A lot more goes into creating music videos than one may think.  There are an overwhelming number of techniques that go into creating the perfect music video.  The director has a variety of camera angles, colors, shadows, gazes, etc. to choose from to portray the story correctly.  In Taylor Swift’s Blank Space music video, the director uses all of these techniques to tell the crazy love story of Taylor and her boyfriend.  In the Blank Space music video, darker and lighter colors, paired with other techniques, are used to set the tone of Taylor and her boyfriend’s relationship.  They are also used to create the character’s personalities.  Lighter colors can make us feel a sense of happiness when looking at an image. They help the viewer understand that their relationship is in a good place. While darker colors can make a picture seem scary or sad, giving us hints that Taylor and her boyfriend are not getting along. 

The first image (0:24) of Taylor Swift’s Blank Space music video uses dark colors and an extreme close up shot to create a very serious and powerful tone of Taylor’s character.  It is a shot from the very beginning of the video and is very important in setting up Taylor’s character’s personality.   This image is an extreme close up shot of Taylor.  By using the extreme close up shot, the director makes the image much more personal.  The viewer can see all of the details and emotion on Taylor’s face.  The background is even blurred and uses clear intensity, which makes the focus solely on Taylor.  Taylor is staring out with a straight face, which makes her come off as very serious.  Taylor is wearing dark red lipstick and dark makeup.  Red is an emotionally intense color that often is associated with power and danger, as well as love and desire.  The director uses the lipstick to give the viewer a hint that Taylor’s character is a powerful, yet dangerous woman.  The lipstick could also be used to show the desire Taylor is feeling for the man she is meeting in the scene.  The dark red lipstick, paired along with the dark eye makeup gives the image a powerful tone.  Taylor is also wearing black clothing.  Black is associated with power, so by having Taylor wear black the author is making her seem even more powerful.

The second image (0:49) shows Taylor and her boyfriend standing in front of a house on a stormy day with dogs.  The use of dark color, paired with the dogs and the almost bugs-view-like shot, in this image creates a mysterious and gloomy tone, almost hinting that something bad is about to happen in their relationship.  Both Taylor and her boyfriend are wearing black in this scene.  While black can be associated with power, it can also be associated with mystery and danger.  It gives the image at tone of mystery and suspense that something bad may happen.  The shot is purposefully taken from a lower angle so that the gray, cloudy sky can be seen in the background.  Gray is often a color of depression and mystery.  The use of this color gives the scene a more depressing, gloomy tone, as well as adding on to the mystery.  Gray clouds are often signs that a storm is about to come.  This could be foreshadowing that a “storm” or big fight may be about to come in Taylor’s romantic relationship.  The dogs that Taylor’s boyfriend is holding onto are an important part of this scene as well.  The dogs are black and dark brown, which play into the dark color scheme the author is using.  The breed of the dogs is Doberman pinscher.  This breed has a stereotype of being very strong, fierce, and sometimes mean. They often are associated with fighting, which could be foreshadowing of what is to come in Taylor and her boyfriend’s relationship.

In the last image (1:06), the author uses lighter colors in the characters clothing and the background, as well as includes horses, to evoke a happier tone to Taylor and her boyfriend’s relationship.  During this scene Taylor and her boyfriend are riding horses, and seem to be happy.  Taylor and her boyfriend are both wearing white.  The color white has a positive connotation and is often associated with purity and goodness.  By making the characters seem like good, innocent people, it gives the scene a happier tone.  This image contrasts the other images because it uses very light colors, where as the other images have been very dark.  The background is a light green color.  Green is a color of nature and safety.  By having the background green, the viewer can feel a sense of safety and security in Taylor and her boyfriend’s relationship in this scene.  Like the dogs in the last image, the horses play an important role in establishing the mood of the characters and tone of the scene.  Horses are a symbol of freedom because when riding horses people feel free.  More specifically, white horses symbolize the balance of wisdom and power.  By having Taylor and her boyfriend riding these horses, the director is creating the feeling that they do not feel like the relationship is holding them down yet; they still feel free and happy.  Their relationship is balanced with wisdom and power; no one is more powerful or controlling than the other.  

The three screenshots taken from Taylor Swift’s Blank Space music video all show a use of color, paired with other features, to establish the tone of the character’s relationship and build character’s personalities.  In the first two images (0:24, 0:49), the director uses dark colors, like black and grey, to give the scenes their tone.  The first image pairs dark colors with an extreme close up shot to give the Taylor’s character a powerful and serious personality.  The second image pairs the black color of Taylor and her boyfriend’s clothes with the dark gray sky, to create a mysterious and gloomy tone to their relationship.  Contrarily, the last image (1:06) uses light colors, like white and green, paired with the horses to give a happier tone and sense of stability in their relationship.  While color alone can be used to establish a tone, the director’s technique of pairing it with other techniques helps make the exact tone much clearer to the viewer.
