There are so many reasons that Heath Ledger's death from an accidental drug overdose in 2008 at age 28 was a tragic loss for his fans. But in addition to the legendarily intense Australian star's Academy Award-winning on-screen performances, his posthumously-revealed skill as a director has provided proof that Ledger had vision beyond his thespian chops.

Minds were already blown earlier this year when Modest Mouse let loose the animated clip for "King Rat" directed and conceived by Ledger as a not-so-subtle ecological parable about our destruction of the oceans. And his posthumously-released 2007 video for the Nick Drake song "Black Eyed Dog" — a movingly dark black-and-white clip that ends with Ledger drowning himself in a bathtub — provided another dim chapter in the brooding actor's singular profile.

On Thursday, yet another Ledger-directed video, this one for his childhood friend rapper N'fa Forster-Jones, was released and it showed yet another side of the actor's multifaceted personality.

The video for the song "Cause An Effect," shot in 2006, features the Australian rapper in a kind of White Stripes-like alternate reality, wearing stark black and white and red and white face paint against zebra-striped backgrounds that create a kaleidoscopic effect and reveal Ledger's sharp eye for visual aesthetics.

In a video accompanying the clip, Forster-Jones describes how it was shot in one day the garage of Ledger's beachside apartment. "He gave me a call one morning, as he often did at crazy hours, and he's like, 'N'fa, I've got this idea for a video,'" the rapper explains. "He was basically running around directing me each shot … It was a really cool day … Every day I count my blessings that I got to have him direct this piece of art." According to the Associated Press, the video debuted earlier this month as part of a collection of Ledger's work shown at the Rome Film Festival.

Welcome to the weekly Newsroom Poll, where we will give you a sneak peek into the lives and minds of some of the correspondents, writers, editors and producers here at MTVNews.com. Every week, they'll answer a poll question that will reveal some of what we talk about behind the scenes here in the newsroom. Enjoy!

The death of Michael Jackson has hit the MTV News staff pretty hard, and will continue to as we sort through the aftermath of last week's shocking news. It's been a crazy week for celebrity death, as Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, pitchman Billy Mays and actor Karl Malden have all passed away in the past week.

Dealing with death is always difficult, but the passing of a public person is surreal. How do you deal with the loss of somebody you only knew through a body of work? So we passed around this week's poll question: What's the one celebrity death that has hit you the hardest, and why? Check out the staff's answers below, and be sure to leave your own stories in the comments.

Sabrina Rojas Weiss
I was in high school when I heard that River Phoenix had died of a drug overdose the night before. It was on Channel One News, the news program for young people they used to air in school. I had never cried before about anyone dying, celebrity or not — I don't even think I knew anyone who had died at that point. But I did right there, in the middle of class. Totally embarrassing! He was just 23, and so beautiful and perfect to me. At that age, I was just starting to think I was too mature to idolize celebrities, but his death felt like a personal blow.
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by Cara Alwill

There have been a lot of confusing reports recently about the video the late Heath Ledger directed for Modest Mouse, so we reached out to the band's rep to get the facts.

The clip is for the song "King Rat", which was an outtake from the band's 2007 album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock met Ledger in Australia, and the idea for the video came from that meeting. In a 2007 interview with VH1, Brock recalled, "Heath Ledger's been wanting to do a video for one of the songs that didn't make it on the record, 'King Rat.' Terry Gilliam is going to help animate it. Heath and I have a mutual friend and when we were in Australia, my fiancé and some of us in the band went out on a boat with him and his family and friends and talked about the idea. He's got a video production company and was interested in working on something. We were talking back and forth for a while. The idea seemed sort of dropped, but then he just sent me an e-mail saying that he wanted to do it. And I love me some Terry Gilliam. I hope it works out and I don’t sound like a f---ing liar at the end of this."
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By Rachel Josue

It was a very exciting 2008 here in the MTV Newsroom. It was a year of triumph and tragedy, a year of secret weddings and pregnancies, a year of overcoming adversity and a year of inspiration and change.

2008 brought us everything from the shocking death of Heath Ledger and the tragedy that befell Jennifer Hudson and her family, to the reinvention of Britney Spears and the successes of "The Dark Knight" and Tha Carter III. Your favorite artists and celebrities eloped (is it legal yet, Speidi?), married overseas (nice tats, Mariah and Nick) and got hitched in secret (thanks for finally admitting to that, Jay and B). They had babies and — in true Hollywood style — named them strange things (I am available to babysit when Bronx befriends Brooklyn and they have a play-date in Manhattan. Just saying.). And, Chinese Democracy actually materialized, to the delight of Dr. Pepper fans.

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Mary Kate-Olsen's lawyer has already said she had nothing to do with the drugs that killed Heath Ledger, but the Drug Enforcement Agency still thinks she has some explaining to do. According to "Access Hollywood" the DEA has issued a subpoena requiring her to testify in front of a grand jury. Olsen's attorney said on Monday that the actress has already given the feds all the relevant information she has, but has refused to testify without immunity.

Read the full story here.

Hi, did you see "American Idol" last night? Even if you did, here's a snappy recap. Our freakishly-obsessed-with-Idol boss, Jim Fraenkel, definitely watched, and noticed some sort of connection. He writes:

He’s been known all season long as “the Australian.” But as the contestants’ bios were fleshed out a bit more last night in the taped pieces preceding their performances, it was revealed (at least more explicitly than at any time in the past) that Michael Johns grew up not in Sydney (which is where we pretty much assume all Aussies are from) but in the western Australian city of Perth. Interesting.

Add to that John’s age, 28, and it was definitely enough to make us go hmmmm. Is it possible that this guy (one of two contestants to steal the show last night, by the way) went to school with/knew/was friends with Heath Ledger? How big is Perth anyway? Is that a ridiculous question, kind of like when that guy I’m sitting next to at a college friend’s wedding in Iowa says “Oh, my cousin lives in New York City”?

Well, a quick Google search last night following the show suggests that there’s no such thing as a stupid question! If random unnamed friends speaking to the National Ledger (OK, that’s just kinda weird) are to be believed, Johns & Ledger were, in fact, acquainted in their younger days.

My super-sleuth antennae is going haywire right now. Does this revelation shed more light on Johns’ comments last week when defending his song choice and rendition of “A Day In The Life,” a performance that was skewered by the judges? Johns told Seacrest, after the lashing from Simon, that he stood by the selection because it had been the favorite song of a friend who had recently passed away. Now we know that the late Heath Ledger loved Nick Drake. Was he a Beatles fanatic as well?

Don’t call me “Monk” quite yet. Just checked the replay on YouTube and Johns says he performed the song in memory of a friend named John who died last year. Hey, at least no one can say we’re not paying attention!