A-Team music video analysis

Tom Smith

Narrative StructureThe A-Team music video has a narrative structure to it. This is because the actions in the video follow the lyrics which gives them more meaning. The video shows the life of a girl who is portrayed as the subject of the song, firstly showing her dead and then flashing back to see how she got to this point in a sort of circle; starting off with her dead, the going back to a point where she is alive and showing what led to her death, and then showing her dead again. In addition to this, the structure of the video can interpreted as non-linear, as it presents a series of flashbacks starting from an end point, with the beginning in the middle and the end being almost repeated at the end of the video. In contrary to this, there could also be an argument that the video begins to move into a linear structure; as the images we see of her building up to her death are shown in the order they might have happened. Finally, another structure which could be applied to this is the single strand theory, where the video focuses entirely or mainly on one character in the video. This applies to The A-Team, as the majority of the video shows the life and end of a girl who is struggling.

Beginning

End

Andrew Goodwin's Music Video Theory

Firstly, Ed Sheerans A-Team does not fit in with the star image theory. Ed Sheeran is not the main focus of the video, although he does appear in several scenes in the video, in each of the he represented as a passer by or stranger to the main character. Some might argue that this is part of his star image, and they see him as just another person who happens to be able to sing. Similarly, I would argue that this is part of Ed Sheerans star image, but rather than him being another person I would say that his star image is represented more in his music and not his appearance, which is why you hear him more than you see him. The A-Team video does follow some generic conventions, there is some sort of correlation between the video and the song. For example, the beginning of the song signifies the beginning of they day at the start of the video. The contrast between black and white creates emphasis on just how lonely and empty the girls life is, which ultimately leads up to her being dead. Thought through beat makes the audience question whether the lyrics match up to video, especially in the first verse where it says “struggling to pay rent”, in the video it shows the girl waking up in a park which would suggest she is homeless and doesn’t pay rent, however these lyrics might mean exactly what it says in the head of the audience; that she really is struggling to pay rent.

Camera In most music videos there will be a good variety of camera shots. They allow the audience to become more involved in all the action or emotion which is in the video. The camera is always or mostly focused on the girl, which shows she is a figure of importance in relation to the video. This high angle shot of the girl suggests she is vulnerable, which also shown in her eyes. The eyes look big and stand out more than anything. This leads to the idea of eyes being a window to the soul, as a you look into her eyes it almost seems empty supporting the fact she is dead.This mid-close up shot shows the girl to be upset, alone, sad and not knowing what to do. At this point in the video she is begging for money on the streets which is why she is this way. However, because of her age as a teenager/young adult, this shot could represent how other girls her age might feel which might be lost and sad, so this scene could connect with them on another level because they can relate to her.

CameraThis shot is composed of a long low angle shot and mid shot in one, where the girl has been edited in. This scene takes place after the death of the girl and in this scene the colour has come back into the video. The fact the colour has returned to the world could represent the absence of pain, which the girl was feeling during the previous shots everything was black and white; making it look bleak. Because of the colour returning we get the sense that the world carries on as normal, as if she was never there. The mid shot of the girl edited into the sky can represent the memory of the girl, the clothes she still wears hint that all she was known for was having drug issues or personal issues.

EditingThe pace of the music is quite slow. This means that the editing can also be quite slow so it fits in properly with the context and sound of the song. Having shots which cut-to-beat would be unnecessary because the pace of the music and the theme of the video would make it look out of place. The black and white footage in the video adds emphasis to the state of the girls life and highlights how bleak it is. The change between black and white also adds high contrast to the footage, lots of natural light is used at the start of the video where she is seen happiest, suggesting that the white or light parts of the footage seem to take her worries away as she does not have the same problems at night when its dark and she has to beg for money and find a place to sleep.

Mise en SceneFor most of the video, the lighting is dark and cold. This kind of lighting is often associated with rock and indie, whereas more popular genres like pop will use bright and vibrant colours. In this particular video the dull colours and lighting make the girls story seem more tragic and in some ways more believable than a video which uses actual colours. This might be because the modern media use colours such as black and white on their footage to make it seem much more tragic and sad and almost as if from another world; for example news broadcasters reporting on a natural disaster might use black and white to emphasis to the sadness and struggle, much like the way the colours are used in this music video.

The settings of the video are fairly average places, a park, a high-street and an apartment. Because these places are ordinary to an everyday person, this too makes her story more believable. The setting in the park looks bare and lifeless, representing the emotions and feelings of the girl in the video.

Theorists

Barthes perspective of narrative outlines there being a series of codes, in the A-Team there is something in the narrative story which is hidden from the audience from the beginning. This relates to the enigma code, as it gives the audience an enigma or problem to try and solve, in the A-Team this is how the girls died. This draws the audience in, as they would want to know what series of events leads up to her death and what caused it. Eventually all the questions are answered in the end of the video

Levi Straus described narrative as being created by the constant conflict of binary opposites, in the A-Team the two opposites are life and death. We see the girl struggling through the day and night while she searches for hope, and at the start and end of the video we ultimately see the result of that struggle as she is dead.