Ghost Town MV csp

 The Specials - Ghost Town: Blog tasks

Background and historical contexts

Read this excellent analysis from The Conversation website of the impact Ghost Town had both musically and visually. Answer the following questions

1) Why does the writer link the song to cinematic soundtracks and music hall tradition?

It’s not explicitly against any one event.

2) What subcultures did 2 Tone emerge from in the late 1970s?

Mod and punk

3) What social contexts are discussed regarding the UK in 1981?

Riots

4) Cultural critic Mark Fisher describes the video as ‘eerie’. What do you think is 'eerie' about the Ghost Town video?

Monochrome colour scheme and very lowkey lighting.


5) Look at the final section (‘Not a dance track’). What does the writer suggest might be the meanings created in the video? Do you agree?

Now read this BBC website feature on the 30th anniversary of Ghost Town’s release. 

1) How does the article describe the song?

2) What does the article say about the social context of the time – what was happening in Britain in 1981?

3) How did The Specials reflect an increasingly multicultural Britain?

4) How can we link Paul Gilroy’s theories to The Specials and Ghost Town?

5) The article discusses how the song sounds like a John Barry composition. Why was John Barry a famous composer and what films did he work on?


Ghost Town - Media Factsheet

Watch the video several times before reading Factsheet #211 - Ghost Town. You'll need your GHS Google login to access the factsheet. Once you have analysed the video several times and read the whole factsheet, answer the following questions: 

1) Focus on the Media Language section. What does the factsheet suggest regarding the mise-en-scene in the video? 

The mise-en-scene of the Ghost Town video uses the style of British social realist films. This genre is characterised by sympathetic representations of working-class men, the highlighting of bleak (often urban) environments and a sense of hopelessness.

2) How does the lighting create intertextual references? What else is notable about the lighting?

The mise-en-scene of Ghost Town also makes use of a visual style that borrows from expressionist cinema. (see example in image). In the car, the band are lit eerily by a limited interior light source and what looks like a handheld torch to light the faces of those in the back from a low angle. This is a highly effective low budget filmmaking technique suited to the aesthetic.

3) What non-verbal codes help to communicate meanings in the video?

Non-verbal codes play a memorable role in contributing to the atmosphere of the video. The singing of the song with expressionless faces and direct mode-of-address with zombie-like, stiff body movements are suddenly relaxed in the manic middle section.

4) What does the factsheet suggest regarding the editing and camerawork? Pick out three key points that are highlighted here.

The band are physically crammed into the car and all appear in frame lip-syncing to the song. They are shown as an ensemble within one frame in many shots, reinforcing their togetherness, but also that they are in a confined space which could signify overcrowding and tensions in urban communities.

5) What narrative theories can be applied to the video? Give details from the video for each one.

Todorov

Equilibrium The band setting off together looking for

something to do, accompanied by the eerie

diegetic sound and the green traffic light,

an arbitrary sign that things are being set in

motion.

Disruption This could be seen as the bleakness and

emptiness of the streets because,

‘Bands don’t play no more – too much fighting

on the dance floor’.

Recognition Could be identified as the upbeat break in the

middle of the song that contrasts times gone

by with now:

‘We danced and sang, and the music played in

de boomtown’.

Attempt to repair The is the continued aimless drive, the

shadowy figures and ghostly conflicts

encountered in the car chase style scenes.

New equilibrium Their bleak arrival at

6) How can we apply genre theory to the video?

Neale’s approach to theorising genre tells us that genres hybridise. Ghost Town is an example of how music videos often borrow from different cultural reference points. As discussed, the visual aesthetic for Ghost Town draws strongly on two cinematic influences - expressionist cinema of the 1920s and the social realist mode of film-making that began in the 1960s.

7) Now look at the Representations section. What are the different people, places and groups that are represented in the Ghost Town video? Look for the list on page 4 of the factsheet.

The video represents a number of different ideas, locations and groups including ‘Thatcher’s Britain’, the city, urban youth, race and masculinity.

8) How can Gauntlett's work on collective identity be applied to the video?

Gauntlett suggests that media texts may offer us a sense of collective identity, by being an audience member and finding things in common with others via our shared tastes. In this sense the song and video nurture a sense of male collective identity, and shares the experience of trying to negotiate identity.

9) How can gender theorists such as Judith Butler be applied to Ghost Town?

These musicians seem to be ‘performing’ the structures of patriarchy which include brotherhood, camaraderie and male solidarity.

10) Postcolonial theorists like Paul Gilroy can help us to understand the meanings in the Ghost Town music video. What does the factsheet suggest regarding this?

The video challenges the notion of in-groups and out-groups by mixing ethnicities and focusing more on social class and the bonding potential of music.

Black musicians, as part of a music industry in the UK which was controlled by the white majority, had limited control in terms of self-representation and were often side-lined in bands which were multi-ethnic.