2. Lyrics
The first lyrics are “Baby now we’ve got bad blood”, the protagonist
Catastrophe (lead singer- Taylor Swift) is seen falling out of a smashed
window onto a car. This could be a symbolic sign to reinforce the words as
it makes the audience think of injuries. The lyrics ‘bad blood’ are also
shown on screen in red, which further reinforces connotations of injuries
and blood. She is also falling as a result of a fight or disagreement as she is
pushed, this reinforces the connotations of the phrase ‘bad blood’
meaning she now has a negative relationship with the supposed friend
Arsyn who pushed her out of the window. The next lyrics are “You know it
used to be mad love” which emphasises how they used to be really close
but aren’t anymore.
3. Lyrics cont.
Using the word “Baby” repeatedly could also signify that it is a love-hate
relationship between her and her friend, and so emphasises the narrative
in the story. One of the characters “Dilemma” punches the wall on the lyric
“love” which creates a contrapuntal sound as you would expect something
romantic to happen on the word “love”, and so this emphasises again how
Catastrophe no longer has a positive relationship with her friend. The lyrics
“Bad blood” are then repeated at the end of the song when the two former
friends go to hit each other, and so again emphasising the tension
between them.
4. Music and sound
The video starts with the diegetic sound of alarms, which could be used to
foreshadow something bad happening – when her friends betrays her.
There is also the pleonastic sounds in the fight scene to emphasise the
violence. There is then music that is unrelated to the actual song, to
compliment the fight scene, and so it is low in pitch and uses a lot of
technology to create the music so it compliments the fighting well. When
the music for the actual song kicks in, it is mainly electronic drums and so
the music sounds very simple, which allows the listener to focus on the
lyrics and what is going on in the video, and the music remains like this
throughout the song.
5. Genre/Mise en Scene
The genre is pop music,
At several moments in the video, there is a split screen/parallel
editing where members of the two opposing teams are
shown. The teams are represented as either dark (Arsyn’s
team) or light (Catastrophe’s team), through the use of colour.
Arsyn’s team are wearing a lot of dark clothing and have a
dark background, which has the connotations of evil, whereas
Catastrophe’s team have lighter clothing and a lighter setting,
which has the connotations of good, and the white
Catastrophe wears has the connotations of innocence and
purity. Catastrophe and her teams clothing choices are often
quite revealing, which could indicate that they are vulnerable
and likely to be hurt by Arsyn’s team who are fully covered by
their clothing and so seem more powerful.
6. Camerawork
Taylor Swift has prevalence and motivates the shots in this video due to this being her
song, and also in order to promote the song through its video by starring in it.
There are many close-up shots throughout that focus mainly on Taylor as she is the star
of this video. However, there are also many close-up shots and mid shots used when the
characters that the other famous celebrities play are introduced. This is used to show
the audience clearly that other celebrities star in this video, in the hope that the
audience would then recognise them.
An establishing shot is used to show both ‘Catastrophe’ and ‘Arsyn’s squads
approaching each other for battle. This is shown to be dramatic by both the fire in the
background and the amount of people there are involved in this battle.
There is also a pan when ‘Catastrophe’ is introduced to ‘The Trinity’, which is used to
show 3 ‘clone-like’ girls which all look the same that help her get equipped for training.
There also a series of long and establishing shots which set the scene at several different
points in this video.
7. Editing
There are a lot of special effects used in this video such as fire in the end ‘fight scene’. This is used to
dramaticise this scene and further emphasise the ‘bad blood’ between the two characters –
‘Catastrophe’ and ‘Arsyn’. In addition to this, there are special effects used to ‘clone’ the actress who
plays ‘The Trinity’ twice more so that appears to be 3 of her – or a ‘trinity’ of her.
Text has also been inserted throughout to give the names of the new characters that the audience
are introduced to.
Split screen is also used multiple times to show two different scenes at the same time.
Rapid editing is used in the boxing scene to show the quick pace of the match.
Slow motion is also used to allow the audience to focus on the action that is slowed down.
8. Narrative/Performance/Concept
The video is a mix of narrative and performance. Taylor lip-syncs looking into
the camera and performing for her audience quite a lot, however there is also
an underlying storyline. Taylor (Catastrophe) is betrayed by her partner Arsyn
(played by Selena Gomez), and so the two then go off and assemble a team,
to then come back to meet each other and fight. The simple storyline is easy
to follow and so this makes the video really effective as it doesn’t confuse the
audience by being too complicated.
9. Voyeurism
As shown in the screenshots from this music video, voyeurism plays a
major role in this video, and in pop culture today. Often women in
particular wear skin-tight, skimpy clothing (or a significant lack of it)
in order to capture attention of others in doing so. This video is
dominated by female characters, and pretty much all of them wear
skin tight or revealing clothing in order to attract a larger audience’s
attention. In this screenshot of Taylor Swift herself, she is wearing
nude coloured clothing (which creates an illusion of nudity) and also
thigh-high stockings which have sexual connotations attached to
them.
10. Star Image/Brand
Taylor Swift purposely causes controversy (in this video she is rumoured to
have copied a motorbike scene from the film Tron Legacy) in order to get
herself media attention, for example she started a ‘squad’ of fellow
celebrities to oppose other squads run by arguably bigger artists like
Beyoncé and Madonna.
She also famously writes a lot of songs about recent breakups, and makes
subtle comments about her ex in the song.
Both of these things cause her to be in the media quite a lot, and therefore
makes her more successful as it brings her to people’s attention so they
buy her music.
She also has a famous rivalry with former friend and fellow singer ‘Katy
Perry which is also used to fuel publicity. The song ‘Bad Blood’ is rumoured
to be about Swift’s feud or ‘bad blood’ with Perry, a great stir to gain
publicity from.
As this is Taylor’s song, she has prevalence and motivates the shots
throughout this video.
11. Intertextuality
There are lots of other celebrities in Taylor’s video, who are part of her
‘squad’. These include popular and current celebrities such as actor and
model Cara Delevingine, singer Ellie Goulding, model Gigi Hadid, singer and
actress Selena Gomez, model Cindy Crawford and actor and singer Zendaya –
to name just a few. This helps Taylor to become more successful because the
other celebrities’ fans will be more likely to watch the video and therefore
then buy the song as the celebrity that they like is in the video. This works in
both ways as this also serves as promotion for the other celebrities for
starring in Swift’s video – for example – Taylor’s fans going on to find out
more about them and check out their songs/films/merchandise etc as they
had seen them in the Bad Blood video.
