Before you go any further, please make sure you have completed all the 'lockdown lessons'. You can find an index of all the lessons set by clicking here.
If you have completed everything up to date, for today's task you will be completing another music video comparison. Just a little reminder: in the real exam, you may well be asked to compare a music video to another form of media. For example, in the 2018 exam, the question asked for a comparison between Formation and a Guinness Beer advert. However, no matter what you'll be asked to compare, there will be definite similarities.
Comparing representations
Task: Watch the video to Vossi Bop by Stormzy three times
Please note that the video has very strong language!
Task: As you watch it for the second and third time, make notes for this music video under the following headings:
- Codes and conventions – performance/narrative/experimental features
- Camera work (framing – shot types, angle, position, movement)
- Editing – beat-matched?
- Elements of continuity/montage
- How does the video interpret the music and/or lyrics?
- Structure/narrative
- Intertextuality
- Sound
- Mise-en-scene – colour, lighting, location, costume/dress, hair/makeup
Exam question: Compare the ideologies conveyed through the representations in the music video to Vossi Bop by Stormzy and Formation by Beyonce.
In your answer, you must
- consider how representations convey ideologies
- consider the similarities and differences in the ideologies conveyed
- make judgements and draw conclusions about how far social and cultural contexts affect the representations.
Task: compare the representations of black people and setting in the videos to Formation and Vossi Bop
Just like the last lesson, you have two options here:
Option one: answer the above exam question under timed conditions (you can give yourself 45 minutes)
or
Option two: answer the following questions briefly, perhaps using screenshots to draw comparisons between the videos
- What messages about black people are encoded in to the setting and mise-en-scene?
- How do the two videos use setting in similar ways to convey ideological and political messages?
- How do these music videos use binary oppositions?
- How can these music videos be seen as a response to postcolonial identity? (Check out the theories and theorists section!)
- How do these two music videos reflect the social and cultural context of America in 2016 and the UK in 2019?