CASE STUDY 1: RIHANNA - STAY

When the video starts it shows close ups of different areas of Rihanna’s body with her getting undressed, this relating to her later being in the bath tub. There’s also a shot of the water from the tap filling up the bath in slow motion, I think the slow motion shot goes along well with the song as its quite slow, not very upbeat so I feel the slow motion shot was very effective. I also feel these shots are effective in introducing the audience to the music video. Just before the singing is actually introduced the camera pans up from the bath tub to Rihanna’s face and as it gets to her face the singing is introduced however, the shot isn’t of her singing, and the singing is more of a voice over. The shot then switches to an aerial view of Rihanna in the bath tub, everything in the shot being very still and quite which fits very well with the slow melody of the song. On the second line of the first verse the shot then changes to an extreme close up of Rihanna’s face, with her lip syncing along to the song, the shot almost seems slowed down again in fitting with the slow song. Throughout the video Rihanna is ‘bare faced’ and naked, it’s almost as if she’s stripped down for her audience and she wants everyone to see her for the real her. The video is very slow and emotional, which makes me think Rihanna really wanted to connect with her audience, she isn’t putting on a front. Just before the first chorus there’s a shot of the second artist’s, Mikky Ekko’s, back. This is a way to slowly introduce the second artist into the video before his verse after the chorus. Throughout the video a lot of close ups of Rihanna’s face are shown, even when she’s not lip syncing, this really shows the emotion and sadness in her face, and is more effective when she’s not lip syncing, it makes it look like she’s lost and thinking deeply about this someone she wants to ‘stay’ as the name of the song implies. When Mikky Ekko’s introduced into the video it’s a wide angle shot of him sitting on the edge of the bath tub with very low light in comparison to Rihanna’s well lit scenes. Him sitting on the edge of the empty bath shows that he wants this person back as Rihanna in her scenes is in a bath with no one there and in Mikky’s scene he’s staring into the bath where the person, Rihanna. Should be. When Mikky says ‘something in the way you move’ there is a shot of Rihanna taken outside of the bathroom of her moving in a very dark room, this shot really relates to that particular lyric voiced over at the same time as the shot. When both artists are singing it changes from shots of her to shots of him, but voiced over rather than them lip syncing, with panning of them. This almost shows both sides of the story and how they’re both sad and lonely and feeling the same, but without showing them in the same scene. The strange thing about this video is in the same shot Rihanna’s singing will be a voice over then she’ll start lip syncing a lot then she’ll stop and it’ll be a voice over again, this almost shows her lack of energy to speak as the sadness has drained her. I think although it’s strange, it’s extremely effective. The whole video is stripped down and very simple, even Mikky Ekko is in just a white top and black bottoms, in quite an empty room, as well as Rihanna being in an empty room, with just a bath tub. The video ends with a shot of Rihanna’s face, with her taking one sigh and burying her chin under the water and it stays like that for a few seconds in silence and then turns black.