The music video features Rihanna and another unseen character. It uses techniques like cross-cutting between scenes to tell a story. The colors are mainly dark tones, and Rihanna appears partly or fully naked at times, showing her tattoos. The narrative seems to depict a breakup, as scenes show Rihanna alone or losing contact with a man. A key iconic image is Rihanna smoking diamonds in a cigarette.

1. Characters- In the music video there are
two characters. One character that we see all
the way through is Rihanna. The other
character you do not see the face of. The
other characters hands and arm are in one of
the shots. This genre of music often refers to
love and relationships therefore it is
stereotypical to have a male appear in the
music video as well as the female artist. In
one of the shots Rihanna appears to be
naked. This is also stereotypical of this genre
of music; as female artists are normally seem
as sexual and provocative. As well as this
Rihanna also appears to be smoking drugs in
the video, which is not necessarily
stereotypical as her target audience may be
younger children, that may be easily
influenced from Rihanna’s actions.
Technical/audio codes- The use of cross
cuts is present in this video. This is so that a
new and different scene can be shown. This is
done to tell a story through the video. As well
as this cut alway’s are also used throughout.
This is when they cut in the same scene to
make it appear different, for example a
different point of view. There is no diegetic
sound throughout the video as all of the
music played is over the video, as there is no
performance throughout the video.
Mise enscene- In the mise en scene the
colours used are mainly black and white and dark
blues and greys. This could be to show the mood
of the video and show that something bad has
happened, referring to a break up of a
relationship. As well as this Rihanna’s clothing is
minimal. In one of the shots she is seen to wear
no clothes. This is showing us the many tattoos
that Rihanna has on her body. This is good
representation of this type of genre as many
female artists have tattoos on their bodies.
Narrative events- The narrative order is
contextual. There is no performance throughout
the video. The video shows cross cuts to different
scenes and seniors as though it is trying to tell a
story. One scene shows Rihanna smoking
diamond in a rolled up Cigarette. This may be
stereotypical of the R’n’B genre, as money seems
to be present a lot. Through Rihanna ‘smoking’
the diamonds it shows she is not interested in the
actual real value of the diamonds. In another
scene Rihanna is seen to be floating on a river
bed. This is enigmatic as this scene in the video
makes you wonder how she got there and why
she is floating on a river. This scene could be used
to tell a story she is trying to sing about in her
song. There is also another scene where Rihanna
is stood alone in a field, where is cross cuts to a
big black horse running through that same field.
The horse could be seen as a strong male in a
relationship and Rihanna is alone. The final scene
is when Rihanna is touching the mans arm, it
shows them breaking away and losing contact.
This could have connotations of a break up.
Iconography- One thing that is iconic of this
video is the diamonds used in the video. As the
song is titled ‘Diamonds’ you would imagine
that diamonds would be shown in the video,
although Rihanna has used them in a different
way. She has used Diamonds to put into a
Cigarette skin and rolled them up into a
cigarette. This is an iconic moment in the video.