The One That Got Away – Katy Perry

Genre

•        Pop – focuses on the theme of love, in this case, loss of love.

Relationship between lyrics and visuals

•         The visuals amplify the lyrics and the idea that Katy Perry had a soul mate once upon a time, and then lost it.
•        The very beginning of the video, it shows an elderly version of Katy Perry with a husband. However towards the end of the video, it’s obvious that this husband isn’t the same man as the one shown in the majority of the video.
•        In another life, I would make you stay ­– the young man gets up from the bed, walking away from Katy Perry, suggesting a link between the two despite the lyrics actually painting a bigger picture.
•        We got matching tattoos – later in the video, it shows Katy Perry getting her tattoo.

Relationship between music and visuals

•        At 1:18, the beats in the music behind goes with the change of what’s on screen, flicking between a selection of different photographs.
•         Further into the video, each shot becomes longer and more lingering – for example, the shot of Katy Perry as an elderly woman.
•         The editing mostly matches the tempo of the music, and maintains quite a fast speed for the first half of the music – along with frequent scene changes and locations.

Close-ups of the artist and star image motifs

•         Katy Perry is known for having memorable videos. For example, Last Friday Night, E.T and Firework. All of which either include some incredible CGI or a story line that’s impacting and/or amusing. This is another one as it impacts the audience emotionally through the combination of lyrics and visual aids.
•        There are many medium to extreme close-ups of Katy Perry as the elderly woman and as her young self, highlighting how the emotion is etching on her face and supporting the narrative of the video.
•        The video has an underlying serious issue about losing someone you love, suggesting that Katy Perry may have gone through something of a similar sort (i.e. Russell Brand). This suggests that instead of her usual voyeuristic or comedic videos, she’s trying to send out a serious message to respect and cherish the time people have with their loved ones.

References to the notion of looking

•        There’s one reference with a few photographs of the young Katy Perry and guy that come on screen.

Intertextual references

•        There aren’t any.

Performance-based, narrative-based or concept-based?

•         It’s a narrative-based video as it starts with a shot of Katy Perry as an elderly woman, married to another man, and then proceeds on to show the tale of her lost love through flash-back type scenes.
•        The video is almost a little performance based as it shows Katy Perry performing towards the camera, and towards the elderly version of herself in a two shot.