Looking Into a Veteran’s Mind Sadie Vance IMovie Audio Recording April 2017
My audio piece depicts powerful quotes from an interview with a veteran who suffers from PTSD. I wanted to use his voice saying the words, rather than reading the quotes in the project, because it is more impactful since his voice emphasizes the emotions he was feeling. To create this presentation, I used IMovie to edit my hour and forty minute interview into a three minute recording that summarized his experience in the Vietnam War. To get this interview, we contacted George Usinowicz and planned an appointment with him. Then, I created questions that would be able to re-jog his memory about his experience in Vietnam. Before I asked the questions about PTSD, I started off with easier questions to make the interview flow. Through this interview, my partner Ella and I wanted to convey impactful quotes and stories about veterans who have PTSD from the Vietnam War. Millions of veterans suffer from PTSD and I wanted to share at least one veteran’s story about the war and how it impacted him or her in their life after war. The recording inspired Ella’s artwork of the veteran and how people “change” throughout the war. All wars cause traumatic memories for people, and affect them by having depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, aggression, and increasing social isolation. Many people do not realize the events veterans go through in war and how it changes them. Creating this piece has taught me several useful things that I could use for later projects. For one, I learned how to manage IMovie and edit my recording. Another skill I honed through this project was developing questions for my interview. At first, I wanted to present the entire interview, but I soon realised that no one wants to listen to an hour and forty minute interview, so IMovie was a very helpful tool.
Reflection
We’ve explored the truth of war in this project by examining Gulf of Tonkin documents, reading stories from Tim O’Brien’s book “The Things They Carried”, gathered a historical background about the Vietnam war, and had an interview from a veteran in our community. From this information, we each created an art piece to represent the truths in war. This could’ve been soldiers with PTSD, women and children during the war, protest movements, draft and recruiting, etc. With that topic you chose, you could create a painting/drawing, some type of photography, videos, etc, to symbolize your topic. Throughout this project, I gained new abilities, improved on some older skills, and was challenged in several ways. To begin, some fresh talents I have attained, was learning how to work with IMovie and creating questions for an interview with a veteran. IMovie is an excellent tool to use to edit your recordings and forming questions for an interview is a powerful device also. Collaborating with people is something I have strengthen through this project, since I was working with someone. My partner and I, bounced off of each other's ideas and came up a concept, which we are both very happy with. One of things that I was challenged with, was time management. A lot of my ideas were failing on how to edit my recording and I was becoming stressed out being that exhibition was in three days and I did not do my part yet. Soon, I figured out I could edit my recording on my partner’s computer that had IMovie on it, but it was at her house. So, I had to drive everyday after school to her house in order to finish my project. All in all, I have advanced in several skills, and learned that I need to manage my time better. This project has taught me more than I have ever known about the war and even more than that. There are many truths about the war that have been expressed through this project. For example, we have explored the fact that poor people were fighting a rich man’s war, millions of soldiers have PTSD, the government lied about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and much more. Speaking about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident lying, we as a class found this out by learning how to investigate documents and see the real truth. Now, by examining documents I can determine the truth from these conflicting sources. Another thing I will take away from this project, was learning about people who were affected by the war, such as the boat people. Millions of kids, women, and men were damaged from a war they weren’t even fighting for. Overall, this project has informed me about the truths in war, how we can find the truths in war, and how we can express the truths in war.