Music Video Analysis – Harry Powell

Comment on the following aspects in relation to your music video choice. How will these techniques appeal to the target audience needs?

Target Audience & Needs

Taylor Swift – Bad BloodThis is a pop song that came out in 2015, this is when pop is one of the biggest genes around with many people listening to it. This means that the target audience is very vast and not very niche. The needs for a young audience with a high sexualised audience is catered towards characters in the music video, by using Mulvey’s theory of the males glaze where they have included the women in the music video to wear revealing outfits to fit pop music’s desire to sell sexuality to young audiences.

Lyrics (Meaning Implied?)

With the title of the song being called “Bad Blood” it has a pretty obvious feel for the sing. Due to its name we can get a general idea of this song being about people not getting along as that’s what the term “Bad Blood” means. With the singer being Taylor swift they have a very large amount of competitors in the music industry and they usually sing/ write songs about experiences in the industry and about people they meet. This could mean that Taylor is singing a song about how she feels in the real world, for example she may have fallen out with another singer such as Katy Perry. “You know it used to be mad love” this line tells us that Taylor is singing about a person they used to be friends with and that they have now fallen out. “now we’ve got problems” This backs up the fact that the song is wrote about either a falling out or dispute against friends of Taylor swift. “you say sorry just for show” This line shows a rather deeper meaning where Taylor may be upset that the person she is singing about is only apologising for the camera and not for the fact they used to be friends.

Tempo The song has an upbeat fast tempo and it mimics the editing in the video as actions in the video reflect the beat. Editing has

Music Video Analysis – Harry Powell

specifically been put in place so that when the beat drops in the chorus Taylor walks through, which displays her importance and she fills the frame to reinforce her importance as her fame. In the video when Taylor says “hey” there is an exaggerated beat and direct address is used, this looks powerful because it has been edited together. In the video the sound is revealed slowly and through the video the characters move to the music.

Genre This music video is a performance; they use famous people within the music video to make it more engaging to a wider audience of fans as well as scandalous outfits and crazy effects to make the music video as entertaining as possible. The whole music video is a story, its starts of by showing the audience how Taylor swift was stabbed in the back. This genre of music is pop and this is a very popular music genre. Many people enjoy the music as it is usually upbeat and catchy; the song repeats itself many times throughout the song such as cutting back to the chorus of the song and not really including much else. With a high production budget the music video is almost like a mini film with the intention to entertain the audience, by showing incredible things like Taylor punching though walls we can tell how exaggerated everything is to get the best reaction out of the viewers. We call tell that this is performance orientated by the way they use Taylor throughout the video as well as all the small cameos by other celebrities.

Camera Technique Camerawork is used in this music video to show that Taylor swift is the main focus. The camera follows Taylor throughout the music video which reinforces she is the star. When she walks through it usually concentrates on her feet or her face, although the camera is always focused on her. The camerawork has manipulated the shots to make the audience concentrated on her as many close-ups are used throughout, meaning the audience ignore the rest of the scene and only focus on Taylor.

Editing In the video Taylor has the most presence as she is the main character and it is her song, the whole story orientates around her. With the most screen time we can clearly see she is the most important/relevant. Editing in this music video matches the music meaning whenever there is a loud shout or when Taylor shouts “Hey” something corresponds with this is the music video. Meaning that when she does shout “hey” there is an explosion of fire that goes off. Also when the music begins to slow down then the video will also represent this by going into slow motion as well. However in the music video the rules of continuity are broken as there are not always smooth transitions or match of action.

Use of Digital Effects Due to this being a pop song the whole music video is exaggerated and focused on entertainment. We can see this through the use of digital effects; we can see this in one scene where a large fireball goes off in the background of all the starts of the music video. Due to this being too dangerous to of taken place in real life they have used digital effects to place the effect in after the filming.

Music Video Analysis – Harry Powell

This is the effect they have used and as you can see this would of been too dangerous to use in real life with the action celebrities being in front of the fire.