This video is in the country/pop genre and is has both a narrative and performance within it. The locations during the video are a school, an office and a library. This seems relevant to the track as it is call The Story Of Us. The narrative shows the relationship between a girl (Taylor Swift) and a boy and how it went from being a perfect relationship to an awkward one. For this scene they seem to be in a study hall at a school or college. It is day time which suggests that the song is upbeat and happy and it is. There are many good shots during these scenes. One especially good shot is where you can see the male in the for ground of the shot but there is a focus push to the female at the back of the shot. This shows that she is the focus of the frame and this is correct as she is the artist.
This happens several times in the video and usually it cuts to a shot of the male character afterwards. It is almost a shot reverse shot but the male character isn't aware of this so he is in the shot.
For the performance element of the video, there is a band and also the Taylor Swift but they are all in different locations. Taylor is in a library performing. There are many close up shots of her face along with medium long shots to show that she is in a library.
The shot above is a slow motion shot of her looking up and opening her eyes. This is put during an instrumental section between verses and also there is a similar shot at the beginning. Its not slowed down too much but just slightly. There are other shots which are also slowed down to contrast against the tempo of the song. One of these in a medium shot of Taylor Swift with a window behind her in which she is walking forwards. After this shot there is a similar shot of the male character which is also in slow motion. This scene is built up with several of these slow motion shots. Then, there is editing on the beat where during the chorus there are two clear beats wear the shots cut between the female and the male character.
The shots of the band playing their instruments are very quick and there are often cut in shots of the instruments or the faces of the band members.. The one below is an example.
Also within the storyline there seems to be a few side stories of other people within the study hall. There is one girl who falls asleep, one male who is pretending to drum wearing his headphone and another who is struggling with work and reading a book.
There are often shots which show the pages of a book which contain the lyrics to the songs also. These add to the library setting as it seems they have taken the word story to mean more than just a lyric. The idea of a fairy tale or story seems to dominate the music video, almost as if Taylor Swift is a damsel in distress and the male character a prince and therefore is going to save her. However, there is an unexpected twist at the end as the character don't end up with a 'happily ever after' so this links with the lyrics "The story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now". Another element which adds to the video feeling like a fairy tale is when between the chorus and the verse as she sings "Next Chapter!" a shot of a book page with the lyrics written on it is placed in the frame. This also happens at the beginning although it is not placed with lyrics, it just introduces the first verse with "Chapter One".
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