The 5 minute 23 second music video for "Run This Town" by Jay Z, Kanye West, and Rihanna features close-ups of the artists against a dark, natural setting to portray the song's rough theme. Throughout the video, torch lighting emphasizes costumes and facial features while representing the song's lyrics. The video is quickly paced to match the beat, cutting between artists in different outfits across the abandoned set. Rihanna portrays a sexy, carefree image through her revealing clothing and attitude, helping establish her growing star iconography.

1. 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 themeextra 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,

2. because its representing the lyrics andthe 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.

3. 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.