Linkin Park Music Video Analysis

This music video is shot in the Californian desert. The idea that this video wants to portray through this song is the sins of humanity or what they define as a 'bad things' humans have done such as war, world hunger, stem cell research, terrorism, etc. Emphasis on life is shown in various parts of this video by using colors of life such as blue and green as shown right at the beginning of the video, with the grass reversing into the mud, while this aspect is reinforced at the end with the grass growing out of the mud itself. Elements of plot advancement or otherwise create a sense of motion is used through time scheduled movements such as the appearance of clouds over time, or in a pollution clip, the movement of cars.

A sense of slow motion is created after the instrumental segment after the second chorus by slowing down the movement of the band members while implementing the collapse of the World Trade Center. A small amount of ocean of life is used when Chester Bennington sings "and wash away..." Another interesting thing I noticed was how camera angles were used, the camera is almost always shot from underneath the band members to give them a sense of importance. The sun is always behind to create a washed out/shadow scene, possibly the way the band sees the world today in general.

The beginning with  the grass effects and time-movement scenes were nicely implemented, but things such as a binary opposition of world hunger and the fat individual chomping down a burger, show that this is very literal music video. The way how everything was literally put into the video to give an image of this and that is something that Linkin Park has not previously done; and in an artistic point of view something more symbolic would be better than this, but perhaps the band considered this and thought lets cuts to the metaphors and just show them the truth, delivering a much harder hitting message. All in all, Linkin Park have a good mix of performance and narrative within this music video, which is all that can be really asked of any music video.