet could suggest that the character is protected and the carpet of grass below her feet could show that she will always be caught on a soft landing, at this age either by parents or by friends. It could also show exposure. How fragile a person can be at 15 and how this can affect people in lots of different ways?

When a boy walks past the artist and winks he has her attention and it shows this is how girls can be when they think that they are in love. However, when the boy walks past the director immediately cuts to a close up shot of her face. This shows all of the emotion on the artist’s face that is so important to the genre.

There is a cut in to display a close up shot of the guitar. This is really effective as we know who the artist is as she has her name written on the guitar. This is also fairly stereotypical of girls at this age as they are always carving into things their names and who they are in love with. This represents this very effectively.

The song is very stereotypical for young girls. The video represents this very well and shows the effects that other people can have. But the most important areas of this music video is the slow pace of editing. All the way through the school, it is like one long cut, with the occasional close up shot which is paced when showing emotion. I also think that the pace of editing shows the pace of life in which the girls feel when they are in love. This is very effective and makes the song more reflective of real life situations.