Preliminary Task - Analysis of 'Keep Your Head Up' by Ben Howard

In today's lesson we decided that the music video we want to re-create for our preliminary task is Ben Howard's video of 'Keep Your Head Up'. We chose this video as we not only like the song but feel that the video would be fairly easy and fun to re-create as we know the perfect location for filming. We also decided to only film the first minute of the video as towards the end there is a long water slide running through a forest which would be extremely hard to re-create. The song is of an indie/acoustic genre which also fits in with the genre we chose for our digipack. 

After watching the music video we made an analysis of the different shots used in the first minute.

The first shot shows the location of the video which is in a field. This shot is edited using a bokeh camera effect which highlights the bubbles which are shown throughout the video which gives the impression that he is quite childish and fun. There is naturalistic lighting at the beginning which shows the sunrise. This also highlights the fact that it is set in the morning at dawn when it is still dark. There is then a high angle shot where Ben appears to be walking and at this point the lyrics begin and Ben is outlined by the light as he has his back to the sun. This means Ben's features are hidden and the audience still don't know what he looks like which makes the video seem mysterious as they don't know what he looks like or what he is up to. He is also seen to be holding a shovel and haystack in these first few shots which again makes the audience wonder what he is doing. The angle of this shot is a low angle which focuses on the corn field which mirrors a crowd. There are many blurred, low shots of Ben's feet which keeps the artist ambiguous. Throughout the video, the saturation has been edited to bring out the colours and brightness of the field and surroundings to highlight the fact that it is a bright morning. There are points in the video which are edited in slow motion. These shots are of Ben walking which leaves the audience still wondering where he is walking to. In the video there are quick jump cuts to show his movements and keep the focus on him and the location he is walking to. The camera is also shown to follow Ben making sure the sun is in the background which has an effect as it focuses on Ben's relationship with nature and the outdoors as well as giving a fresh, morning feel to the video. This also relates back to the genre of an indie/acoustic  feel as many people think of acoustic songs being outside and associated with nature. The video portrays Ben to be a natural, ordinary, down to earth, hardworking guy as he is holding onto the shovel. There is then a shot purely of the surroundings which focuses on a large tree in the left of the shot - this again helps the audience to connect Ben with the surroundings. The whole video is dream-like due to the out of focus, blurred shots which brings out the sun and how it shines through the trees and almost sparkles as it reflects off the camera lens. There seem to be many close ups of Ben's body parts at the beginning of the video but not any showing his full body which again emphasises that he is mysterious. During the whole video, bubbles are shown to be floating in the air, which in some shots appear blurred then come into focus as they play an important part in the video. This is because the bubbles are a clue and create a build up as to where Ben is walking to - which is the long, homemade water slide in the forest. There are also shots of Ben carrying a bucket which he then fills up with water from a pond in the forest. These shots relate to the lyrics as the shots of him walking and then going down to fill up his bucked relate to the lyrics "now walking back down this mountain". There are then shots of his feet with no shoes on under the water. This shows how he is at home and feels comfortable with nature and his surroundings. The next shot is filmed underwater looking up at him which also relates to the lyrics "looking out at this happiness". The final shot is an over the shoulder shot showing only the top half of his body which follows Ben to the location he is walking to. Ben's image becomes relatable to the audience as he is portrayed as being just a normal guy having fun. The water slide in the video is also not what you would expect in a video which gives it a twist as it makes Ben seem quite fun-loving and childish and you perhaps wouldn't usually see it in a music video.