Music Videos

 How do the representations in the music video to Formation you have studied and the video to Alright by Kendrick Lamar … show the values, attitudes and beliefs of the producer? You should make reference to:

• - How these beliefs are encoded through media language
• - Consider the similarities and differences in the representations
• - Make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the representations relate to relevant media contexts.

KNEE JERK REACTION:

Both of these music videos demonstrate the ideology of the producer to a massive extent. 

PLAN:

Mise-en-scene

Sound

Editing

Anchorage

Binary opposition

Stereotypes

Shot Type

Paul Gilroy - ethnicity and postcolonial theory 

Stuart Hall - Representation Theory 

Representations construct reality

Construction

Stereotypes reflect an imbalance of power

Othering

Digesis

Diegetic non diegetic

Codes and Conventions: Semiotics, Hermeneutic, symbolic, referential, proairetic

Hyperreality - Where the representation is more real than the thing it is representation.

Introduction: DAC ( DEFINITION, ARGUEMENT, CONTEXT)

Representations are the way in which something is re-presented by the producer in order to demonstrate their ideology and shape the ideology of the audience. Representations are constructed through the use of stereotypes. In this essay I shall argue that both the producers of the Formation and Alright music videos demonstrate their ideologies to a significant extent to construct representations of working-class black individuals. Through the essay I shall refer to the music video Formation by the multimillion record selling star Beyoncé, and the video to Alright by Kendrick Lamar.

Paragraph:

- Through the music video representations are constructed of black, working class individuals.

'Alright' begins with an establishing montage of high contrast black and white images rippling water and vast, empty seascapes. This bleak mode of address is further anchored through the slow based and miserable editing, that is further reinforced through the use of slow motion. This combination of elements construct the representation of deprived working class location, that established the key themes of the music video. 

A shocking hard cut to an almost abstract shot of the interior of a tunnel is emphasised through the diegetic sound of the performer screaming. We then cross cut an alarming worms eye view tracking shot of tall and imposing skyscrapers. The combination of these two images constructs a binary opposition and functions as a hermeneutic code, presents a deeply mysterious , confusing and upsetting mode of address.  This reinforces and emphasis the ideology perspective of the producer that presents a pessimistic and deeply anti racist consideration of the representation of the working class black communities in America. 

The video to alright constructs an almost unbearable sense of tension, with slow paced editing contrasting with sudden rapid fire montages that positions the target audience in a confusing mode of address. The final montage of a group of aggressive you ng black men drinking and fighting in a tunnel constructs an alarmingly stereotypical construction of black masculinity. The MES of ECUs of faces covered in blood combined.