This music video for Ed Sheeran's "Give Me Love" tells a narrative story about a girl acting as Cupid. She shoots arrows at strangers to make them fall in love, as she seems depressed and looking for love herself. Throughout the video, visuals enhance the song's message about a broken relationship and the desire to fix it. Shots include the girl with wings, people being shot with arrows and falling in love, and a twist ending revealing the girl has found her own love. The video breaks conventions of typical pop music videos by focusing on the story over the artist and including elements of realism.

1. Give Me Love- Ed Sheeran

2. This music video has elements of a narrative
video. The most commonly used theme within
narrative videos is love. Give me love is based
around love, hence the title. The music video
shows a girl acting as cupid, with love arrows,
again representing this theme. The video also
tells some sort of story, as we see the girl
throughout the video shooting arrows at
strangers to make them fall in love, and we get
the impression that she is depressed, or trying to
find love. The artist is only featured twice
throughout the music video which is very
uncommon in many modern pop music videos.

3. Relationship between the visuals
and the lyrics
• The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in this
particular music video has been specifically done to
enhance the meaning behind the song. The artist himself
said this about the song: "It's about a relationship that fell
apart and you're asking for it to be put back together. Most
people get to a point where they drink themselves into a
dark corner in that situation. It's that point of view.” This is
where we can then see why the artist chose to use the
imagery of cupid as a motif throughout the video. He is
trying to tell the story and closely link the lyrics ‘give a little
time to me, we’ll work it out’ back to the idea of cupid being
able to fix relationships and bring people back together. I
think that the narrative as a whole is very clever and the
visuals are just there to enhance the deeper meaning to
the lyrics so the audience can see what the artist is really
trying to say.

4. Genre
• This is a pop song and therefore the song itself follows
quite closely to the conventions that are featured in
many pop songs. As a genre, pop music is extremely
eclectic, often borrowing elements from other styles
including urban, dance, rock, Latin and country;
nonetheless, there are core elements which define pop.
Such elements include generally short to medium-length
songs, written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus
structure), as well as the common repeated choruses,
melodic tunes, and hooks. This song follows this musical
structure.
• In terms of the visuals, it doesn’t necessarily fit in with
the common conventions of a pop music video where the
lighting is bright and the use of colour creates a happy
atmosphere. Instead there is a lot of low lighting used
that fits nicely with the slow pace of the song

5. • This video begins with a medium shot of a female who
appears to have an arrow in her neck, surrounded by
blood, which is a connotation of death or injury. There
are diegetic sounds of police sirens over this shot, then
carrying over to the next shot which is a medium shot of
a police officer, which suggests that a tragedy is going to
happen, which relates to the meaning of the song and
also what happens at the end of the video. The story
then goes backwards in time to how it all started, as it
shows the female character looking around a brick wall
and the song begins to play. There is then a cut to an
extreme long shot of a man and a woman kissing,
implying that the song is about love, which is a very
common theme within pop videos.

6. • There is then a cut to a medium
close up shot of the female looking
quite upset and depressed. She is
wearing a white vest top and has
bleach blonde hair, emphasising an
idea of innocence and purity, which
is a stereotypical view of a young
female character in a pop video. It
then cuts to two photographs on the
wall, one of which has two people
kissing on it, relating back to the
theme of love. Through the use of
low key lighting, a gritty feel is
created, and the positioning of the
female character within this long
shot suggests she is very lonely and
isolated from the world. This gives
off a sense of realism, and shows
what it is like for some people in the
world, which is not something a pop
video usually does, therefore
breaking the conventions. There are
then various shots of the female
character, showing her facial
expressions which suggest she is
very sad.

7. • The video then cuts to a number of different medium close up shots
of what looks like the female trying the scratch or hurt herself. She
then pulls a feather from inside her back and holds it up. The feather
is white, which implies this idea of innocence; however it is covered
in blood, which relates back to the idea of a tragedy or some sort of
injury. However, it then cuts to a long shot of the girl standing in a
spotlight with a pair of wings. The low key lighting surrounding the
spotlight on the female makes this shot more contrasting and clear,
informing the audience that she has wings. The wings represent an
angel and heaven, re-emphasising the innocence. There is then a
similar shot to this with the girl standing in the street, and then a cut
to her sat at a table alone in a cafe. It then cuts to a medium long
shot of Ed Sheeran, the actual artist of the song, sat at a table in the
same cafe as the female character.
•There are two shots in which show numerous tools that could be harmful,
suggesting that some sort of tragedy is going to happen. There is then a shot of
two wooden models holding hands, emphasising the theme of love in a very
different way compared to other pop videos.

8. • There are then a few shots of different people being shot by the arrows, and
desperately wanting to find love with whomever they see first, resembling
the myth of cupid’s love arrows. There is then a shot of the female standing
at the side of a railway waiting for an oncoming train, and this cuts to a shot
of the female on the train, which has been done to make the audience
aware that she is travelling further away to do her job cupid.
• As the songs begins to climax and the editing pace picks up, there are many
close up shots of different people, and then the protagonist beings to stab
arrows into their backs, causing them to fall in love with whoever they see
first. There is a blue tint in the lighting in this sequence, giving off a gritty
feel, adding to the realism of the video. There are not many pop music
videos that show verisimilitude, so this breaks the conventions of the pop
genre. There are then many close ups of the female characters face and
also various shots of people dancing and also being stabbed by the arrows,
leading them to kissing each other, which is also captured too. The editing in
this sequence is fast paced, which seems like time is being fast forwarded,
creating a hectic vibe.

9. • Once the climax has ended, and the music calms down
again, there is a close up profile shot of the female
holding an arrow to her throat. It then cuts back to how
the video begun, with police cars and the same police
officer as before. The next shot is the same as the
opening shot, however she opens her eyes quickly and
the arrow disappears, followed by a blurred point of view
shot of the police officer, suggesting she has found her
love, showing that the equilibrium has been restored.
• This is mainly a narrative video; however it has features
of a time disordered structure, as the narrative goes
back in time at the beginning, without sign posting this
for the audience, which is an unconventional feature of
this genre.

10. Promotional Media

11. How this will influence my own
work
• I love the colour enhancement that has been used on
the footage in this video, it adds to the overall
atmosphere of the video and gives the shots a more
emotional look
• I also love the narrative of the whole video and the
twist on the normal idea of who cupid is, the storyline
doesn’t focus on the artist themselves and therefore
goes against the idea of the star image and that the
video is only used to promote the artist and I like this
• I also like some of the slower paced editing used in
this video, it connects well with the audience and
makes you listens to the words that are being sung
more than just focusing on the visuals.