Literal videos

Some people had a brilliant idea and made these literal music videos where they replace the original song with a song about what is actually going on in the video. I think this Penny Lane one is hilarious. Perhaps the pupils could try this with a video of their choice...?

Video from youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yJ2yWvGnkI

Analyse a music video

Working with film in the English-class is interesting and useful, but it is also very time-consuming simply due to the length of most films. It is therefore difficult to make time for more than 3-4 films during a one-year English course. Furhtermore, since we seldom or never take time to see a film more than once, we are unable to look as closely at the genre as we sometimes might want. Music videos are shorter, but may give students a good opportunity to practise their ability to analyse, interpret and assess multimodal genres. We are analysing music videos in Norwegian class right now, but it is also a task suitable for the English subject. If you would like your students to analyse a music video I have published a step-by-step assignment here: Analyse a music video One can of course find videos for the students, but I think they have more to say if they can choose a video they like. An old classic that caused a lot of stir when it was released is Madonna's hit video "Like a prayer". Analyse this: