Ring The Alarm - Beyonce

Apparently there was some confusion as to why I wrote there were 5 different women. Let me explain. I came to the clonclusion of 5 different women on my own. I guess because of their outfits and different hair Beyonce looked like she was playing several different women. The one in the cream dress with her hair loosely back, the one in the trench coat with the slicked back ponytail, the one in the white button down on the bed, the one in the house with the wavy hair, and the one who was in the army-esque print (she was mostly dancing, but there's a shot where it looks like shes getting ready to take a mug shot - except the background is blacked out instead of white backdrop with marks for how tall you are.) To me, it seemed like these women were all really different, so I guess I assumed they were different characters. Looking back, that could be kind of confusing/ambiguous.

Ring The Alarm

This video depicts the stories of 5 women that are upset at their ex-boyfriends. Each character in the video has, or will have, committed a crime against their es-boyfriend. The video is shot mostly in long and medium shots. This helps us see the settings of the women which are mostly in what seem to be police stations, except two which are in a home. The lighting used in the scenes of the three women who are in police stations is low key. It is dark inside the space; the characters are all wearing lighter clothes, contrasting the colors. The lighting for one of the women at home is high key. The colors are all evenly illuminated and we can see the setting very clearly. For the last woman, the lighting is all red. This represents her anger toward her ex-boyfriend, but the fact that she is still wearing his white button down shows that she still cares for him. The camera angles look to all be proportionate, but Beyonce looks directly into the camera when she is singing which engages the audience more. Throughout the video the transitions are very discontinuous. It cuts from character to character, maybe showing that these all could be happening at the same time.