Ben Newman

Name: Ben Newman
Age:  29

Ben Newman is an award winning contemporary Music Video director. He has directed well known hits since early 2009 (at the young age of 26), starting with 'Hooligans' by Example & Don Diablo. He has a very defined teenage male target audience for most of his music videos, which consist of mainly Example, DJ Fresh and Wretch 32...all relatively new potentially huge artists. Example has already built a name for himself, but is still smashing the charts, while the music videos from DJ Fresh and Wretch 32's first chart toppers were directed by Ben Newman, 'Louder' and 'Traktor'.

Findings from Ben Newman's work

1. Believable Passion/Emotion
Ben Newman likes to evoke passion from the artist, while not over-playing it.

2. Children 
Ben Newman likes to include children in his work, which gives the artist a chance to express themselves via an alter ego while also developing the narrative via different age groups, e.g. child in Unorthodox/Don't Go.

3. Artist Identity/Motifs
This applies particularly for Wretch 32, where he includes the '32' wherever he can, particularly in 'Unorthodox' where a team is created via Wretch 32. 'Traktor' begins with the number 32 emerging from the ground, possibly as Wretch 32 emerges from the unknown.

4. Simplicity/Low Budget
Ben Newman's videos are produced on relatively low budgets as you can see from the simple, but effective videos he produces. He also uses a small number of props and rarely edits the original track (e.g. adding narrative). 'Louder' is a great example of a simple idea made into a great music video.

5. Notion of Looking
Eyes are used fantastically in all his videos and the artists look at their audience sincerely and realistically. Eyes never lie.

6. Urban Settings
As the majority of his videos are aimed at teenage males, he uses typical urban settings appropriate for the dance/dubstep genre, e.g. 'Louder', 'Goldust', 'Unorthodox'

7. Females
Newman uses females as objects and as visual pleasures for the audience.

8. Strobe Lighting
Strobe Lighting is used particularly in Example's 'rave' videos. Newman often cuts the lighting to the beat which is horrible for epileptic people.



The reason I love this video is the sense of artist identity created. It's Wretch 32's second big single and the idea of coming together to support him is well illustrated and him and Example are portrayed as a gang, who begin as lone warriors, but create interest. This also suits the Hip-Hop genre, as the idea of a gang in an urban setting is rather stereotypical and well-represented. The vibrant dance moves included also create interest to the primary teenage male audience. The idea of 'We dont follow no crowd'...we are leaders....we are unorthodox is perfectly portrayed and the strange activities, for example females which shave their hair off are Unorthodox.

It may be a good video, but it's far from perfect. I agree that it's simplicity is effective, but it gets possibly too repetitive & boring at times, after all it's just the audience following Example & Wretch 32, however overall I enjoyed the video, but I wouldn't want to watch it more than 2/3 times.




This is another example of a simple idea created incredibly. It's a spectacular performance-based video, with little narrative. Its genre is dubstep/electro-pop and it therefore has a teenage audience (mainly male) which is represented by lots of young actors, particularly beautiful girls and the interaction between males/females. The stunts used are particularly appealing to the audience, while also appealing to the niche skater audience.

The lyrics are well illustrated/amplified, for example 'Louder', 'Faster', 'Stronger', 'Better' is often repeated and Ben Newman attempts to create even better faster stunts as those words are said. The music is very chilled, upbeat and beautiful and Ben Newman illustrates this with the slow pace at the start and the stunning visuals.

DJ Fresh is a dubstep disc jockey, and therefore he doesn't appear in the video. This isn't a song to be performed by any particular artist and there is no clear protagonist, which leads to the idea of 'coming together', it's basically a feel-good video.

It was released just as summer was coming and basically started the music of summer, as it reached #1 in the UK Top 40 (first dubstep single to do this). I think it's a fantastic video with little flaws. It always keeps the audiences attention which is a great example of a simple video which is 100% interesting.

Things I've learnt

I have noticed that over a two and a half year period, Ben Newman has consistenly produced music videos and I can tell that he's been noticed and chosen his artists well as they've gradually got more well known with him. The last three music videos he directed reached #1 in the UK Top 40, whereas the first three never reached the Top 40. This illusrates the importance of hard work as you will get noticed eventually. Many great teenage male aimed hits are now produced by Ben Newman, and he's just 29 years old.

I also learnt that sometimes being simple is very effective, just take 'Traktor', it's a room without much in it, but Ben Newman perfectly captures what he needs to and creates an intense atmosphere, while marketing Wretch 32.