Visual motifs are put intact precisely to allow for a personal and unique interpretation of something in text or film. Depending on what kind of unique visual motif is used, a viewer is influenced to believe in something from a specific perspective. Visual motifs make the reader or viewer become biased based on what visual effects are used.  Visual motifs are used frequently in today’s society, that’s why pop superstar, Beyonce Knowles, used her strong voice in her new music video, “Formation” to stance her opinion. The video is influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement which leads to controversy of police brutality. Beyonce creates her own meaningful color scheme to portray modern day issues through a specific perspective to see the issues a certain way.

Beyonce uses several different scenes to portray the racism and police brutality in today’s world. For example, the shot of the African-American child dancing in front of the police at 3:40 uses several visual motifs to demonstrate her objective. The video uses color to grandstand a perspective to viewers of Beyonce’s negative connotation of police brutality. The child in the scene is in all black where his face isn’t recognizable. The black outfit of the child shows the forgetfulness from society of how African-American’s are treated by police. The police are also in black with flashing blue and red lights in the background behind their ominous, yet superior figures. The flashing lights give the police power, and a sense of assumed entitlement. The flashing red and blue lights that the boy doesn’t have in his shot represents the African-American community when discussing police brutality. It shows that the African-American community is in the shadows of this issue. Ironically, this shot of the child and the police is the only shot that is blurred where we as viewers can’t identify the faces of any of them. The colors red, white, blue, and black are all used throughout the video in different ways. In this scene, the Black Lives Matter movement couldn’t be more apparent and is a big turning point in the video. Beyonce puts together these colors with the color black to hint at a social injustice of police brutality specifically in this scene. This underlying message of a vulnerable African American child opposing several white police officers could mean that society is oblivious to the deaths of African American’s at the hands of police. Another shot Beyonce uses to depict her message is the last frame of the video when she is shown on top of the police car in a body of water. She’s drowning in her red outfit that she is found wearing several times throughout the video. Color theory plays a significant part throughout the video. The scene is demanding us to think about what the colors of red, white, blue, and black have already meant throughout the video and make something of it in this last scene.  This ties into the scene of the child and the police showing the child as vulnerable towards the police. This association of colors persuades us to believe or feel a certain way about the topics at hand in this video. Beyonce is drowning in a sea of blue water, blue, being the symbolic color of police. She’s drowning on top of a police car where the color of the car is red, white, and blue, the patriotic colors of our country’s flag. An interpretation of this scene due to our experience of this video already could be that Beyonce is representing the African American community, and she’s drowning in a sea of blue water, on top of a police car that’s red, white, and blue, depicting another hint at the casualties of African American’s at the hands of the police. 

In the first scene mentioned of the child dancing, a bug’s eye view camera angle is used. The bug’s eye view camera angle is used to make somebody look bigger than they actually are in attempt to make object look superior. Bug’s eye view in this scene is used to make the child feel vulnerable and weak towards the sturdy and fierce police. We have the point of view of the police where they’re looking down at the boy to prove that they’re the dominant force in the shot. Shortly after that frame, there is a shot from the side of the police where the camera angle is looking down at the African-American as if they’re superior to him. As viewers, Beyonce wants us to believe that the police are representatives of their police community and the boy is a representative of his African-American community. Beyonce’s unstated message is she wants viewers to realize that police brutality and their feeling of power is overlooked by society when it shouldn’t be. If Beyonce didn’t think their power was overlooked then she wouldn’t have put the symbolic scene of the police and the boy in her highly touted music video. In the second scene mentioned, a medium shot is used to make the assumption of Beyonce drowning underwater and then they fade out into a long shot of the whole police car going under the water. The way this final scene is done is unique. There’s no flashy camera angles in this because they’re trying to be straightforward at the very end to let viewers digest what is happening at the end of this video. These camera angles piggyback the color scheme used to allow viewers to observe these issues through Beyonce’s lenses. The camera angles used sheds light on the social issues discussed in the video because of their purpose. Bug’s eye view created a sense of intimidation for the police and the medium shot allows the viewer to get a full sense of what the scene is showing.

The scene of Beyonce and the scene of the child and police are linked to one another in their usage of the collaboration of color and camera angles used. The scene of the unidentified child in front of the intimidating police is the start to the stance on the Black Lives Matter movement that we experience throughout the video. The repetitive visual motifs used of the color patterns and unique camera angles are a steady method to display the underlying theme and unstated assumption of the aggressive tone of the video. The motifs used in these two scenes give us as viewers a different perspective than the one we possessed before viewing the video. Seeing the intimidating police standing over the vulnerable child leaves us to believe in something different after viewing this scene. Lastly, the scene of Beyonce falling into the sea of blue water on the red, white, and blue police car is the icing on the cake for this video. It collides together each color used throughout the video to put it together in the last scene where ordinary camera angles are used to ease the possible confusion of the theme. These scenes pulled from the video plants a seed in the mind of viewers after watching because of the color patterns and camera angles used to discover a new meaning to this video and the modern day issues depicted. Beyonce knows exactly what she’s doing with her strong voice. She’s capable of speaking to the masses and using visual motifs to show her message and opinion of the social issues she voices in the video. The visual motifs Beyonce uses become quite evident to the viewer and gives the video much more life, and gives Beyonce’s message much fuller meaning. The visual motifs give the viewer newfound emotions towards the tough issues presented due to the specific perspective Beyonce creates for the viewer.