Ed Sheeran A Team Music Video Analysis

The music video begins with a shot of a female character looking down on the main character’s body, leading to a high angle, close up of the main character’s face. This character is a young girl, with her eyes open and a pale face. The audience automatically assumes that this character is dead, leading to a narrative enigma as the audience will be asking questions as to what’s happened to this character.

Throughout the music video, we establish that the character’s clothing tends to be ruined and worn, such as ripped tights; along with her carrying a sleeping bag with her or wearing a long coat. The ripped tights may be in reference to the way that the character herself is emotionally damaged/torn. The sleeping bag suggests that the character is homeless or sleeping rough, explaining the narrative of her having a rough and hard lifestyle.

Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory can be applied due to the voyeuristic treatment of the character’s body within the camera shots. Although the theme of prostitution isn’t over emphasised, it is still established within the mise en scene and camera shots.

The character is shown wearing a revealing top and applying lipstick; followed by the shots of her waiting on a dark street for a car to pull up. The male gaze theory is further applied in ways such as the shot of the car pulling up to the character, with the headlights emphasising her bare legs and heels she is wearing, in the dark, cold weather.

The way that the lights beam onto the character’s face, could be a reference to the phrase ‘a light at the end of the tunnel.’ In terms of how this light is the cause of how she will earn her money.

Within the mise en scene, the hotel room which the main character arrives in with the driver of the car, represents this character to be wealthy. This is shown with the long, clean hallways and the male character wearing a shirt. The female character juxtaposes this mise en scene, as she is shown to conform the stereotype ideologies of female prostitutes; with her ripped tights, skin showing and dark make up. The theme of prostitution supports the connotation of the clothing she wears, which suggested she was ‘damaged’ and ‘torn,’ as she would make herself vulnerable and sell her body in order to make money.

Ed Sheeran isn’t shown in the music video until over 1-minute in. In this video, he has portrayed himself as an average, normal character, where he is not in the spotlight of his video. This could be to express how although he is an A list celebrity; that he is not superior to others. It also helps to portray the idea that the female character’s story and problems are extremely important, representing equality, and not distracting the audience’s attention away from the main narrative.

Levi Strauss’ binary opposition theory can be applied when looking at this music video in terms of narrative. The opposition between life and death is represented. This is shown at the beginning of the video featuring the female character who we believe is dead. However, this then cuts to the narrative of the video showing how the character is trying to earn money in order to survive and get by day after day, representing her style of living. This is further juxtaposed with the way that we see that she is getting by through her addiction of drugs, which we are then led to believe is the cause for her death.

The opposition between black and white is shown throughout the video also. The overall video is shown in black and white, to begin with. The black and white effect could be to represent the emotionless, hard lifestyle which the character has. The way that the video isn’t in colour also draws the audience’s attention towards the main narrative of the video, along with listening to how the audio/technical codes links the lyrics with the video. This causes the viewer to feel sympathetic towards the characters in the story.

The binary opposition of black and white is shown with the song lyrics. The lyrics quote the word ‘angels’ many times, suggesting white and purity. However, this representation of the colour white could be juxtaposed as it may be in reference to the drugs and addiction.

The overall video shows darker colours. Her make up is dark, along with her clothing, as well as many of the scenes being shot at night-time. This juxtaposes the white connotations as the black colours could possibly suggest danger or death.

Barthes 5 codes could be applied in the music video. The hermeneutic code is applied when the beginning of the video creates a narrative enigma, as the audience believes the character is dead, but is left asking questions.

Barthes’ symbolic code is applied within the mise en scene. There are candles shown in the music video, when the female character has her drugs. This could be a religious reference, symbolic towards hope and possibly forgiveness for the ways she has lived her life, in hope to make a better life.

The symbolic code is applied with the shot of the female character stood with her arms stretched out. This could be in reference to her wanting freedom or to ‘fly away,’ or further religious references to the idea of her being an angel, or possibly wanting God to ‘take her away.’

When looking into the technical and audio codes, there is a generic convention with the song lyrics linking in with the narrative of the music video. The lyrics refer to it being cold, quoting lines such as ‘it’s too cold outside, for angels to fly,’ as well as phrases used such as ‘breath in the snow flakes.’ The first shot we see of the main character is where we believe she’s dead. The ‘snow flakes’ will be a reference towards her addition to cocaine.

However, the pale face female character which we believe to be dead at the beginning of the story could be a possible reference towards how she is metaphorically numb to a cold world. ‘It’s too cold outside’ could be to suggest the idea of society being cold and hard on the female character, leading her not to be able to have a better life, resulting to her addiction with drugs.

The lyrics mention ‘angel’ often. This is shown in the video with the shot of the train station being called ‘Angel Station,’ followed by a panning shot of a sign saying ‘improving the angel.’ This is further religious references towards the female character being an ‘angel.’ This could be suggesting the idea that although the character has a bad lifestyle, the character is an innocent, pure character who has let the addiction get the better of her, referring her to an ‘angel.’

The camera and editing techniques shows the main character always in focus in opposition to the people and setting around her. Also, when looking at the shots in terms of the rule of thirds, majority of the shots, the female character is centred where the horizontal and vertical axis’ meet, where the audience’s attention would be drawn towards. This is an antithesis to reality. Although the character is in focus with the camera, in real life she is out of focus to the world, as the ‘cold’ society pays no attention to her.

The editing technique with the time lapse in the video, showing her stood still, in the centre focus of the camera shot, can be a reference to how time is moving on and everyone is moving on with their lives; however, her life is seeming to be wasting away and not progressing.