Traces of Insanity- Trunks Music Video
Artist: Linkin Park
Song: Crawling
Anime: Dragonball Z
Video sources: FUNimation Dragonball Z video tapes
Length: 3:37 minutes
Size: MPEG- 35 MB
        RealVideo- 12 MB
Time taken to make: 30+ hours
Equipment: Adobe Premiere 5.1, ATI All-in-Wonder Pro video capture card

I know what assumptions you’ve already made about this video. :P "What? A DBZ/Linkin Park video? Now that’s original." Sarcasm ensues. Trust me, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking such a thing. Frankly, I’d think the same thing, and in all honesty, I have done so in the past. However, it is precisely that reasoning that prompted me to make a DBZ music video using a Linkin Park song (and it helps that the lyrics go with my idea, but I’ll ramble about that later). I have not heard of the band until I began receiving e-mails from fans of my site asking me to make a DBZ music video using a song by the group. "What’s a Linkin Park?," I asked myself. After looking at animemusicvideos.org’s listings of DBZ/Linkin Park videos, I quickly concluded that DBZ + Linkin Park = very bad things. Over the years, I’ve noticed that fans are easily entertained by the latest, trendy, semi-hard music used for DBZ videos (no matter how god-awful the video might be), and I have just as easily steered clear of venturing off onto that road of music video-making. However, I saw one DBZ/Linkin Park video that helped to change my opinion. I’m referring to Otaku Vengeance’s Trunks Tribute music video. Not only did the lyrics of the song fit the scenes beautifully, but the editing and concept proved that it wasn’t just a newbie video jumping on the DBZ/Linkin Park bandwagon. As a result, I started listening to some of Linkin Park’s songs, and discovered a song that just slapped "Make-A-Music-Video-To-This" on my face: "Crawling" + Trunks = huzzah!

As you can see, I have chosen to make a music video to Linkin Park’s "Crawling". The concept, plain and simple: Trunks is nuts. If you’d like to take that comment as it is, and don’t want to get spoiled by reading the details concerning the video, please skip my babbling and go download the video below. If you would like to read my reasoning behind the concept of this video (and I hope ya do!), I’d love it if you’d continue reading! J

Begin Meri’s Psycho Babble!

Ever since I’ve been a Trunks fan (geez, what’s it been, 5 years?), I have always believed that Trunks is completely, without a doubt, insane. OK, so his insanity is kind of subtle, but it’s still there, dag nabbit! Anywho, I thought it would be neat to make a music video to convey this concept, but I never heard the right song to portray that message properly. That is, until I heard "Crawling" by Linkin Park. The more I listened to the song, the more it hit me that it really does apply to the crazy little inner workings of Trunks’ warped mind. Allow me to explain.

Trunks has one messed up past. Let’s see....he saw his best friend die, had his timeline ravaged by Androids, lived without a father (who turns out to be an asshole when he gets to meet him, to add insult to injury), and had to protect what was left of the Earth practically alone. That’s enough to drive a young man nuts, and I think in the case of Trunks, it does. There are several instances throughout Dragonball Z that I feel allude to this belief. Such examples are the way he handles himself around his father, the way he "spaces out" at times, when he gets all depressed and talks about his future, among other things. I think those instances alone make for a good, crazy music video. Now, how to turn "Trunks is nuts" into a plausable music video?

** Yikes, Meri explains her video! Potential spoilers below! Concept time, woo hoo **

The video starts off at the root of Trunks’ tormented mind: the death of Gohan. ‘nuff said. He goes a little nuts, and becomes a Super Saiyajin for the first time. I get back to that later in the video.

From this point on, the video goes back and forth between actions taking place in the present time, and in Trunks’ flashbacks to the future. I tried my best to use scenes that reflected Trunks at his most weird and disturbing.

I wanted the video to pan out as follows:

We see Trunks as a young man, who uncontrollably transforms in to a Super Saiyajin. He has no control, and is an emotional wreck.

For the rest of the video, we see Trunks dealing with phantoms from his past. All the while, he is training to deal with his new transformation.

Trunks is constrantly troubled by the shadows of his past: the Androids, and the authority figure that won’t give him the time of day, his father Vegeta. I wanted the video to revolve around Trunks dealing with these main two issues that are the cause of his slight insanity, Androids #17 and #18, and Vegeta.

Near the end of the video, (about 3 minutes into it) Trunks has learned to not run from his past, or let his past eat at his soul, but instead, he has utilized his pain to be the source of his power. That’s why I chose to use action/fighting scenes of Trunks at this point; to show that Trunks has now learned to control his power (the opposite of the beginning of the video, when he didn’t have any control. Neat, huh!?). Also, I wanted to choose scenes of Trunks looking tough, proud, and confident, unlike the crazy, insecure Trunks we see at the beginning of the video. I guess you could say it’s a happy ending. J

** End Meri’s rantings on her video **

That’s pretty much it. My goal is to make a Trunks music video that tells the story of a young man with a tormented soul, who attains inner peace and strength in the end. You’re probably thinking I’m reading in way in too deep for DBZ, and that the show is not that complex. With this video, I hope to make people realize that producing a thoughtful, non-"fight-fight-fight" DBZ video is possible (and using a Linkin Park song, no less!). I’ve seen my fair share of sucky DBZ/Linkin Park videos in my day...and I really, really, really hope this won’t turn out to be one of them. I hope you enjoy watching this video as much as I loved making it.

Now, for the things that I don’t like about this video: I think I rely far too much on fans’ knowledge of Trunks and DBZ on some of the scenes I chose. There are a lot of scenes I used that I think some fans might not understand unless they were a weird Trunks freak like me (ahh, fangirl-dom is fun). Even so, I don’t this it’s that bad that it ruins the video. :P I’m just odd, that’s all. Also, the quality isn’t as good as it could be at some portions, what problem was due codec experimentations on certain clips (bad ideas). Sorry ‘bout that. The next version, I hope, will look nicer. However, despite that, this is still the best looking MPEG I have ever recorded so....wheee!

Well...this is my favorite DBZ music video that I have ever made. I really loved how it turned out. ^_^ I give it a big hug!

Thanks for reading my babbling!

Special thanks to my man Mike LaBrie (vegex.pokeball.net) for helping me encode the clips on something other than my shitty computer, and to LordRae of Otaku Vengeance, for making the Trunks/Linkin Park music video that helped inspired me to make this video. *bakes everyone cookies*

Recommendations: If ya have the patience, download the MPEG. It’s on my university web space, so I don’t know how fast the transfer rate will be. Even if it’s slow, I still recommend getting the MPEG. I think it’s worth it, compared to the RealVideo. Only get the RealVideo if....uhh...well, I don’t know why you’d want to get the RealVideo version. It may be smaller, but it doesn’t look as clear as the MPEG.

Download the MPEG of "Traces of Insanity"
Download the RealVideo of "Traces of Insanity"

Go back to Temple O' Trunks