The video is shot entirely in the black and white, seeing as the previous videos were shot in colour making this video stand out from the others in the series.
In photography Black and white is often used to convey emotion, black and white is often used in wedding photo's and black and white was used in the film Schindler's List because black and white makes the viewer concentrate on the images opposed to the colours making it the emotion's clearer.
The video doesn't quite start off where the last video ended, there is meant to be an extended version that hasn't been released yet, maybe it will fill in the gap.
The video starts in what looks like a desert with a monologue spoken in a women's voice over images of blood dripping on plants, Pete walking with the case and Patrick following him.
it reads:
They just sat back, laughing at the wounded city. each breath sucking in ashes and fumes. Oh it bled all right, dryer than moore county. All expatriate flames hurrying to found new nations of blinding dust. But the two of them, they just squinted at that pipe-cleaner skyline. And it burned hotter than their oil slick pupils. One elbowed the other and said “I’ve seen better.” Knowing that they were paid to remember the past - he blew out a hot breath and said “Burn it all.”
The title is shows over an establishing shot of the desert, the text is written in black. (it's usually written in white.) This could be a way of differentiating this video further from the other or because the videos in black and white black text is easier to read on the grey sky.
The pair are also seen to be pursued by two people on motor bikes, the motor bikes pass them.
Patrick and Pete both appear to be injured.
We are shown shots of what is best described as a car graveyard with cars and shells of car lined up in rows, Pete makes his way through the cars to hide from/escape from Patrick.
The shots are shown to let the audience know that we are now in a new location.
A one eyed doll is seen peeking out of a window then followed by the face of a young girl.
Because dolls are toys they represent innocence (and even more so because this dolls looks like a baby) the dolls is missing an eye which makes it looks a little sinister, this could represent broken innocence.
Pete then hides in a car, a shot of Patrick is seen in a cars wing mirror.Looking at someone in the wing mirror of a car is discreet because the mirror is small and not necessarily easy to spot, someone could see where someone is going or doing without being spotted.
This is probably Pete's point of view but the fact they just show the audience the shot and not Pete looking in the wing mirror makes the audience feel like they are also hiding, this makes the audience feel fear towards Patrick.
If the shot had featured Pete looking for Patrick through the mirror the audience would've felt sympathy towards Pete and not Fear towards Patrick, this just makes it feel more scary.
Patrick walks through the car graveyard and searches for Pete, the young woman climbs out of the car to show Patrick where Pete is hiding.
Pete then throws the case out the car window, jumps out the window after it, retrieves the case, jumps up onto a car bonnet and runs along the cars to get away from Patrick. I think this just looks more interesting from a cinematic point of view than it would've been if he just opened the door and ran away.
Pete is then seen running into an area fenced off with a picket fence, there is a close up of a statue of Jesus holding the end of a chain.
There is a muscular man holding the chain in the middle and tugging it and a thinner man with the end of the chain around his neck.
The next shot is a lot clearer.
There is a skinny man painting the picket fence, the picket fence has a cross on it and the man has a chain around his neck.
There is a muscular man on the other side of the fence, he pulls at the end of the chain which is attached to to the other man.
He hold the chain in the middle and he showers the statue with water from a watering can.
The statue holds the end of the chain.
This is a metaphor for religion, the man painting is putting effort into making the church/religious place look better whilst someone with power within the church it's self is making him do it. The man painting is like a church goer and the man on the inside of the fence is like a vicar or a priest.
The priest is literally the middle man between the church goer and the religious figure, he is physically stronger symbolising the power he has over the smaller man.
The fact he's inside the fence would indicate he is receiving the reward from the church goers effort.
The middle man is pulling the chain, the statue is holding the chain but the statue can't pull it.
This could be a metaphor of how priests and vicars can make people believe and do things with the justification that it is to please god when in actual fact god doesn't make people do or believe anything.
It's a strange relationship between slave, chain puller and statue.
The statue can't move so clearly the slave isn't painting the fence for the statue but for the chain puller but at the same time the chain puller is showering the statue which indicates that the statue is of importance to him.
