CASE STUDY 2: EMINEM FT. RIHANNA - LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE

Starts straight away with the song and a close up on Rihanna’s face as she’s lip syncing to the song. The shot almost starts going in and out of for focus for a bit. Unlike a lot of videos, the actual artists aren’t the actual ones acting out, it’s almost as if they’re narrating the story for the male and female characters. Rihanna’s bit is very calm and the shot, in relation to that, shows the couple calmly asleep, lying in bed together. Then, as her part ends and Eminem’s part is introduced the female character waked up and pushes her male partners arm off of her starting an argument between them. Strangely when Eminem says “where you going” the male character lip syncs to that part, as if he’s asking the girl. The girl then lip syncs to “I’m leaving you” as a reply to the male so, it’s very much like Eminem is narrating this story. Again when it comes to the chorus, Rihanna’s part, it shows the couple getting on and kissing again. For the second verse Eminem is taking about meeting that person and that ‘ warm, fuzzy feeling’ and it flashes back to the couple meeting at a bar and then shows them now, both alone in separate rooms, almost as if they’re thinking back to the good time, when they first met. These flashbacks of them having there good times are almost of the thoughts the male character is having and after thinking back to these times, he feels back and goes to the female to make up by handing her a teddy bear. After he hands her the teddy bear close to her and almost starts thinking, and it flashes to shots of the past that were negative; him fighting with a guy over her etc. her thoughts are the complete opposite to his. It’s almost seems that even though he’s tried to make amends, she can’t help but remember everything bad he’s done already. What Eminem is saying is basically the male’s thoughts and Rihanna’s bit is the female’s point of view. IT all turns bad again and there’s a shot of the male shaking the female as the house has been set on fire and this is all in slow motion, this really adds emotion to the shot. When Eminem and Rihanna are lip syncing to the song they’re standing in front of a house on fire and in the shot with the male and female actors the house on the inside is on fire. It’s like Rihanna and Eminem are outside of the scene and narrating it. Nearing to the end of the videos there are shots of the female and male actors both burning this is related to the lyric ‘just gonna stand there and watch me burn’ so, I found these shots of them burning very effective. It also shows the teddy bear he gave her earlier on in the video burning, this symbolises the last of them. There’s a wide shot of Rihanna and Eminem and the burning house behind them, which they turn to face, as if they watching the end of their story that they were telling. The video then ends with the shot that was shown at the beginning of the male and female calmly laying together in the bed, asleep, almost as if the whole thing didn’t happen.