The video for Jay Z, Kanye West and Rihanna “Run this Town” is 5 mins and 23 seconds long. The

video starts with a medium close-up of a man holding a torch, he is covered by orange smoke so you can only just see his outlines, this gives the opening image a really good effect.

As you can see here, in the next scene, the torch is used as a prop again, the torch is visualised a lot throughout this video, suggesting there is a relastionship between it and the lyrics, this has been highlighted by media anaylist Andrew goodwin. You can clearly see from these screen grabs that the video is not set in a studio, but in a

natural setting, the setting gives the chosen theme of the song, a dark and dangerous effect, as the artist are trying to portray the song title “Run this Town”. It gives the theme extra effect, as the video would not match the plain backgrounds of a studio, but suits the rough edge effect of this abandoned set.

Throughout the whole video, the camera shoots many close-ups, this is very typical like Andrew Goodwin quoted, because the record company would demand lots of close-ups to promote the label and the artists themselves, as this is what the target audience wants to see. As you can see from both of these closeup images, the theme of the

music video holds a rough edge through-out, that’s why there is the constant use of the torch and fire, because its representing the lyrics and the song title “run this town” as fire represents power. This highlights that, the performance through this video Is enchanced as it blends with other visual elements, a statement from Joe Gow from his book ‘music videos as communications: popular formulas and emerging genres’ .

The close-ups of Rihanna are similar images to ones in which she maintains in her other music videos, she tries to portray a ‘sexy image’, and the record label wants to emphasise this, so it really reaches out to the target audience. I believe “Run this town” does represent a change of image, as I think the record label took a risk in some places, as the artists such as rihanna, at 2.39 seconds, shows

physical abusive language, even though it fits perfectly with the whole image and theme of the video, its also a change of image because some artists will not do this as it can be seen as offensive. This relates to a quote from Andrew Goodwin ‘The artist may develop their own star iconography, in and out of their videos, which, over time, becomes part of their star image’ I think this fits perfectly with this image of Rihanna as after this track “run this town” and many of her other records, gave the audience a sense that shes grown more out of control and care free.

The lighting mainly focuses around the artists, most of the lighting is dark, but at times such as this image of rihanna at 0.41 seconds, holds fire in the background this really emphasises her costume, and the lighting works really well against her facial features. The fact that the light is fire, also shows that the video is not set in a studio, as they have used natural elements and objects, which I think worked really well with the chosen theme. The

narrative form of this video would identify that its analog narrative, as it’s a non concert performance of the song and its intercut with other material, a highlighted feature from diane Railton and Paul watson’s book ‘Music Video and the politics of representation’.

The video is quickly paced, as it matches the beat of the song. The video starts off at a slow pace to match the tempo of the song, but the pace quickens with the track. The video camera constantly flickers -using different camera effects –between different images of each of the three different artists featured, nearly everytime the camera cuts to the next image of the artist they are wearing different clothing and are in a different part of the set, this makes the video look like its moving quicker to tie in with the beat of the track.

From the video you deffinately get the sense that Rihanna is on sexual display. The clothes she has been dressed in are sexual as she is not wearing a lot of material to cover her body. Also her self image and facial expressions show a hint of anger and careless behaviour, which could also be seen as sexy to certain viewers. Her whole image in this video fits in perfectly with the track lyrics, especially

the song title “run this town” as her attitude in the video along side Jay Z and Kanye West is almost trying to show that they believe they ‘run this town’ and that the chosen title is reffering to them. Jay Z and Kanye West could also be seen sexually by the female target audience for this video, as they are wearing dark clothing and sunglasses, whilst rapping, which gives off a ‘bad’ edge to their charcters in the video.

“Run this Town” is a typical example of a hip hop, R&B record. It holds all the factors of main stream artists today, by factors I mean the idea that all artists want to set their own trend and example through music to dominate their audience making them want to see more of their work. The video maintains all the aspects in which audiences want to see, such as, close-ups of the artists, sexual references and carefree behaviour, also the fact that all of these aspects tie in with the track being catchy and up beat, which is what most target audiences of the music population want.