So whilst the smaller man is doing the hard job of painting the fence the bigger man is also doing the albeit easier job of washing the statue.
This is probably a very good description of religion, you have people working hard by putting in time, effort and money for the sake of their religion.
You have a priest who is ultimately reaping the rewards of power and then the deity who whilst not being physically present has control over the other two.
Patrick and Pete run into a trailer, the presumed owner is standing outside carving something manically, she doesn't acknowledge the people who just went into her house, there are an assortment of car related item outside her trailer.
It's not clear what she's doing. It looks like a wooden mask of some sort, in some shots she looks like she's drumming the knives on the table and other times it looks like she's playing the violin with the knife being the fiddle and the mask being the violin. Sometimes she looks angry and sometimes she looks excited.
I'm not really sure what this scene is about, I think it has something to do with music.
Maybe because there is a theme of death within music in these videos, maybe this is a way of showing how music is born or lives on through seemingly unrelated interests.
If this woman can make carving a mask looking musical and rhythmic maybe music can't truly die?
That doesn't really explain the the hub caps, car fuel and tires though.
Pete loses Patrick and this scene is separated from the next with a shot of a spiny plant dripping with blood.
I'm not sure if the plants have some kind of meaning, the plants could represent life and the blood could represent pain and death or something. This could be a metaphor, perhaps it's meant to symbolise death or how someone else's pain or death can effect others.
The blood could literally be the blood of Pete and Patrick because they are injured and they just happen to leave trails of blood as they move.
In the next scene a little girl is seen playing in an abandoned broadcasting van pressing buttons and flicking switches, she wears a colander on her head.
Patrick approaches her,he might have attacked her if Pete hadn't intervened and distracted him. The little girl is oblivious.
In the video foe Rat A Tat Patrick Stump was brain washed into wanting to destroy anything music related (as opposed to going into fits of blind rage) so by going after this little girl indicates she is doing something Music related.
The colander on her head would imply that she is playing a role play based game and that the colander is a substitute for a hat that she would need for the role she's playing.
It looks like to me she is pretending to be a music producer or DJ, usually children role play as people they admire or who they want to be so in effect she might want to work in music when she's older.
Patrick trying to attack her is maybe a way of preventing her from becoming a DJ/producer/whatever although it could have a deeper meaning, maybe Patrick represents the people who try to discourage children from chasing their dreams because either someone said it was impossible, somebody thought she should do something else because they don't believe in her or share her dreams.
That theory could hold some weight because the little girl is wearing white and white usually symbolises innocence and purity. (although white could be used because it shows up better in black and white film.)
She is at the stage where she is exploring something secretly and enjoying her self and she hasn't got to the point where someone has tried to discourage her yet, Pete could be trying to stop Patrick to keep her from being discouraged (also to protect her from harm.).
The point of the Young Blood Chronicles is to keep music alive so keeping this girl alive is like saving music.
In the next scene Pete and Patrick are seen running past a pool with a man wrestling an inflatable alligator oblivious to the two bloodied men running past him.
I don't really understand what this is about either but I'm going with the presumption that because its a music video and because music video's are short they wouldn't waste time with filling the video with irrelevant things.
He seems to be taking his alligator wrestling seriously. alligator wrestling is an extreme sport, alligators are strong animals so someone who takes part in alligator wrestling must be strong and it is seen as a tough man sport.
This man is wrestling an inflatable alligator which is light and easy to move.
This could be a metaphor of how people make things seem a lot more dramatic/impressive than they really are, maybe it's a metaphor of how people think that what they are doing is more dramatic/impressive than it really is or maybe it's a metaphor of how people are so absorbed in their own problems and fail to see how small they are in comparison to other peoples problems.
I think I'll leave this one to your interpretation.
The pair fight a little and the scene changes again.
This shot looks ominous.
There is a swing set with a deflated tire swing and a swing that's made out of a stick attached to a chain at both ends, there is also a vent which looks like it's dripping with blood.
Sweet.
