Linkin Park – New Divide

The first music video that I am going to analysis is Linkin Park’s New Divide. In doing so I will be answering six questions that will help me to complete a thorough analysis. I will also be looking at the album cover and advert that was produced for this video, and again the same questions will be asked on about the cover and advert.

Firstly, the effects that the band achieve.

The music video has an outstanding variety of editing and special effects that make the video a visual masterpiece. The video has a large amount of band performance footage in which in my opinion is very important. Also, without the live band performance, many of the SFX and editing would not be possible. The lead singer has a very large part to play in the video as the camera is mainly focused on him, he also uses a massive amount of energy, possibly to put emphasis on the on his characters feelings. Another point being that there is a massive amount of artificial lighting used in this video, which helps the band stand out. The amount of special effects used in the video is monumental, effects such as blur and thermal imaging makes the video very pleasing to watch. One of the main features that I noticed was the shaking camera in certain parts of the video, making the camera seem unable to ‘cope’ with the bands powerful performance.

The narrative is very clear due to the band performance. The lead singer seems to help us to understand the narrative through body language and facial expressions alone. What’s more is, every now and then a female character seems to emerge from the special effects, but only for a few seconds, creating a sense of mystery. The lead singer seems to mention the word ‘divided’ and ‘across this new divide’ suggesting that there was a relationship between the singers character and a woman and that there had been problems, forcing them apart, new problems, new divide. The editing and special effects are used to effect in helping with the emotions of the song, using fire for anger and sadness and mystic blue for regret. In some areas of the song the SFX help to bring out the emotion in the performers faces.

Secondly, structure of the video.

The live performance of the band in this video is outstanding. The lead singer has a very dominant role and because of that puts maximum effort into his singing and acting skills. What makes this video so unique is that the setting is very very different to any other music video. The lighting also plays a very special part in the music video. In one shot we see them turn a orange/red colour due to the editing and special effect, this helps to bring out the emotion to that part of the song, which is anger. One of the best aspects about this video is that it is not focused on one band member, in most shots there are shots of the other band members.

The structure of the video really helps the viewer to understand the narrative extremely well, mainly because of the main band members energy and commitment and the choice of lyrics as well. In my opinion the band performance is what makes this video really outstanding what with the video being be structured around a very easy to understand story line and being able to keep the same story all the way through the video, which leads me onto my next point.

The concept of this video is very simplistic as it keeps the same storyline all the way through. In doing so it is easy to follow and easy to understand. The main concept is that the main singers character has lost a loved one, although the cause is unknown, and feels regret, sadness and anger, which is expressed through SFX, editing and the energy of the singer with the leading role in the music video. Because of the raw emotion that is seen in the lead singer (Chester Bennington).

The mise-en-scene that the band uses are very unique, such as the cave were the music video is set through to the clothing of the band members. The members emulate a very dark style of clothing, mainly black jeans and grey and black t-shirts. However, the lead singers is seen wearing a white t-shirt underneath a black hoody, suggesting that he still has feelings for his loved one. As said before the lighting plays a very big part in the video, it plays a big part in showing the characters emotions.

The video when released was a massive hit in America and UK mainly because of the sheer amount of special effects that have been included. The band Linkin park is already a massive band worldwide, but creating this video has made them even more well known.

The video is slightly in the shadow of another great visual masterpiece, What I’ve Done, this video was a major hit around the globe, this video was so good it was nominated the Best Hard Rock Performance at the 52^nd Grammy awards. The career of this bad has been phenomenal, releasing 6 CD’s with another new one on the way.

Lastly target audience.

The first obvious fans that are targeted are Linkin park fans. But the amount of effects and editing techniques are outstanding and I think that is what would make this video appealing to a lot of people, even if they are not a fan of Linkin Park. I think they are targeted by the genre of the song and the type of video.

As a lot of the other videos that have been researched have included a lot of emotion, this is also what we are going to try to do, is to included a large amount of emotion, from all the band members.

Linkin Park Album Cover Analysis

What I’ve Done album cover.

The first thing that I noticed about the album cover for What I’ve Done is that it is very very simplistic. The white background helps to make all the band members stand out and the water fading at the horizon is a great touch. Both the single cover and the album cover use the same fonts for the title and the sub title, using the original font for ‘Linkin Park’, and a plain text for the text of the album and single name.

The front and back covers for the What I’ve Done album are very different to any other album that they have released. Firstly, the front cover is a shot of a white, peaceful setting with tranquil water nearby, misleading us into thinking that it is a peaceful, gentle CD, instead the CD is a heavy rock genre, making the cover completely deceptive. The band members on the front cover seem to stand united, all together. The black silhouettes of the members also give a mysterious feeling surrounding the CD. There seems to be a dark, moody theme, running through the front and leading to the back cover, as the members have got there back turned to the camera, giving the cover a ‘silent’ theme.

