DECLAN WHITEBLOOM

Declan Whitebloom was born and raised in London and came from a family obsessed with films. His elder brother was one of the seminal music video &

commercial directors of his day and he spent much of his formative years ‘on set’ absorbing the process. Declan started from the ground up, working in

every department till he found his initial calling. After a few years with Bob Girladi’s editor he struck out on his own editing hundreds of music videos, he was finally offered the opportunity to actually direct his first music video. He described the transition as if a light had gone off, saying that as soon as he

‘got behind the camera’ he knew he didn’t belong in editing. Now 3 years on Declan has become a succesful video and commercial director with his videos

for Taylor Swift, One direction, Sugarland, The Fray and many others.

BIO

Though Declan has a variety of styles within his music videos, his consistent

collaboration with Taylor Swift shows a repetitive style that was clearly created

between the two of them. When in an interview both Declan and Taylor said

that together they agreed on the ideas they would each bring up and it was

very much a team effort between the artist and director to create the music

video. The style is quite childlike, to appeal to the teenage girls that Taylors

music would mostly draw in, both the video and lyrics itself portray a theme

of teenagers ‘first love’ and shows the complications teenagers go through

with this in a very creative and positive way. The quirky, unique videos are

something of a trend with young artists these days as they appeal to the right

audience.

STYLE

TAYLOR SWIFT – WE ARE NEVER

GETITNG BACK TOGETHER

This video presents the many different feelings that the stereotypical teenage girl would go through with her ‘first love’ ending badly. The video shows the split between fantasy (by dressing the band as woodland creatures and being

set in a forest at parts) and reality (which is shown with her in her pyjamas, in her bedroom) this split enhances lyrics such as ‘I used to think that we were forever’ which is very much like the fairytale ideology that a relationship will last ‘happily ever after’ and then the lyrics and video both show the reality of

the ‘first love’ ending unexpectedly. Though this video is not like all of Whiteblooms other music videos, it is his joining with swift and her ‘country’ style music that has allowed them to create this interesting ‘storybook’ music video. The storybook is the way that the video is all one shot, and the use of props ie. The bed standing up when she is on the phone that make it look as if the pages of a book are being turned – the pictures are what make it look

fairytale-like.

VIDEO ANALYSIS