I'm not sure if this has a deeper meaning, because of the swing and tricycle it's clear that children live/lived in the house, I think it might represent lost of innocence because of the run down look of the house and possible blood stains.
This shot is used to change the scene again because in the next shot the boys are seen running through a trailer where an old woman is watching a blank TV wearing a gas mask.
I presume the smoke is coming from the TV, it looks to me like the woman is purposely filling her house with gas by pressing the button on the remote. She is protecting herself from the poison by putting the gas mask on in advance.
If she didn't mean for the room to fill with gas she wouldn't have worn the mask or she would've left the room.
I think this could be a metaphor of how people do things despite knowing they aren't good for you like drinking and smoking.
The TV would suggest that she is being poisoned by media willingly,I think people know that media can be biased and that reality TV isn't always very real but people still choose to watch it.
Pete and Patrick bust through the back door of the smokey house and 2 people are seen out side.
The old man is seen drinking from a bottle in a paper bag before putting goggles on and lying in a tanning bed, a young woman is seen wearing a bikini pouring what looks like petrol over herself.
The man looks a lot older than the women so I would presume the woman is the daughter of the man on the sun bed and the woman with the gas mask.
Tanned skin is seen as more attractive so these people are trying to become more attractive, tanning is also seen dangerous as it can cause skin cancer.
The theme of danger is exaggerated by the woman pouring petrol over herself.
Oil is used in tanning to improve the colour of a tan, petrol is also an oil but it's highly flammable and putting petrol on your skin is an awful idea.
This is clearly a beauty metaphor, I guess what this is saying is that people will go to extreme lengths to make themselves look a certain way when honestly things like a tan, a thinner body, longer hair, bigger boobs ect don't really make you any prettier.
Also following the theory that the girl is meant to be the man's daughter then that would imply that people get their insecurities from their parents.
If you grow up with a dad who's always concerned with topping up his tan he will most likely have children who feel the same.
After another cut away of bloodied plants Patrick and Pete are seen brawling in a clearing and all the people from earlier points in the video crowd around to to watch.
Pete see's flash backs of events from previous videos as he fights Patrick, the crowd cheer as Pete stabs Patrick with a machete.
(They're friends, I swear.)
Patrick then starts stabbing Pete with the hook as the sunsets.
Patrick starts having flash backs as he breaks out of this trance and he finally stops attacking Pete who is unfortunately already dead.
As Patrick takes in the scene he realises he is wounded, coughs up blood and dies.
I thought Patrick would be the last to die, I had this theory for a while now that the band members where dying in the order they reformed the band which would leave Patrick last as he was the first to make contact by writing a letter to Pete asking if they could write songs together.
Both Joe and Pete were killed by Patrick, Andy was killed by Courtney's henchwomen and Patrick was killed by Pete from beyond the grave.
Joe was killed first because he was the last to be contacted, according to wikipedia Joe was contacted last by Patrick via 3 hour phone call because he needed more convincing to regroup.
I don't know how Andy was contacted, maybe Andy wasn't killed by Patrick because maybe he wasn't approached by Patrick or another band member but maybe he was approached by an agent or something instead.
Pete killed Patrick because Pete was the person who Phoned Patrick to invite him to write songs after Pete received a letter from Patrick.
Basically Patrick was the first to contact a band member so he was the the last to die but he was invited to write songs by Pete so he had to be killed by Pete after he had already killed him, does that makes sense?
The video ends with the music fading out eerily as Patrick loses conciousness, two women then retrieve the briefcase and leave.
This video didn't really explain anything as such in the way of the on going story, to be honest they could've missed this video out and have them either die at the end of Rat a Tat or the beginning of Save Rock and Roll, I don't think that would've done the story any justice.
I think the final fight between brainwashed Patrick and Pete needed time and they managed to throw some cool metaphors in there too. (or at least I think they did.) Putting the final fight at the beginning or end of a different video would've been too unceremonious and I feel they filled the video well.
The finale wraps things up properly so stay tuned for the final Young Blood Chronicles Post.
What did you think of the video? Let me know what you think in the comments.
