Ed Sheeran - The A Team

When we were researching music videos that explored homelessness we came across this video for Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team' and we really liked the tone and feel of the video.

Although there are many points of difference - it doesn't explore homelessness singularly but instead focusses more on drugs and prostitution and it has a sad ending meaning the video itself is actually quite bleak - but we can still use it for inspiration for our own video.

It's edited into black and white which we really liked; this was the first time we had properly seen homelessness presented in this way and we thought it was very effective at showing the bleakness of the situation. However, because our video ends happily, leaving the audience feeling more uplifted, we thought we could slowly seep colour into it at the turning point when their life starts to improve so that our video ends in colour. This shows the shift in tone from bleakness to hope.

They also use a time lapse when the girl is sat on the street with people walking past which is really good at showing how homeless people are trapped in a time warp and unable to break the loop of poverty, linking into our idea of creating a 'groundhog day' kind of feeling. This is something we could recreate in Leeds with a GoPro, even filming in 4K.

We also just liked the general setup of this video, having the camera following the girl around in like a documentary, fly on the wall kind of style. This is really effective in creating a 'rugged' looking video and would nicely contrast with the steady camerawork and cleanly edited shots of the band in the studio, again reinforcing the theme of being within and without.