hello and welcome to my easy to understand guide to the specials music video ghost town this music video is going to be particularly relevant for you if you study aqa a level media studies as it is currently one of the optional set texts on that specification the video starts off with lots of low angles of urban settings which sets the scene for the audience we get lots of tracking shots through the streets which really helps us to work out that this is london it's immediately recognizable to a lot of audiences we're seeing london from a variety of perspectives so we see lots of working class style smaller buildings and run down areas and we see lots of tall tower blocks that perhaps look a little bit more um upper class what is unusual is that there's no people london is obviously a very busy uh town with a lot of people who live and work there and so seeing the town and the streets empty is very unusual and it adds this kind of quite creepy isolated abandoned feel to the video we get a shot through the exterior of the car through the windscreen so that we can see the people inside it we can see that there are seven people in the car uh there's a mixture of races which has this feeling of kind of diversity and because they're all crammed into this car adds this sense of like friendship and community like they're part of quite a tight-knit group they've got quite serious facial expressions that seem quite sad which fits in with the vibe of the song it feels quite lonely and sad the overall tone of the video um is is quite depressing so it's really important to understand the context of this video to understand why it's all represented like this so um back in the 80s uh when margaret thatcher was prime minister we had this idea of um there was a huge period of really high unemployment and poverty uh in britain all over britain in fact um and the people that were most affected by this tended to be young men um and in particular young black afro-caribbean men because there was a lot of poverty at the time there was a huge increase in crime um you know the streets became quite violent there was a lot of rioting and protests and men became particularly angry and disillusioned they'd had jobs and they could no longer work and they couldn't provide for their families and so young men became really angry and there wasn't really there weren't really any artists at the time that had represented this anger and this feeling of isolation in a music video and the specials then brought this video out and it really resonated with audiences because it allowed them to identify with a lot of the issues that they were facing there was a summer of riots in in 1981 where people were rioting and protesting against the way the government had kind of run the country and against the police and they just wanted to have their voices heard and that's when this video kind of came out and it was this idea representing the idea of young males um rebelling young males rioting and being angry and showing that they're angry and and complaining and saying this life isn't what i want it's not what i had and i want the old life back there were also some new laws introduced in the early 1980s um called stop and search laws which were laws that enabled the police to basically stop anyone um if they thought they looked suspicious and what happened was that um many people felt that the police were abusing these laws and using them primarily to stop people who were black many mainstream news outlets and many people blamed immigrants at the time in particular young black men for taking the jobs uh and causing unemployment and it caused a lot of friction um within society in britain where there was a lot of racism and xenophobia anti-immigration propaganda a particularly racist political party the national front at the time actually started marching and and trying to drum up support blaming immigrants blaming black people for the poverty and the crime and the unemployment that was around at the time it reflects the anger that people felt it reflects the problems that people had but rather than reflecting the racial discrimination and divide that was being encouraged in the mainstream media this video shows racial harmony and implies that these problems are faced by everyone and that there wasn't necessarily a racial group to blame but more of a political party to blame the specials were known as a really kind of diverse quirky band so um they were friends um you know they'd worked together before having a mixture of both white and black singers within the band which was i guess quite unusual and and often still is within certain genres of music and they also mixed together like different genres from different cultures as well so they often had like british punk rock which was quite popular in that sort of early 1980s period but mixing it with like a sort of scar influence like jamaican music and also mixing it with a kind of new wave music that was coming in in the 80s as well so a real hybrid genre song and music video so very unconventional in terms of other bands and what was happening in mainstream music but the specials were not mainstream they were alternative and that is why you get this mix of ethnicity and you get this mix of culture and you get the mix of like a jamaican influence and british punk rock and scar and new wave so there's a reason why they combine all these genres and it's because of their interest as abandoned and how they came together and their friendship it becomes quite fast paced at points so the editing cuts quite quickly there's lots of canted angles and handheld shots lots of close-ups on their faces and they look quite crazed in their facial expression and this creates the idea of kind of chaos and rebels breaking the rules and being you know daredevils exciting and a bit wild the car is swerving all over the place which makes them seem quite dangerous as well so this creates quite a kind of wild situation where the audience is perhaps expecting them to crash or you know concerned that they're doing something dangerous some audiences might be quite engaged by this because uh you know they might quite like this idea of being rule breakers and not conforming let me get a lot more kind of an upbeat section where they're kind of dancing within the car um and it's quite comical um you know they're describing them the boomtown era so they're talking about um a better time when london was much more exciting and bustling and filled with people and jobs and actually you get a difference in the um color balance so where they've color graded the shots the shots here are a lot warmer whereas before they were a lot cooler so the cooler colors made it feel more depressing and now in this scene here they feel more warmer so when they're talking about the past it adds this idea of like nostalgia and they're they're warmly looking back over how london used to be in the shot of the alleyway we get very low-key lighting and lots of long dark shadows the colors go back to being quite blue and that creates quite a bleak representation of the town it feels very dangerous and you're seeing um you know this idea playing on the idea and the stereotypes of male aggression and masculinity being dangerous and aggressive the camera tracks past sort of abandoned cars and this idea of vandalism um and perhaps this links into the idea of poverty and the lack of jobs that were around at the time this idea that crime often occurs in those situations we see a lot of shadows here lots of haunting shadows in the car itself of the car uh silhouettes and shadows of people in the alleyway and this idea that perhaps all we're seeing now are shadows of people left behind um so again kind of adding to this theme of london becoming like a ghost town and being abandoned all that's left are the ghosts and no actual people and then we go back to the car swerving and the fast-paced editing they've got no seat belts on very naughty um which again adds to this kind of wild rebellious feel but as the car um is swerving all over the place and you know flying around basically the men are going all out of their seats and flying all over the car but it's this idea that it's dangerous but they're not afraid they don't seem scared by this so adding to this representation that they've been kind of worn down and beaten by this um this town and the situation in it so that they're no longer even scared they're just tired and then we get this kind of spinning rotating shots with blue lighting it's really disorientating for the audience um we get reflections of the car going past which has this idea that their life is passing them by um we then see them throwing stones in the river thames which again is quite a young you know immature thing to do maybe this idea of throwing stones into a river um this idea that men have nothing else to do and and that again reflective of the time period you know that perhaps reflects this idea of a lack of job opportunities you know the fact that these men are young and bored and angry and they just want something to do and then we get this kind of siren like noise um it's like it feels like the wind it almost feels like a police car as well so um it makes it feel again desolate abandoned so the wind is whistling through but if you do interpret it as a siren like a police car again it links to this idea of crime and and law so all together the video really representing britain and london as being you know an abandoned isolated desolate place that has been left to rot essentially by the government and representing young men as being angry and aggressive and violent and again that's typically a typical stereotypical representation of men and masculinity but it's it's there because it represents how young men really did feel in the 1980s as a result of a lot of political decisions that were being made at the time so that was my easy to understand guide to ghost town by the specials don't forget to hit subscribe um if you would like some more videos for aqa or indeed any of the other exam boards ocr educast at both gcc or a-level and if you've got any comments you can leave a comment below and i'll answer your questions