Music Video Directors: Ben Winston

Ben Winston is a director and a producer from London, that is best known for working specifically with One Direction. He has directed both the One Direction movies; A Year in the Making and This Is Us. He has also directed a selection of their well known songs, such as, Best Song Ever, Story of My Life, Midnight Memories, You & I and Night Changes.

One thing that I have noticed about the style of Winston's videos, is that the camera is hardly ever in a stationary position. It is always moving, either doing a tracking shot, sometimes just the zooming in and out of the camera or just moving whilst the boys dance idiotically to the music. Winston also likes to do close ups of each member of the band, which conforms with Andrew Goodwin's conventions of music videos that states, the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

Winston built up a good relationship with the One Direction boys and has gone on to direct their two films (which I thought were absolutely amazing!!). From working regularly with the boys, I think Winston has grasped the correct idea on how to film the boys in their music videos and he does this very well. One of his signature visuals is having a wide shot of all 5 (now 4) boys at a low angle. I have noticed this regularly when watching music videos he has directed.

This is an example of this^ taken from the music video 'Story of My Life'.