Shadow of The Day - Music Video

Music Video

The music video was directed by Joe Hahn. It takes place during a large scale civil unrest in what appears to be the United States. The video was shot in Los Angeles at 20th Century Fox. The action was set up by stunt coordinator Steven Ho.

The music video was released to the internet on October 15, 2007. The video shows Chester Bennington waking up. His alarm clock reads 11:55, the then Doomsday Clock time, referencing the album title Minutes to Midnight and the song which is the 5th song on the album. The video is over four minutes long, meaning that the time at the end would be 11:59 PM, or one minute to midnight. Chester then watches the news, washes up, gets dressed, and goes outside. The video takes place in a war-torn world, where mass chaos is ensuing on the streets of the city. There is a lot of violence going on with many police and gunshots. Plumes of smoke can be seen in the sky. Soldiers and riot police can be seen forcefully detaining civilians. Near the end of the video, a car is set on fire and bursts into flames as several people taking place in the riot throw molotov cocktails at police resulting in the Police Riot Control and SWAT teams opening fire and advancing while the mob of people retreat. A man suddenly throw a bottle of alcohol on a car and the car takes fire, explaining the title of the song "Shadow Of The Day" Chester then stands in front of the burning car, while looking hopelessly at the carnage that surrounds him. He then turns towards the flames, and the video fades to black. The electronic/synth outro of the song is excluded on the video to make it a more appropriate finish. If listened to carefully towards the middle of the video, the mob is shouting 'we want freedom'.

This is the only video so far with only Chester appearing, as Brad, Rob, Mike, Joe and Phoenix are absent in it. Because of this the video features no performance footage other than Chester's singing. The video isn't completely dubbed by the song, meaning sound effects taking place in the video can be heard.

There are also three different edits of the video, presumably due to censorship:

• A director's cut which is available at Joe Hahn's section of the Linkin Park website. In this version there are several scenes not in other versions. Chester is seen carrying a bag which he drops on the ground around 3:18 into the song. A few seconds later it goes back to Chester's house and zooms in on a table containing lots of wires and other electronics. There are also several blueprints and video monitors for security cameras displaying a certain building. After about 30 seconds there is a giant explosion destroying the building that the video monitors were displaying. This alludes that Chester had built a bomb and it was in the bag that he was carrying. He then had planned to bomb that building during the riot.
• An alternate ending to the video, which shows Chester begin to walk away from the flames. The police open fire, and the video ends with a shot of Chester's bag falling to the ground. What actually happens to Chester is not revealed, but it can be assumed that either he was shot and killed or he threw his bag away and joined the riot. The alternate ending is only shown on MTV Europe music channels.
• MTV Overdrive contains a version which scenes with gunfire and bottle smashing are cut and replaced with different riot scenes.

The song was also featured in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The video won Best Rock Video at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards and was also nominated for Best Direction in a Video.

The video was placed at #37 of the year by VH1's Top 40 Videos of the Year.