Linkin park- what I’ve done

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. The close up shot of the singer of the band is conventional of music videos as it allows intimacy between the band and the audience and that everything behind the singer is blurred out to allow focus. This could also link to the idea of how the band does not want the audience to be too drawn into the narrative of the video but them instead.

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 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. There is a high angle shot of the band which allows the shot to capture all of the members of the band. This links to the idea of how the video draws the audience away from the narrative of the video. This is also conventional of a music video as it gives the idea that the audience are watching the band as a performance and to show off their musicality.

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 video 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 grass, 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. . The mise en scene of the video is representing the genre of indie/rock through the dark clothing, tight jeans, leather jackets and dark glasses.

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.

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 is 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 are shown.