The back cover gives off a similar vibe as the front, moody and mysterious. As we can see the back cover seems darker than the front, making the band members blend into the surroundings. In some cases some of the song choices echo the setting, such as ‘Given Up’, it seems to reflect the band member’s moods as they look out to what looks like an ocean. Another song choice that reflects the artists attitude is ‘What I’ve Done’, this song choice could represent that what the artists are thinking, and looking out to sea, reflecting on past deeds, or looking out to the distance for answers.

Linkin park -What I've Done music video research

What I’ve Done - Linkin Park

The second video that I have chosen to analysis is the hugely successful video What I’ve Done. The video was so impressive it was nominated for the MTV Music Video Award and was also nominated for the Best Hard Rock Performance at the 52^nd Grammy Awards. It also the video clip was featured and won on MTV's Battle of the Videos against videos. I will be answering a series of questions about the video that will help me complete a thorough analysis.

Firstly, effects.

This music video received and was nominated awards for the effect the music video had on their audience. The music video for "What I've Done" explores the many ironies of humanity and its ill effects on the earth and the environment. The video uses the editing technique cross cutting to shows the relationship between footage of the live band performing in the desert, interspersed with stock footage reflecting on a variety of social and environmental issues including racism, global warming, nuclear warfare and other crimes committed by humanity. The shots of the band performance and other scenes mix together very well as the lyrics suit the style of video and what the video is about. There are not too many special effects, mainly just shots and scenes of real life situations that have been caused by humanity.

The narrative is very clear as the images in the music video tell the story instead of the lyrics. The main message behind the video that we must stop wasting our resources or the consequences will be catastrophic. The video uses a range editing techniques such as cut, which switches between the band and the emotional scenes, to show the emotion in the singers face, cross cutting, to show the relationship between the live performance and other scenes.

Secondly, structure of the video.

The live performance for this song is excellent. The one thing that stood out was the background theme. I have not seen a video that is set in a dessert before and it really is a different and pleasing location. The main structure is that the whilst the band are performing videos of poverty, global warming, nuclear war etc are being shown playing on the viewers emotions. The narrative seems to be what he video is based around using the correct lyrics at the right time and image and the correct images chosen for the song. The choice of lyrics also suits the video very well, we here the lead singer say ‘What I’ve Done’ a lot of times, perhaps speaking on behalf of humanity, admitting the crimes that we have done to harm our planet and the people around it.

The general concept for this music video is basing it around historic events and world leaders and then making a video can be based around this. I think this videos tries to outline that the main problem is humanity and basing the video and lyrics around the problems. Again we hear the word ‘forgive’ being mentioned an awful lot by the main singer, suggesting that he is sorry for past deeds.

There are a lot of great shots in this video, for example at the beginning there is a panning shot that zooms in to the band, then at the end, the exact same shot reappears, only its going back to the start, possibly that’s what the message is in the video, starting again, turning over a new leaf. The shot of an explosion that matches the start of the music is an excellent shot. Also there is a lot of low angle shots of the band members, suggesting that they are shouting at the viewer for being so careless with the earth, making the viewer seem powerless. There is also a few high angle shots which shows the positioning of the band members. The slow motion effect is used when the band member is not singing, possibly giving us time to think about the important issues in the video. Also there is an excellent use of artificial light and natural light, both working together to make the band members stand out. There is not to many special effects in this video, even without the SFX, the video still manages to be a top class video. The one piece of special effects that is seen is the slow motion. As said before this is used a number of times throughout the video, helping us get a good look at the band members and the location of the video.

As with any other Linkin Park music video, the band members all seem to be wearing black, this seems to be the main theme running through each video, signifying that the band is mysterious and possibly trying to hide something. As said before the setting is very different from a lot of any other music videos, and also the band seems to leave all of their equipment for the audience to see, such as a helicopter and instrument cases. This could signify that the band has a lot of luggage and that they are trying to break free in the music that they produce as with most music videos we see the artists putting a massive amount of emotion into their music.

The success of this video has been outstanding, the video clip was featured and won on MTV's Battle of the Videos against videos by Evanescence (Sweet Sacrifice) and Lil' Mama (Lip Gloss), the video also marks the first appearance of a Linkin Park video in the number 1 spot on MTV's TRL, hitting number 1 six times so far and finally the video was among the all-time top 50 most viewed on YouTube with over 36 million views. The amount of award and nominations just show that a video like this doesn’t have to have SFX to be a groundbreaking visual masterpiece.

