Video Rating: 4.5 out of 5
One of the first contemporary music videos I was attracted to was “Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry. I know, it’s kind of a girly video, but something about it spoke to me. A few months earlier, I had heard this song on the radio and pictured a similar storyline in my head. I was impressed with how the director had captured the true essence and feeling of the song into a simple video.
The video opens with Katy Perry and the “groom” character, a young man named Alexander, in a very bright church surrounded by family and friends. Everything appears to be going quite normally until the priest asks Alexander, “Do you take Katy to be your lawfully wedded wife?” As he is pondering his answer, the camera cuts to different shots of his facial expressions as well as the expressions of the crowd. I could almost feel the awkwardness of the situation spewing from the screen as he desperately tries to grapple with his answer. (Note: Video shown above does not contain the first scene with the vows. Unfortunately, it was the only version I could find on Youtube.) The essential element of this scene, however, is Katy’s expression as she looks off to the right while rolling her eyes in annoyance and then back at Alexander, letting him know exactly how she feels about his lack of decisiveness.
As the wedding party begins to sway in tune with the music and the church windows begin to flash bright red and purple, the camera switches views quite frequently and is wonderfully in sync with the music. One of the most humorous shots in the video is when the priest is seen in a “rapper-esque” pose glaring at Alexander as Katy is singing. As he makes a run for it, the whole wedding party begins to point at him and dance back and forth on cue.
During his main running scene, many random events happen. For example, when Alexander tackles a man in a hot dog suit and when Katy hijacks a bicycle from two girls who are assisting the helpless hot dog man.
Alan Ferguson directed the video, and his unique style definitely shines through in the scene when Katy is singing in a retro club with wild neon lights flashing a reference to an eighties style new wave music scene. This is by far my favorite scene in the video, specifically for its choice of color and shot selection.
The video also includes several scenes in which Katy is chasing Alexander with her rather disheveled “bridesmaids.” The makeup and the clothing fit the occasion very well and give the viewer an insight into the mind of the groom as he can almost feel the anger of Katy manifested into these horrific “zombie bridesmaid” characters.
The film also brilliantly uses product placement, further explaining how they acquired such a large budget. The first instance of this technique can be seen when Katy is performing in the new wave club proudly sporting “Diesel” sunglasses. The next especially obvious use of product placement is when Alexander pulls out his “Nokia” phone to find that he can’t escape Katy no matter how he tries. The last product placement that I noticed was in the hip-hop dancing scene towards the end of the video where Katy and her crew are sporting retro “Adidas” workout gear.
The ending of the film is very fitting when all three versions of Katy encircle Alexander as he collapses to the floor and she approaches him leading a zebra by a leash. This part in particular confused me for quite some time, but the best I could figure was that the zebra represented him and his non-committal nature, referring to the lines “it’s black and it’s white” used earlier in the song.
In conclusion, the script plays out very much like a dream sequence and at the end when we find out that it actually was a series of thoughts racing through the mind of Alexander, it all makes sense. This was a wonderfully well thought out video and I look forward to seeing many more from this director.
Johnny G
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