Ed Sheeran - A Team

The music video 'A Team', is about a homeless women who has to become a prostitute to feed her drug addiction. It is one of my favourite music videos because it is a simple and effective way to tell a story that most people could achieve. The video looks like it is shot with a high quality handheld video camera, and uses London (unlike most other music videos that use special effects and surreal locations e.g. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance) as its setting. The camera shots usually consist of long shots and close ups, making the audience focus on the problem (homelessness), when usually people would just walk past. This is reinforced in the middle of the video when time is sped up, people are just walking by while the homeless girl sits still for hours. The video is also filmed completely in black and white, which backs the idea the singer is trying to portray (getting the audience to see the problem clearly). The editing in the video consists of cuts, and only at the end of the video does the image of the homeless girl (now dead) fade out, to leave the audience with the image and addressing the point of the video. Everything from the camera shots to editing and mise-en-scene are simple in the video, which I think reinforces the point the artist is trying to make. The point of the video is that it's trying to tell the story as simply as possible with no mixed messages and non-biased views, the audience are left with either the idea that society has driven her to becoming like this, or that her drug addiction was her fault and she should have gotten help. However, I feel the video is simple but effective, and is good inspiration for a music video project.