What makes this video so special is that Linkin Park have never written a song for this type of video. The lyrics are completely different to the normal type that Linkin Park are used to writing. Although the lyrics are very different, the emotion that is expressed is the same as for example New Divide. Emotions such as anger, sadness and pity.

Linkin park have progressed massively form when they started out in 1996 and released their debut album, Hybrid Theory in 2000, even though this was their first album it sold over 9.6 million in America alone and selling 24 million copies as of 2009, making it the second best selling album of the decade behind The Beatles. Now in 2010 the band are continuing to make great albums and break records.

This video uses a varied amount of camera angles, a lot that pan around the band, and this is what we are going to try and achieve also, a lot of different camera angles, mainly panning and close ups, just like this video does, as its looks very professional.

Michael Jackson - Thriller Music Video

This song is highly regarded as one of the best music videos of all time. The video lasts for about 14 minutes and follows a narrative based story of Michael Jackson taking his girlfriend to watch a scary film. The song doesn't even start properly until it shows them both walking home. The main performance starts with Michael Jackson as the lead dancer with a number of zombies in the background. This video was released in 1983 which shows what can be done with a video at this time where they were just taking off. The video was extremely popular at the time and gained renewed popularity when Michael Jackson died in 2009. The video follows a narrative structure where it allows the audience to wonder what will happen in the middle of the video. This is more like a movie as it has end credits to show the director and the writer of the song. The non diegetic sound of the voiceover makes the video more interesting as with the mise-en-scene to create a scary mood. Even though this is highly regarded as the best video of all time there isnt really any exciting camera angles but we do see some mid shots and close up to show the emotion of Michael Jackson and his girlfriend. The main focus is the dance routine is the zombie dance routine which is well choreographed. This is probably to promote the artist as well as the song because now Michael Jackson is thought of a very highly skilled performer. The target audience are probably people who already like Michael Jackson and people who like pop music.

Vampire Weekend - A-Punk Music Video

The ideas are slightly concept based relying on a heavy performance based video to create effect. This video is very simplistic with the four band members doing a performance against a white wall. This can be linked to our video performance where there are four band members playing in front of a black background. The video doesn't really use any narrative or fancy editing. The camera movement focuses on the band from the front with a fade occuring to indicate night and day. Another type of editing is used to speed up various parts of the video to make it more interesting. Many videos of a similar genre use this type of performance in their video. Personally I think that this video is a sucess due to the simple idea of a band performance. The target audience are people who like Vampire Weekend and probably people interested in performance based videos. The use of mise-en-scene to indicate winter months as well.

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

Close ups show personal emotions of character this links to the emotional song, slow panning shots also work with this, always laying down in odd locations not normally linked with sleeping shows he is in some sort of trance like state but at the end is resolved by sleeping in a natural enviroment his bed this follows Todorov's theory

Michel Gondry.

Michel Gondry (born May 8, 1963) is a French film, commercial and music video director and an Academy Award-winning screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène.
His career as a filmmaker began with creating music videos for the French rock band Oui Oui, in which he also served as a drummer. The style of his videos for Oui Oui caught the attention of music artist Björk, who asked him to direct the video for her song "Human Behaviour". The collaboration proved long-lasting, with Gondry directing a total of seven music videos for Björk. Other artists who have collaborated with Gondry on more than one occasion include Daft Punk, The White Stripes, The Chemical Brothers, The Vines, Steriogram, Radiohead, and Beck. Gondry has also created numerous television commercials. He pioneered the "bullet time" technique later adapted in The Matrix in a 1998 commercial for Smirnoff vodka, as well as directing a trio of inventive holiday-themed advertisements for clothing retailer Gap, Incorporated.

Here is a list of some of the music videos that Michel Gondry:

1. Open Your Heart" - Mia Doi Todd (2010)

2. Too Many Dicks On The Dance floor" & "Carol Brown" (unofficial videos) - Flight Of The
Conchords (2009)

3. Soleil du Soir" - Dick Annegarn (2008)

4. Declare Independence" - Björk (2007)

5. Dance Tonight" - Paul McCartney (2007)

6. Cellphone's Dead" - Beck (2006)

7. Anysound" - The Vines (2006)

Gondry was an Artist in Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 and 2006. Later directing the music video for the Paul McCartney song "Dance Tonight", in which Gondry makes a cameo appearance. Gondry directed of "Unnatural Love," the fifth episode in season two of HBO's Flight of the ConchordsInterior Design one third of the 2008 anthology film Tokyo! was next for Gondry. Interior Design was based on the comic book "Cecil and Jordan in New York" by Gabrielle Bell but was adapted from New York City to Tokyo for the film.

By Callum Balding