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Analysis of music video

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Stirling Gibbons

1) The music video tells the story of a young homeless girl who turns to prostitution. Shots are simple and handheld to portray her sad life. 2) Colors are dull and black and white to show her depression. She is often alone in locations to emphasize her isolation. 3) Her clothing contrasts from homeless to dressed up, suggesting two personalities - the homeless girl and the prostitute. She sees herself extremely negatively.

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MUSIC VIDEO ED SHEERAN – A TEAM ANALYSIS
CAMERA ◼The first shot in this music video shows a young girl distraught at the death of what looks like her friend. Then you see the young girl she is looking at from her viewpoint, the camera shot zooms out, whilst it’s zooming out it goes out of focus. This suggests her death but also looking back at something. ◼From then it goes to a black screen and then to her lying on a bench in a park which is a flash back.
CAMERA ◼Throughout this music video there are extremely simple shots with no extreme techniques or editing transitions. Most of these look like they are handheld, I think this has been done to suggest that this is her life and nothing else but that. ◼There is a low angle shot where you are only able to see her duvet she is carrying and the holes in her stockings, from this angle it emphasizes what she has got, or in fact what she hasn’t got. ◼Another low angle shot shows her to be looking up at the sky, it makes her look lost and almost as if she is on drugs.
CAMERA ◼To show emotion, there are many close up shots within this music video. Most of them are to show her fear and despair. ◼Another way of doing this is by showing a time lapse where she is sitting/standing whilst the world goes by. This is to suggest her loneliness and how she’s got nothing.
MIS EN SCENE â—¼The colours in this music video are extremely dull showing the whole video in black and white. This has been done I think to portray her sad life and how depressed she is. â—¼One of the first locations you see is her in a large park, she is the only person in here and makes her look even more lonely and sad. â—¼There are also other locations where she is the only one there, again making the viewer focused on her but also portraying her isolation
MIS EN SCENE â—¼ Within mis-en-scene there is also contrast. The first being the clothing of the girl in the video. At the beginning she is on the streets with mascara under her eyes and a duvet around her, but then towards the end she is getting dressed up. This suggests that she has two personalities, the homeless girl and also the girl on the street corner (prostitute). This has an impact on the audience as it makes you think of homeless girls you walk by and if they also have to do this to make money. â—¼ The other contrast is her and the man she sleeps with for money. There is a shot where you can see the girl that was just on the streets in a large house.
REPRESENTATION ◼ The representation of homeless woman is society is extremely negative in this music video. The story that has been told in this suggests that the character has got herself in to this situation as she takes drugs and therefore is homeless. Also this is shown as she looks at her happiness when she gets the drugs at the end. ◼ However she is also shown to be innocent and scared when a car approaches her whilst working on the street. The headlights on the car show her to look like ‘a rabbit in the headlight’ ◼ The artist of Ed Sheeran is represented extremely positively in this video as he is shown to be the only one that goes up to the character to buy the big issue she is selling.
DOMINANT IDEOLOGIES ◼ I think there is dominant idelogies in this music video. Homeless people tend to be represented extremely negatively even if it isn’t there fault that they don’t have any where to live. Also society believes that all homeless/poor people are either alcoholics or drug abusers. In this video this is exactly how they are being represented. ◼ Also society is being negatively represented here as everyone completely ignores the character by walking past here, thus suggesting they are selfish and don’t care about the poor. I think this is unfortunately also a dominant idelogy.
AUDIENCE RECEPTION â—¼This was the artists very first song and therefore had to make an impact on the audience with the video to gain popularity and then gain sales. â—¼The video is now at 48million hits which is clearly a huge number, I believe this is very hard hitting and unusual to see for a music video as they normally tend to be happier than this. However I think because of how unique the video was it gained more and more views and gained Ed Sheeran fans and money.
THEORIES â—¼I believe the main theory this video applies to is Laura Mulveys male gaze theory. In this video the young poor girl is demoted to an object where she is sold for money. She is shown to be provocative clothing in this music video and therefore enhancing the gaze from males. â—¼Also within the music video it shows how she views herself, in this case extremely negatively. This is because she is degraded herself to be a prostitute and also at the end takes her own life.

