Failed relationships/weddings in a music video

Behind These Hazel Eyes – Kelly Clarkson•In the music video by pop singer Kelly

Clarkson Behind These Hazel Eyes, has a music video containing of a wedding that was created from a failed relationship

•for instance near the start when she sings the first verse, we see the singer getting dressed in a wedding dress in a room with high key lighting, starting very positive

•She also sings about how she was once a happy person, which is probably why the start looks so happy "I used to stand so tall I used to be so strong"

•However this ‘happy’ wedding fantasy dramatically changes when we actually see the wedding take place

The Intro• However the introduction already sets the mood of the song by

having Kelly have a separate performing place but in a dark woods.

• Kelly uses an eyeline match to really show she’s trying to convey to the audience her feelings

• We also see establishing shots of the sinister church again, creating this dark atmosphere

• In the woods where she performs, she uses an eye line match with a ‘rock’ band behind her

• The shots of the band are in slow motion to make it more dramatic

• There is a shallow focus on the close up shots of Kelly to make her stand out

• The mise en scene also has an autumnal theme, creating the idea of decay, death and setting the performance in the woods could suggest how fairy tales aren’t real as a lot of them are taken place in the woods or a forest

•In the mise en scene, she isn’t wearing her white wedding dress but she’s wearing black which suggests darkness and sadness

•The location changes as we see her in a church but it has fairly low key lighting making the church seem more sinister creating a darker mood. This suggests how the wedding is not a happy one and possibly that this man left Kelly for the woman he’s about to marry

•As Kelly sings the first chorus ‘behind these hazel eyes’ we see the woman in the wedding dress looking directly at the camera with a stone cold face

•This makes her seem heartless•In the mise en scene the woman ironically

has brown eyes and brown hair unlike Kelly Clarkson with blonde hair and ‘hazel eyes’ to show the strong contrast between an innocent character and a bitchy character

•Similarly like the bride, the groom also has jet black hair and dark eyes to show he’s just as dark as the bride and sort of villainous

•We see a lot of shots of the drummer whenever the drums have a more dominant sound in the song, giving the illusion how it’s not a pop song but more of a rock song

•In the second verse we see Kelly run out of the church in her wedding dress confusing the audience as she wasn’t getting married in the scene during the chorus

•In the mise en scene it also starts to rain when she says “behind these hazel eyes” possibly indicating her tears and her destructive emotion

•It is then revealed to us that she is about to get married but the woman who was in the previous wedding scene is making flirty signals to him to indicate he’s cheating on Kelly with ‘the other woman’

•Kelly is still singing while at the wedding to show how outside of the relationship she is, since no one else is noticing her singing, having her have more of an objective identity

•However there is a scene where she chucks the flowers at ‘the other woman’ making her more involved in the narrative even if she’s still singing

•There then is cross cutting between her performance in a wedding dress while its raining

•The narrative where she stops singing and runs away from the wedding

•And the performance with the band in the woods

•The scene in the wedding of her running away is in slow motion, making it more cinematic creating a bigger impact on her running out of the wedding

•As she’s running down the aisle she returns to singing again

•At the very end of the video, is the first time we see some light when she’s opened the doors

•This is to suggest she’s finally found some light/hope leaving the groom and reinforces her innocence