Rihanna - HardComments on mood and style.

Rihanna - HardThis video is conceptual music video; the concept of this video is a military theme, as the title of the song is ‘Hard’. The image that the artist is trying to portray is her dominate ego power and authority. The video is set in a desert and the establishing shot is on a military camp site, through out the video you notice fighting and fire, grenade bombs, weapons, jeeps and tanks which are used in the army. The mise en scene used through out the video to portray this ‘hard’ character is shown through her costume which includes military clothes such as a helmet and boots and the colour range of her costumes various from khaki green, brown, blue, black and a white costume that makes her stand out from the dancers who are suppose to be soldiers that she’s giving orders to. To add she has eight different costumes for each scene in the video, her costumes are rather short and revealing, she still portrays her sexy image which convey conventions of females in R&B videos by revealing her body parts and showing lots of skin.

Rihanna - HardAt first her make-up is not very dramatic she just has paint on her faces which soldiers usually use in the military. However she has red lipstick on which portrays her femininity through the harsh war paint make-up she has on it also evokes strength and power which directly relates back to the song title. In some scenes she has very dark make-up around her eyes as you can see in this second picture of her, her eyes look very dark and strong, she has a stern look on her face. In this video there are only male dancers, posed as soldier, their chorography is mixture of street dance and military gestures, the fact that she is the only female in the video and she is the one giving orders challenges the depiction of women in the army and shows that she’s the one in control. The camera work in this video varies from camera shots such as camera shots which include close up shots of her face, long shots of her and her costume, medium close ups and extreme close ups of her red lips.

Rihanna - HardCamera angles and movement varies from Dutch tilts especially when the dancers are dancing to low angle shots to make her seem superior. There are also elements of camera composition such as deep and shallow focuses. There are eight different scenes each portraying the artist as superior, the editing consists of jump cuts, straight cuts and cross cuts. The video ends with a close up shot of her face, attention is drawn to her red lips, but her eyes are covered by her military helmet. The mood and tone of this video portrays the female artist as the powerful one, as she observes and gives orders but she is not part of the action (actual fighting). Her power is shown through her body language where she quite stern and walks with confidence with her head up and feels important, her facial expressions are also quite serious. Her voice is not toned down or soft it’s rather loud and aggressive. How the artist is depicted in this video challenges the conventions of an R&B video as the female is the one at the top of the hierarchy giving orders to the male soldiers.