Semiotic Analysis of a Music Video

Semiotic Analysis of Taylor Swifts music video Love Story.

Taylor Swift’s music video for her single Love Story has generic forms and conventions of a music video for a teenage love song sang by a teenage singer.
As Stuart Hall (1980) suggests the audience have been positioned to get a preferred reading of how they want the audience to understand the video, this reading can depend on a person’s social background and beliefs.

Mise-en-scene has been used to help create verisimilitude of the two world in which the video is set in. The first world is an American College and the second is at a castle in the country like in fairytales and like in the dreams young girls have about finding their prince.
Costumes have been used to create verisimilitude at the modern day college because the people are dressed in casual clothes and they have props such as bags and books, which you would usually think of as what college students would look like and have. In the castle scenes the main character is dressed in a wedding dress with a tiara and the man in an old fashioned suit, this shows her intention to marry him and for him to be her prince like in fairytales and this also fits with the love theme set throughout the video/song. In the other scenes where the people are dancing the women all have ball gowns on and the men old fashioned suits, like the ones in the films of Romeo and Juliet, which matches the lyrics of the song. The props used in castle setting help to show that it is supposed to be set in the past because they use candlelight at the dance and back then they wouldn’t have had electrical lighting as it wouldn’t have been invented; also in the garden they use lanterns for the same reason.
The lighting in the video is light and bright, this connotes happiness and love, which is the theme in the video. The colours used such as white connote purity and them being innocent teenagers who fall in love and want to get married.

Camerawork is used in the music video to create a variety of effects. At the very start of the video an establishing shot has been used to show the audience the location of the video is a modern day American college. There is then a medium close up of the main character in the ‘story’ and also the singer of the song, there is then a medium close up of the other main character in the video, which is they guy who is other half of the love story. When the location of the video changes to the castle, another establishing shot has been used to show the audience where the new location is but also to show a change in time as it goes back in time, this also helps them to understand the story of the video better. Throughout the video there are lots of close-ups of the singer Taylor Swift to show her emotion and what the song means to her. They have used the rule of thirds in this video when the guy is walking toward the girl through a crowd of people to show he is the main focus of that shot as he is in the centre of it. There is a crowd shot showing the room of people dancing, it then goes to and over the shoulder shot of the two main characters dancing together. Lots of high angled shots have been used in the video when she is singing, this makes her look vulnerable, which is associated with being in love.

Editing is used to help the audience understand the narrative. Throughout the video continuity editing is used to so the shots are linked together, however it uses non-continuity editing when it flashes to her dream of being like Romeo and Juliet. Simple cuts are used to link the shots together. Insert shots are used regularly to show Taylor Swift singing different parts of the song so the audience know that it is a music video. Having insert shots of the singer throughout the music video is a general code and convention of a music video. The 180 degree rule isn’t broken during the video apart from when a crane shot is used when they meet each other in the field.
The only sounds used in the music video is the music and the words to the song, these will have been put on after the video was filmed.

The target audience for this video is teenage girls and younger girls as this is stereotypicially what young girls always dream of; a handsome prince falling in love with them and then getting married, living in a castle with them and living like a princess happily ever after.

The video has many codes and conventions of a music video and also a love song. The words of the song have been used to create the story which has formed the music video. The video has been made to be like a girl’s dream of falling in love and getting married. It is a stereotypical love song music video as everyone in the video is happy all the way through and everyone lives happily ever after, there is also a marriage between a pretty girl and a good looking boy. The castle is also used to add to the girl’s dream.