// War Literature

For my final project, I decided I want to encompass all areas of our study-defining war, war as a theatre of experience, global conflicts-in one, with special emphasis on Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Joe Sacco’s Palestine, though my project has little to do with either. The project is a ‘short documentary’–because I’m limiting it to 10-15 minutes, though that’s subject to change– on war veterans.

Basically, I  want to interview a few veterans from the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan or other global conflicts or those serving in the military without armed conflict. I want to get a grasp of their mindsets when enlisting, deploying, or returning home. And the questions I’m posing concern those aspects of their military careers. The O’ Brien aspect stems from the idea that the film is delivered from the words of soldiers, the Sacco aspect stems from the idea that an I’m aspiring journalist asking them their views.

So far I’ve interviewed three individuals and I plan to interview another or leave it to those three. It depends on the amount and substance of the footage I film. I hope that their answers will shed some light on the psyche of soldiers today, though I realize it takes time and certain skills to dig so deep as to attain a level of complete openness, time which I don’t have, considering the constraints of the endeavor, and the skills I lack from inexperience. So I fear it may not be as telling as I want it to be. (But something tells me that I’ll put it on the back burner and return to this project and create a full length documentary somewhere down the line.)

Anyway, I’m only in the process of gathering footage and editing will soon follow. I’m also researching quotes and facts about veterans to insert throughout the film, gather some B-roll footage and the like. Please let me know what you think since this is really a first time thing for me.