The second music video I will be analysing will be Ellie Goulding's 'Your song', originally sung by Elton John.
The first thing that struck me straight away about this video is how centered around nature it is. Throughout, Ellie is surrounded by fields, animals, trees, waterfalls, leaves; there are little shots inside. This is similar to Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team', at the beginning the young girl is shown to be walking in the park, through the trees appreciating nature.
The many shots of nature, give the video itself a very natural, authentic feel, which in turn gives Ellie herself the same vibe. Close ups, and long shots show her smiling, laughing suggesting she is completely at home in her surroundings. The close up of her boots within the leaves, could perhaps connate that she is very down to earth, and the leaves scattered around her, stirs up the image of little children kicking big piles of leaves in the autumn. It is not just Ellie that is seen enjoying the nature, we are shown a long shot of a women feeding
The establishing shots show Ellie on a train; the train again empathises this image of Ellie being one of us. The shots show her messing around on a train; not a private jet, or a fancy limo but public transport, suggesting she is the public. The slanted shot of the sign for Hereford train station, which for any fans of Ellie Goulding will know, is her home town, connoting that Ellie has not forgotten where she came from, or the people who have been there supporting her all along. The pull focus shot of the train ticket, tells us that she pays for her ticket, like we do, she doesn't get any special dispensation, because she is famous. In the close up establishing shot we can see nature, and green through the shape that her arm makes, ellie is in full focus but the green is very clearly there behind her. This, in my opinion, tells the audience all they need to know about the entire music video; she is the focus point throughout, but whenever she is shot, they is always nature surrounding her, you could go as far as to say, that Ellie Goulding within the video is one with nature. We are then shown shots of her looking out the window, with her hair blowing behind her, at the forest, smiling broadly; Ellie is happy, and comfortable in this enviroment. The whip pan shot, shows us the view that Ellie must have when she looks out the train window, therefore putting us in her shoes; we allow ourselves to be put in her shoes, because throughout the video we are told over and over, Ellie could be you, this could be you, having fun in outside with your friends. 
The editing is medium paced; it is not as fast as a pop music, with 50 shot changes in one minute, but then it is not as slow as Ed Sheeran's The A Team either. In a upbeat pop song, the editing has to be fast in order to flow correctly with the music, in The A Team the shots were very long for a music video, so that the audience could fully see all of the young girl's distress in her face. The shots of Ellie singing are on average three seconds long, just long enough for us to appricate her true natural beauty, and the beauty of the shot itself. Some of the nature shots last longer then others, but most are quite quickly edited, in order to show that there is so much of nature to see, and Ellie is soaking it all up, as we are seeing what she sees, we too get to see beautiful shots of waterfalls, trees and flowers. We are often shown reaction shots of her reaction to the nature; showing the audience that was is important is her reaction to seeing all the nature around her, the reaction shots are always are her smiling or looking up wonderously at what she is viewing.
Her clothing and appearance matches perfectly the impression we are given of her personality. She wears vintage jumpers, and bobbly hats reinforcing the indie sound her music presents, she always wears hardly any makeup, showing that she is just as naturally pretty as her surroundings. However, she does have the side of her head shaved, a style that was extremely popular within the indie culture recently, which shows that she does take pride in her appearance, however we do not judge her on this at all, because it is only human nature to do this.
Some of the shots appear to have had a camera effect on top of them, but after looking that them closely I realised that in fact they are simple shot whilst fully in the sunshine, and slightly out of focus; which in this particular shot really makes the purple colour of the flowers stand out. They are shot, I believe in the light that makes them look the prettiest, full sunshine, which can appear dazzling to the audience.
Within the video, there are no superficial items shown, Ellie is shown playing with her cat, as I said before, and also is shown playing the piano. This tells the audience that she can not only sing, but also plays the piano, and as fans will know, plays the guitar too, proving that she is an extremely talented musican, who does not need to hide behind fancy expensive items.
As I have explained before Andrew Goodwin said there were three types of music video. There is no particular narrative within this music video, that is its main difference from Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team'; we are instead shown shots of Ellie and her friends enjoying the simple pleasures of life; nature and music. The only aspect of the video that I personally think is literal is the lyric 'how wonderful life is'; the life we are being shown, or a day in the life of Ellie, is wonderful, she is always smiling and laughing, and the entire video is simply beautiful, connoting indeed a wonderful life. However, as I said before the video doesn't offer much narrative; most people interpret the lyrics of the song to be about another person, a human being, however it could be said that Ellie's music video enables the lyrics to be interpreted different, and therefore is amplified. Instead of singing about a person, she could be singing about how wonderful life is, when the beauty of nature is in the world.
The main similarity between this video and the previous, is that both cut the shots to the beat, this enables the video to flow alongside the music perfectly. Again, like The A Team, there is no particular shots that are shown over and over again, for the chorus, bridge or verses; sometimes we are shown the same clips from one part of the video in another, but I believe that the reason the choruses etc aren't punchuated, is because this would connote organisation, a manufactured feel to the video, and Ellie and her music video are anything but, she is instead original, authentic. Her voice is very natural, soft and pretty sounding, therefore we are presented with a very natural/nature based video.
Ellie Goulding did not come into the limelight from a national, televised talent show such as 'X Factor' as many artists these days are, but instead from a talent contest in her home town of Kingston, in Herefordshire. Ellie is always presented as very talented, natural, pretty, delicate even, indie sounding, and therefore this music video fits absolutley perfectly with that image. As this video doesn't particularly have a narrative, there is nothing that we are withheld from, we see all that she sees, and we are left in wonder, just as she is.
As I mentioned in my previous analysis, Andrew Goodwin said that there is demand on record labels to shoot a lot of close ups of the artist; certainly in this video there are a large amount of close ups of Ellie, however, the close ups are not how you would expect to find in a rnb music video of a woman, extremely sexualised, but instead close up that show the audience again and again her natural beauty, not sexualised in any way.
In 2001 Roy Shuker stated that 'music videos are both an industrial, commercial product and cultural form. They are promotional devices which encourage record sales'. This video, I believe would increase Ellie Goulding's general record sales, it presents her in an extremely likable light, she is shown as I have stated many time as 'one of us', audiences are more likely to buy records of musicans that they personally like, if someone's music is good, but they are presented as arrogant, or horrible, it is unlikely they will sell records.
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