Katy Perry- Firework. Ten-Frame Analysis

 We see after the initial establishing shots, we are brought straight into a close-up of the singer. This establishes where our voice is coming from.

 The shot then changes to one from another angle, allowing us to see the singer from further back. In this shot we see her entire body and her surroundings once more. The use of light is important here, we can see subtle things such as her dress matching her to the colour of surroundings she is in. The contrast in light colour create an artistic and potentially symbolic scene to set the song in.

 We then return to a mid-shot of the main singer, taking us once again to a comfortable distance of her. We see the light shining from behind her, creating a hopeful setting and tone to match the words of the song. The song being filmed at night also matches the name of it 'Firework' as the focus of the song itself is light, a theme which we see throughout from the many different lights shown in each shot, especially the establishing shots.

 The lyrics at this point of the song are from the first verse:

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards one blow from caving in?

 We can see these lyrics reflected in the kind of shots being used at this point int the video. The song's focus at this point is very much on yourself as an individual. The singer is questioning how they may have felt at different points in their life. We can see the correlation between the lyrics and shots as we see the singer being shown from different perspectives and angles, perhaps reflecting insecurities and the focus on self-importance which the song seeks to address.

 We see the shot now retuning to a mid-shot after the previous close-up. This ties the sequence in together as the shot before the close-up had been a mid-shot, also. This mid-shot, however, is merely from behind the singer as opposed to front, once again highlighting the focus on the individual.

 We see a crane shot here, looking down onto the singer, also reflecting how high up she is. This relates to the lyrics again as there is a certain fear of breaking and the shots used reflect the vulnerability of the lyrics. We also see in this shot, another variety or scattered lights, a common theme in the video.

 We are then taken to a close-up shot of a young boy and his sister with parents fighting in the background. This starts off the song's narrative montage of different people in different situations all over the world feeling the way the song's lyrics dictate.

 We are now shown a different form of vulnerability, the vulnerability of the young. They are shown from behind, showing them as cut off from help, feeling trapped within this emotion. We do, however, see them having a similar eye line to the main singer in the shots. In doing so this is making both the main singer and the children share a sense of similarity and equality; giving the children a sense of significance and importance, something the singer seeks to make the song embrace.

 We return once more as a mid-shot of the main singer is used to cross-cut the story being told alongside. This breaks up the story into smaller chunks, maintaining a good pace and not lingering on one thing for too long, this ensures that the viewer's interest is held.

We then return to the brother and sister once more as their story progresses. We see Katy Perry uses examples of different people and different forms of insecurities in her video. Some of which we see later on being the insecurities of self-image and of life-threatening illness.

We can see that throughout this simple selection of ten frames from 'Firework' that the main singer is very much the focus of the video, constantly being cut back to along other narratives if they are present in the video. The use of close-ups are highly important, too, and the video content is also very much in relation to the lyrics of the song.