Week 1 VLP

This week I started my involvement with the VLP project by watching the first three episodes of Ken Burn’s Vietnam and reading the first two chapters of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien as well as looking at storyboarding guides to get a fresh idea on how to best craft a story surrounding a particular Veteran. I enjoyed how both the documentary by Burn and the book by O’Brien tackled this question of shaping a narrative in different ways. Ken Burn’s series follows the lives of certain veterans in relation to major political and cultural events. Whilst talking about the events that largely predated the Vietnam war, the use of first person testimonies always would ground the narrative into the events that would come, or would result immediately after a decision. The documentary also takes a very dark and emotional vibe in order to truly make the viewer feel a sympathetic link to these events suck as using the thumping sound of a helicopter closing in, or the tense static sounds of a radio break to enhance a story about communication, even to the sound of gunshots as Diem and his brother were assassinated in a coup. It wasn’t just audio that lent itself to these veterans stories but chilling images and videos, that could either set the scene for a veterans story or lend itself to the brutality they witnessed. While I am not advocated for such a shock and awe narrative, the expert use of sound and images are witnessed to such a resounding impact and help create an effective narrative.

              The Things They Carried  based off my initial reading, seems to take a singular and down to earth view of a few characters, although still humane and emotional. The story follows the Vietnam war through the eyes of a particular group of soldiers with reprieves that seem to be about the meta of constructing this narrative. The opening chapter makes it a theme to always mention the things each solider carried; the physical weight of their equipment, the emotional weight of loved ones or lost soldiers, the mental weight of what boring, arduous, and at random times dangerous work, to even the moral weight of responsibility serving as the explanation of their presence in Vietnam. This constant reminder of all thus weight allows the reader to see this explanation for the reactions of certain individuals and humanize them more.

              While I do not know who the veterans are yet for our story crafting, some of the threads I liked where the way to also have the veteran humanized, either through visual or auditory cues, to just making them more of the center point. Another interesting thread is how the veteran can serve as the center of the story or can be the human, emotional centerpiece that connects the larger political and cultural narrative. For a project that encompasses one veteran and their individual story unknown, Ill have to wait and see what group I am in and what type of story will serve as the basis.