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Analysis of music video

  • 1. MUSIC VIDEO ED SHEERAN – A TEAM ANALYSIS
  • 2. CAMERA â—¼The first shot in this music video shows a young girl distraught at the death of what looks like her friend. Then you see the young girl she is looking at from her viewpoint, the camera shot zooms out, whilst it’s zooming out it goes out of focus. This suggests her death but also looking back at something. â—¼From then it goes to a black screen and then to her lying on a bench in a park which is a flash back.
  • 3. CAMERA â—¼Throughout this music video there are extremely simple shots with no extreme techniques or editing transitions. Most of these look like they are handheld, I think this has been done to suggest that this is her life and nothing else but that. â—¼There is a low angle shot where you are only able to see her duvet she is carrying and the holes in her stockings, from this angle it emphasizes what she has got, or in fact what she hasn’t got. â—¼Another low angle shot shows her to be looking up at the sky, it makes her look lost and almost as if she is on drugs.
  • 4. CAMERA â—¼To show emotion, there are many close up shots within this music video. Most of them are to show her fear and despair. â—¼Another way of doing this is by showing a time lapse where she is sitting/standing whilst the world goes by. This is to suggest her loneliness and how she’s got nothing.
  • 5. MIS EN SCENE â—¼The colours in this music video are extremely dull showing the whole video in black and white. This has been done I think to portray her sad life and how depressed she is. â—¼One of the first locations you see is her in a large park, she is the only person in here and makes her look even more lonely and sad. â—¼There are also other locations where she is the only one there, again making the viewer focused on her but also portraying her isolation
  • 6. MIS EN SCENE â—¼ Within mis-en-scene there is also contrast. The first being the clothing of the girl in the video. At the beginning she is on the streets with mascara under her eyes and a duvet around her, but then towards the end she is getting dressed up. This suggests that she has two personalities, the homeless girl and also the girl on the street corner (prostitute). This has an impact on the audience as it makes you think of homeless girls you walk by and if they also have to do this to make money. â—¼ The other contrast is her and the man she sleeps with for money. There is a shot where you can see the girl that was just on the streets in a large house.
  • 7. REPRESENTATION â—¼ The representation of homeless woman is society is extremely negative in this music video. The story that has been told in this suggests that the character has got herself in to this situation as she takes drugs and therefore is homeless. Also this is shown as she looks at her happiness when she gets the drugs at the end. â—¼ However she is also shown to be innocent and scared when a car approaches her whilst working on the street. The headlights on the car show her to look like ‘a rabbit in the headlight’ â—¼ The artist of Ed Sheeran is represented extremely positively in this video as he is shown to be the only one that goes up to the character to buy the big issue she is selling.
  • 8. DOMINANT IDEOLOGIES â—¼ I think there is dominant idelogies in this music video. Homeless people tend to be represented extremely negatively even if it isn’t there fault that they don’t have any where to live. Also society believes that all homeless/poor people are either alcoholics or drug abusers. In this video this is exactly how they are being represented. â—¼ Also society is being negatively represented here as everyone completely ignores the character by walking past here, thus suggesting they are selfish and don’t care about the poor. I think this is unfortunately also a dominant idelogy.
  • 9. AUDIENCE RECEPTION â—¼This was the artists very first song and therefore had to make an impact on the audience with the video to gain popularity and then gain sales. â—¼The video is now at 48million hits which is clearly a huge number, I believe this is very hard hitting and unusual to see for a music video as they normally tend to be happier than this. However I think because of how unique the video was it gained more and more views and gained Ed Sheeran fans and money.
  • 10. THEORIES â—¼I believe the main theory this video applies to is Laura Mulveys male gaze theory. In this video the young poor girl is demoted to an object where she is sold for money. She is shown to be provocative clothing in this music video and therefore enhancing the gaze from males. â—¼Also within the music video it shows how she views herself, in this case extremely negatively. This is because she is degraded herself to be a prostitute and also at the end takes her own life.