“This is What You Came for,” is a song written by Calvin Harris and performed by pop-legend, Rhianna, and the music video is directed by Emil Nava. This upbeat electro-pop song tells a story of a person being at a party and everyone is in awe with her but she’s not paying attention to them, she’s only looking at one person. The lyric, “and everybody’s watching her, but she’s looking at you,” illustrates this thought. A catchy song of course must also have a well put together music video, and Emil Nava accomplishes this by using a variety of art and film techniques. There are two important scenes in the video where he methodically puts together different elements to create a bigger picture for the viewer. The first scene is a white box surrounded by a landscape, and the second consists of Rihanna being in that same white box at a party. In my opinion, the techniques Nava uses in both scenes vary in different camera shots, camera angles, colors and values, and movement are to bring the viewer a further explanation of the lyrics of the pop song.

The first important scene to mention starts off with a white box at an extreme long shot, placed on the horizon of a sandy, open desert. As a viewer, I see the box dead center on the horizon and nothing else around it but sand and blue sky. This type of extreme long shot makes it so that the viewer will immediately bring attention to the box, because it is the only object to look at. The same box then gets struck by a lighting of some sort, quickly, and the scene continues with a different landscape. The white box is in the same exact location with the same distance and camera shot, but this time the setting is in a field within a forest, with trees lining the horizon and long grass fields standing in the foreground. At this point, as a viewer, I was wondering why the box is so important. I was curious to see what was inside of the box. The setting naturally draws all attention to this object. A box the size of a room would not normally be found in a desert, nor a forest, and it makes the viewer more interested, and also brings a certain aesthetic about. I think if the color of the box were different and not white, it would not be as effective, because instead of drawing the eye straight to that object, the viewer will look around at the landscape instead and it would devalue the mystery of the box. I also think that putting it in the background is a strange concept because in most cases, objects that are put in the background are meant to have no meaning or mystery to them, but in this case, it is all about that box. This scene is important to the music video because the main point of it, in my opinion, is to foreshadow the coming scenes and answer the question viewers are wondering, “what’s up with this box?”

The second important scene comes straight off the first scene I mentioned. It starts with Rihanna standing in a plain white boxed room, which answers the question around the white box from previously. We quickly figure out that Rihanna is in the same box from before because of how important the box felt in the background in the scene before. Medium shots are consistent throughout the scene at an even angle, not tilted upwards or downwards, just head on. Rihanna dances around in the box coming closer to the camera and then farther away to the back wall of the room. On the back wall, the colors begin to change and people appear almost in the wall as if at a party. At this point in viewing I get the feeling that a party is going on, and at the moment Rihanna is there. The camera shot and angle stay the same as she walks towards the camera, as if she was separating herself from the party. At the chorus lyric “and everybody’s watching her,” Rihanna is looking down and walking closer to the camera. When the lyric hits “but she’s looking at you,” she looks directly at the camera. The colors are still changing on the walls and the party is still going on but all of these factors and techniques that the director use make it feel like she has separated herself from the party. Once the effect has been made that she is away from everyone else, she’s looking at the camera to give the lyrics to life and make the viewer feel like they are a part of the song and video. This is important in the overall video because it gives the video the most emotional response from the viewer as Rihanna 

These two scenes in the music video both effectively use camera shots/angles, color schemes, and movement are used by the director to further explain the lyrics to the viewer by a video. The “white box” scene brings interest and mystery to the object that makes the viewer wonder what is in the box. The following scene is Rihanna now in the box, which answers the “white box” question, and she sings to the camera, making the viewer feel a part of the song and video. These techniques used are not just ironic ways that get the message across, they are thought out methodically by the director of the video in order to get the response wanted from the viewer.