Russell Sharpe

02/09/2010

Midterm Explanation

**My video will not upload for some reason, so I will bring it to class

My purpose in creating this short piece was to attempt to highlight the significance of the relationship between shots of the montage as stressed by Sergi Eisenstein. I took sequences from The Hurt Locker and rearranged some of the shots within them as well as moved certain shots into entirely new placements in order to allow the viewer to draw a different conclusion about the main character than the filmmaker had initially intended. I chose this source video because we have recently discussed the original, intended meaning and I thought it would be easier to show a starkly different idea if everyone had a firm concept of what to compare it to.

The first sequence I show is when Will first gets to the camp, and I attempted to make him seem upset that he was there as opposed to the “pumped up” attitude that he actually had. I also tried to introduce the idea that he missed his wife and son, which he might have originally but never thought about much. I think that the song I used is a little “in your face” with this idea, and really doesn’t leave too much to the viewer to figure out, although I think the images on their own pretty clearly state the idea anyway.

The second sequence that I show is the last mission that Will serves with Bravo Company where he puts himself at extreme personal risk to try and save the life of the Iraqi man. I again cut shots of his wife and son into this to give the appearance that they were constantly on his mind.

Besides rearranging shots, I also selectively removed shots from the sequences to help create the specific character that I was aiming for. More specifically, I removed shots that originally allowed the filmmaker to develop Will’s intended hot-headed war-addicted persona.

The end result does not feel as smoothly edited as the original because you can tell where shots and feelings are missing that would be natural to telling the story and developing the character in the way that I was attempting. I think this speaks very highly of the original filmmaker because it highlights the fact that almost every single shot was created and used with the intent of developing Will as being addicted to the war and loving the environment, the exact opposite of the character I attempted to portray.