Textual Analysis: Ed Sheeran - "A Team"

Camera
The promo opens with a few extreme close ups on the song's protagonist to capture facial expressions. After a soft focus, it cuts to a mid shot of the protagonist (a young female prostitute) lying asleep on a bench, this emphasises the fact that she is isolated and lays down the foundation of the narrative for the audience. A soft focus is then used to blur the background and focus on the girl, this reinforces her importance to the narrative. After this, the busy London night life is shown to progress at incredible pace, whilst the girl remains in the same position with the frenetic traffic/pedestrians scurrying past her. This connotes that she has been ostracized by society. The girl is then shown applying her make up through an extreme close up, suggesting that she has two identities: one in which she is pure and innocent, and one which suggests she is hiding behind a mask and doing what she has to to earn a living and survive. Quite often, the girl is represented through the use of a high angle shot, which connotes that she is inferior.

Mise en Scene
During the opening scenes, the girl is dressed in clothes that are anything but exorbitant, and as the video progresses, she is shown to be more scantily clad. The entire video is represented through black and white to outline the simplicity of the matter, and evoke a sense of depression from the audience. Throughout the video the lighting is always dark, to highlight how extreme the issue actually is. The lighting creates a sense of foreboding right from the beginning of the feature. The video is set in the busy streets of London, the crowds of people not only add a sense of verisimilitude to the feature but also deprive the girl an identity which plays into the hands of the narrative.

Editing
A soft focus is employed in the video to shift importance and emphasise significant elements of the narrative. This is noticable when the protagonist is waiting at the bus stop, she is blurred and the background is visibly clear, however, the focus shifts and the background becomes more blurry until difficult to decipher, until all the emphasis is placed on the young girl, who is on her own and this adds connotations of vulnerability. At the beginning of the feature, a tracking shot is used to highlight the fact that the girl is the song's protagonist and she is the subject of the narrative. The vocals often dictate what happens in the narrative of the video, which is why standard cuts are used to jump to different obstacles/scenario the girl faces in daily life. Cuts and jump cuts constitute the majority of the video as it is an efficient way of including all the relative information in the song, which makes up the bulk of the narrative in the case of most music videos. Also, a monochrome effect has been applied as a post production technique which is somewhat of a commonality for more indie videos and is certainly something I will take into account to possibly incorporate into my own work.

Sound
The sound features the pre-recorded single "A Team" written and performed by Ed Sheeran, no post production sound effects are added to the video.