Music Video Deconstruction 9, Faint, Linkin Park

The Music Video “Faint” by Linkin Park is a performance based music video, which shows the band performing and a live crowd as if at a live performance.

The video starts with a large light board half on and the silhouette of the lead singer and then the band members setting themselves up on a stage. The camera stands behind the band members showing the crowd who are watching the performance. The band seems to not be playing to the music until the slight pause before the heavier music begins. We can tell when this happens because the lights behind the crowd suddenly become fully lit and then the music begins. The camera swaps between different members and then to the crowd to give the audience the full view of what is happening on and off stage.

Throughout the first verse, chorus, second verse, second chorus and the third verse we only see the band from behind them and with the light this causes them to look like silhouettes. The crowd off stage have their hands up and are jumping in time with the music this suggests that the genre of the music is rock or heavy metal because that is the stereotypical way a crowd dances to that specific genre of music.

When the camera angle moves from behind the band to in front of them it then shows the performance from the crowds point of view and everything that they would be seeing while watching. The background that the band have been playing in front of is a rundown building wall with a garage door half open and the front of a car sticking out. This would tie in with the genre of the music as well as where you would be likely to see the listeners of that genre.

The camera changes angle the camera is placed practically on the stage behind the band members to show the lead singer getting close down next to the jumping crowd and then to a high angled bird’s eye view of the performance showing the vast number of people dancing to the music.

Overall the video show very little special effects, but a wide range of transitions, camera angles and lighting to make the music video a success. The lighting creates a silhouette effect on the band members when the camera is behind them looking out onto the crowd. The transitions cut between different band members and the crowd to show different events or specific parts such as looking at the change in singers and where they are around the stage. I thought that the lighting was a clever idea, the camera angles have influenced me to include those types of camera angles into the drafts of my music video.