Ed Sheeran ‘Thinking out loud’

1. Genre CharacteristicsThe genre of this music video is blue-eyed soul. Which is

different to the artists usually pop genre chose. But this song

still fits in with this genre because o the acoustic that has been

used and the performance style. The genre being soul but still

had the pop industry involved; the music video worked it away

up on the charts for the target audience because of the artist,

Ed Sheeran being the centre of the music video and using dim

lights for a romantic setting to create the soul genre. Also

showing this genre the costumes being light and natural looking

for the soul genre and also the only women being in the video

is wearing a white dress to show purity and the natural look for

the women.

The only Man in

the music video

wearing a tuxedo

to show the

viewers the

gentlemen side of

his character and

the artist being

modern with the

trends of the target

audience .

The hair for the women being modern

and being down and curly is showing

the innocence of the character and

showing the feminism in her natural and

perfect look of a stereotypical girl.

2. Relationship between lyrics

and visuals

While Ed Sheeran is voice

over these words; He is

showing the viewers the

words ‘play the strings’ by

using the women as the guitar

and strumming her legs, while

showing ‘love’ by looking into

the women’s eyes.

These lyrics again are

symbolised by the visuals,

for example; ‘When your

legs don’t work like they

used to before’ This is

shown by a mid shot on

the women’s legs, walking

towards the artist with

spotlights to enhance the

emotion and feeling

towards the lyrics.

When these lyrics were sung the

contact with the dancers were

together and using there bodies to

show the lyrics but also to show

the audience the relationship

between them. For example

‘Maybe just a touch of the hand’

At this point both hands were

touching each others.

This two pictures are

the movements of the

lyrics straight after

each other. The first

one being on the floor

looking ‘at a thousand

stars’ still using

contact but facing

away from each other.

And the second one ‘

beating heart’ The

women puts her hand

on the males heart to

show love and

emotion to the

camera.

3.Relationship between music

and Visuals The music fits in with the lyrics really well. The

song is sung as a voice over but still has the artist

as the main character with a women dancer along

side him. So it makes this music video as a

performance and the camera follows the artist as

he moves.

This music video is a very slow beat and is shown

by a duo dance to show the blue soul genre but

still bringing in the pop genre by having the

chorus up beat and so the dance follows the beat

of the music and they dance faster and makes the

dancing bigger, for example putting lifts in and

using different levels of height. This is so the

young audience keeps interested in this particular

song because of the up beat chorus.

The slow pace music that was chosen represents

the love and emotion that has been interpreted

through the music to the visuals by the contact

between the two dancers with there body

language and also the occasional eye contact

they share with each other to show the audience

the representation of love and romantic of the

song because of the lyrics and music.

Also the surroundings

that the artist has made of

it being in one location

and not paming across

the whole hall. This

shows the intensity that

the artist wanted on the

dancers and the camera

shots only being on the m

to show the performance

style and that the

audience can see that the

artist is the main part of

the music video.

4. Close ups of the artistThis particular song that is a performance based song

doesn’t have a lot of close-ups of the artists. Although

there are a few of them, the music video is based

around the two people and them being connected

together by movement. But even though there is

some close-ups of the artist they are only mid-shots

of the artists or long-shots so there isn’t any real

close-ups of him in the whole video. This is so the

audience can see the performance side of the video

rather than it being all about the artist.

The music video being a performance does show the artist

being the main person in the video, even if there is only

two of them but the female dancer does centre herself

around him and dances to him. This is because the song is

about her and him singing to her and showing the feelings

and emotion through dancing.

5. References to looking

The costumes show the type of dancing they are

performing, so from seeing straight away the

costumes rather than watching the movement you

can see it is a slow and duet dance and bring the

modern into as well.

Although the set is only based in one location

as the movement is happening the audience

can see the set by the spotlights shining on the

walls and floors and also the lights that are

scattered around the location. The camera is

panning across the location to set the scene but

is done during the movement.

The light shining from the roof which is on

the left of the dancers shows the contrast of

the spotlight that is show right on the dancers

on the floor and the audience can see that

the location has the different types of lighting

and can see how old the building is to the old

fashion light shade that has been used.

6. Intertextuality

Footloose has an intertextual reference to the music video Thinking out Loud

because they both use dancing with a partner to express the lyrics and how they

are feeling. But also they share the same reference which is just using two people

and them being a women and a man. This shows that they have the same

representation and wants to show the same stereotypes of dancing through lyrics.

The Film Step Up has an intertextual reference to Ed Sheeran’s music video by

the dancing being the main movement for the film/music video and again to

show emotions and feelings, But this shows more intertextual reference by the

modern locations and costumes. Also by the slow movement that has been

shown more in the film than Footloose because of the romantic settings that

step up wanted to show.