STYLE —- TAYLOR SWIFT

Taylor Swift is one of my favorite female singers and she has made some popular narrative music video, but this one: style, is somewhat darker and more abstract than Taylor Swift’s previous offerings. Said to be based on her relationship with One Direction’s Harry Styles, the video solely focuses on two people: Swift and a guy who specializes in looking sad in a variety of settings. While the song appears to be about an impossible relationship, the symbolism in the video points to something deeper.
After this music video publishing, it is found some scenes are similar to the drama “True Detective” ’s opening scene, which used silhouettes and double exposures. Some are just using projector to create the character overlapped.
As the budgetary constraints, it is really hard to give a number, but it could be around 1 million USD: Salary to the actor and all the staffs, camera and props, transport expense between different scenes, postproduction work and the visual effects processing fee.
The aesthetic qualities in this music video is optics. Use of rays plays a very important role in this music video. Some scenes seem to use the special effects, but it is all the good use of optics.
Indeed, the imagery of the video is not pure aesthetic: It has a profound psychological meaning. Many of the symbols used in the video are of great importance in the dark world of Monarch mind control, which is based on splitting the core personality through trauma.
Right from the start, the video indicates that what you are about to witness is happening inside Swift’s head. Swift’s head is symbolically “hollowed out” inside which appears her personality.

Mirror is another important role in this music video. Throughout the video, Taylor and the guy “mirror” each other. When the guy holds a mirror fragment and uses it to hide one eye, on the fragment is a reflection of Taylor Swift, maybe the other alter ego. So in the whole music video, they never see each other in real body.

The guy’s eyes in the music video are in different color (heterochromia), while this condition usually trivial, this video heavily focuses on it. It is yet another way of emphasizing the concept of split personality.

While the video “Style” can be interpreted as asimple succession of pretty images starring two beautiful people, an educated look at the imagery at hand reveals at deeper story. However, in the end of the music video, Taylor Swift meets a guy without telling the face, which leaves me a question, who is him?
I did not watch music video very often and narrative music videos are always much more attractive to me. The reason I like this music video is everytime I rewatch this music video, I can feel and find something new to me. For me, I have learnt few like the use of optics and now I trying to edit a video by using the knowledge from “Style”. Maybe I’ll copy first and then to make my own one.