Simple Things- The Story of a Vietnam War Veteran - ID# 73
Glenbrook South
Documentary
Entry Description
The brief story of Steve Haisley, A Vietnam War veteran who has been diagnosed with agent orange cancer.
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/28 5:27 am - Beautiful composition, love that interview was in two places, hard to obtain broll but creative in how you did so, nice/clean zoom on interview with Steve at the river
- 4/9 2:25 pm - Great character and story. Nice editing to music. Good re-creations with mud for B-roll. Nice contrast between “Don’t mean Nuthin” and getting choked up telling the story. Good editing back and forth between two speakers to vary the narrative voice and the narrative itself. The falling leaf metaphor for the fox hole was well done. One tiny picky thing to improve would be to let the clouds run through “Clouds… sunshine… sun”. It would be more poetic, less obvious than cutting with each word.
Judge 1
Positives: Really, really great job. Thanks for telling this story; it was interesting, engaging and emotional. It held my attention the entire time in a meaningful and profound way. Really great opening. It got me invested in Steve’s story right off the bat. Great job of intertwining the two interviews (inside and outside)... as well as w/ the interview of his wife. You build the narrative thread so nicely throughout the entire piece… especially as the terror of Vietnam evolve into the gratitude for life after cancer diagnosis. Your visuals are excellently shot and you do a wonderfully creative job in executing visual metaphor as he’s talking about the horrors of Vietnam.
Improvements: The only thing I would change about this is your second piece of music (starting at 3:23). I see where you were going with it (contrasting it w/ the first piece), but I don’t think it’s quite right.
Judge 2
Positives: The cinematography and use of music are excellent.
Improvements: The lighting needs improvement, the interviews were too dark.
Judge 3
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Judge 4
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