Weekly Blog Post 6

Out of the seemingly chaotic clips of, for example, suffering versus rebirth there comes a unified order that sews the mosaic of various images through history illustrating multiple facets of human kind in Linkin Park's music video for "What I've Done." In the beginning grass grows and a scorpion marches across the sand to the sound of a piano mixed with turntablism , mellower than the remaining song, but preparing the audience for the type of video they are about to witness. The music superficially seems to match the movement of the grass and the scorpion, setting the tone for the images associated with "good" and natural images. When the song begins to pick up the pace and become edger, guitars, drums and vocals adding to the piano, the images take a sharp turn toward shocking material that people would rather not be faced with in life such as starvation, poverty, and genocide. The beat of the song determines and accentuates the order in which the images appear based on the content of the clip shown and the type of emotional impact associated with that particular set of clips.

Although the music itself does impact the construction of the video, the manner in which the clips are arranged aids in playing with the pathos of the video. The subject in which the video is based, various global issues that are able to be fixed if people were more willing to help, would by itself evoke emotion in a majority of people since the context in which they are typically observed is tragic. The clips are organized into groups containing similar content, so contrasting images are juxtaposed in an attempt to evoke stranger emotion than if the image were shown alone. The words “what I've done,” transform into a question as the images beautifully illustrate the lyrics; forcing the audience to ask themselves what they have done either to contribute to the destruction shown or attempt to clean what earlier generations have done. Images of the band performing the song share an equal amount of time with the clips revealing their humanity, as mentioned in the precious blog, exemplifying both facets of humanity; destructive recklessness and prudent consideration. The clips and music playing reflect the attitude that the band displays while producing the song, even going to the length of mirroring some of the movements in the video to emphasize an aspect of the video such as the slow motion sequence between the bomb explosion and the landing of the guitarist at the same time. With all these elements in the video, the chaos is organized into a clear humanitarian message that is emphasized in an attempt to evoke emotion and take action against the negative images in the video and emulate the positive.