“This is What You Came for,” is a popular song produced by Calvin Harris and sung by Rihanna. The music video for the song is directed by Emil Nava, a well-known music film creator who has worked with other current artists all over the world. Harris’s song is written about a girl who is incredibly powerful and intentional in her actions. It is believed the song is written about his girlfriend and music artist, Taylor Swift, but is sung by Rihanna, who is also a confident, powerful woman and a successful artist. The lyric in the song “Lightning strikes every time she moves,” is a metaphor for the flashes of the cameras that paparazzi use to take shots of Rihanna. It is also used as a representation for the lights at a nightclub scene in the music video. The next lyrics state “And everybody’s watching her, but she’s looking at you,” meaning that even though there are things going on around her, she is only interested in looking at the guy she is lusting for. Directors use tactics and techniques for various types of film work, such as value and lighting, color, and different camera shots. Nava uses each of these throughout the video in order to effectively bring Harris’s lyrics to life. He also uses these cinematic methods to distinguish a scene containing a box, most of the film of Rihanna, and a car scene all in different ways to actually string them together to create the video.

In the opening of the film, the scene is set in a vast, open desert, with a white box that seems to be as big as a one story home. This white box sits on the horizon in the background of the extreme long shot that Nava uses. Extreme shots like this commonly contain a landscape and show the viewers the building where the action takes place, which is exactly what Nava effectively does with this scene. He also uses an eye-level shot to give the viewer equal footing with the object, and allows them to feel comfortable with the box and not make it feel eerie and strange. By using a white box, the color can make it be thought as, or taken as a safe or good place to be, and again make the viewer comfortable with it. The landscape changes to what looks like a field in a forest, without change of the camera shot, angle, or placement of the white structure. The colors included in this scene are different shades of blue and green. Nava uses these more emotional colors to create a feeling of nature, harmony, depth, and stability. Through the lyrics, it is told that the girl is singing about one guy, and since it is established that the scene takes action in the white building it is evident that the girl is captured in her own safe space and that viewers can approve of this later in the film.

Next, the music begins and the setting is now apparent that the view is from inside the box, where a full body shot of Rihanna appears. Nava uses the full body camera shot in order to give a complete view of the character. The box starts changing colors of red, blue, and orange around her as she begins to dance. These colors allow the viewer to perceive Rihanna as confident, powerful, passionate, and energetic, which goes along with how Harris wants listeners to view the girl in the song. While the box changes colors, the camera shot changes to mid shot, showing her only from the waist up. The shot zooms out and the lyrics sing “And everybody’s watching her, but she’s looking at you,” while she looks directly into the camera. The eye-level camera angle never changes, which allows the viewer to be more comfortable as Rihanna looks into the viewer and reels them in. Nava brings the lyrics to life when he does this because it makes the people viewing the film feel that they are included in what Rihanna is singing while she looks at them.

Nava keeps the angle and shot the same as previous as a nightclub with people dancing appears in the background, while Rihanna stays in the foreground. He uses the beam lights in the background as a back light, and uses a key light that shines directly on the front of Rihanna in order to separate her from this party scene. This also adds even more attachment between the lyrics and the video by making her seem not interested in the party, but instead just the guy she wants. All of the lighting Nava uses is bright and makes both Rihanna and the dancing people in the background seem happy, which makes the viewer feel happy. The lyric “Lighting strikes every time she moves” is brought to life when Nava uses a flashing light effect as Rihanna walks to the background. He uses the lights as a metaphor for the lighting being the camera flashes of the paparazzi and the party lights in the background. This is effective because the viewer can see how much of a powerful woman she is because everyone is looking at her and snapping pictures but she is only interested in one person, and pays no attention to the media as she looks directly into the camera. This is exactly what Harris wanted when he wrote the lyrics, and Nava effectively executes this. The colors he uses in the lighting are all intense primary colors, all saturated and the most intense to maximize impact. The lights mix together creating a technique called additive color, meaning the primary colors he uses mix at hints of time to create yellow, pink, or light blue, which are all secondary colors. The effect makes the background of the box use every color there is, giving an even more vibrant effect without accidently making browns or grays that would be dull and make the wrong effect. The colors used create a sense of power, confidence, lust, optimism, and desire, which puts emphasis and emotion into the lyrics, too.

In one of the shorter scenes of the video, an expensive sports car is placed into the video. The angle of the camera at this scene is at a high angle, looking down and establishing the setting. The lyric here is “We go fast with the game we play,” while the car zooms across the screen, giving more depth and movement to the song when listening to it. This is just another example of how Nava uses cinematic technique to bring life to the song in the way that Harris wanted.

I broke down this music video “This is What You Came for,” in order to provide a review, analysis, and approval of how effective Nava is in bringing Harris’s song to life. Directors need to use methods of value and lighting, color, and camera shots, in order to be as successful as Nava in making a significant film such as this one. If he did not use these techniques, I do not believe the video would have been half as well put together as it is now. It is a necessity to include these devices in order to put a film in perspective to the viewer and create an impact and memorable effect on the way the video is seen.