Here is my last video. It is called The Retrospective and it is all interviews with the class about their reasons for going and their favorite parts of the trip.
This was an amazing experience and I learned a lot about World War One, France, my classmates, and about producing videos all on my own.
My last tasks have been to update my tour builder with all of my videos and create link connections between all of the videos and content.
I struggled this week to get the kml files from our adventure in the stollens into my tour builder. I am still working on it but as of class time I have not figured out the best way to do that.
Here is my second video about the German Bunkers outside Verdun. This video was fun to edit because I got to relive the trips we made into the bunkers.
Here is the script for the bunker video:
After leaving the Somme, our class ventured to Verdun.
Verdun is south east of the Somme in the historically contested Alsace Lorrain region. While the battle’s for the Somme and Verdun happened at the same time during the same war, the geography of the regions forced the armies into very different style of fighting.
While the Somme is a land of flat rolling hills, the terrain around Verdun is a series of cuestas. The city of Verdun lies on the Meuse River, nestled among the ridges and hills and surrounded by forts.
This geography and heavy fortification slowed the advance of the German army. They were forced to dig in and fortify their lines for the long haul.
Even now a hundred years later the ground to the north and east of Verdun is crisscrossed by a large network of German tunnels, and underground command posts.
On our class trip to Verdun we found a small collection of these bunkers------ outside the Village of Azanne-Soumazannes in an area of the forest managed by the French forest service, the Office National de Forets.
We were looking for Professor Joe Hupy’s old research site when we found our first bunker. WE were traipsing through the woods when we found a rocky mound. This was likely a bunker that was destroyed either by shelling or by a grenade. We then found an opening in the ground and decided to go inside.
The entrance to the bunker was small, but it was likely larger when it was in use. Most of the class squeezed head first into the bunker.
Inside was surprisingly roomy. At one end was a collapsed tunnel that likely led to the rubble mound we found earlier in the woods. There were also remnants of communication wires.
We then found Professor Hupy’s field sites. He used a GPS unit with the coordinates to lead us there through the forest.
After looking at the field sites we found some more bunkers.
The entrances to the bunkers were steep and often obstructed with rubble or brush. These bunkers, unlike the first one had much larger openings.
The next bunker that I explored had a very steep entrance. I was trying to steady myself on an tree and I almost fell in. In the entrance there was a very long balck pipe that was possibly used to pump concrete into the bunker from a narrow gauge rail line near by. Inside the bunker we found remenants of what may have been bunk beds or barracks of some sort.
The second bunker we entered is the largest bunker that Professor Hupy said he had ever found.
The tunnels branched in two different directions. In one direction the tunnel was collapsed, but in the other direction the tunnel turned twice and then stretched off into darkness.
Inside most of the bunkers we found remnants and artifacts. There were shovels, bottles, ration tins, and what may have been part of a grenade.
Inside the largest bunker we even found bones, but in closer inspection we decided that they belonged to an animal.
Climbing into these bunkers was dangerous. The entrances are steep and they are filled with debris. Anyone who want to attempt a similar adventure does so at their own risk. We also needed the permission of the ONF to be in this part of the woods."
Here is my video about the forts and trenches around Verdun. This video took a long time to put together because I was attempting to work off of my lap top. My computer is not new enough or fast enough to edit this type of video properly. This video was a treat for me to work on because I love working with nat sound and interviews. If there is one big think I miss in my Somme video it is natural sound. It was so windy and rainy for the majority of the time we were in the Somme that all of my nat sound was sort of ruined.
I will post the script for this video soon. I saved it on my laptop and then forgot to send it to myself.
Going forward:
One thing I need help on as I begin to wrap things up it putting the KLM of the stollen into my tour builder.
This week I will be putting together a retrospective of the trip and making sure all my media is finalized and connected.
My plan for the weekend was to finish my Verdun Forts video. This did not go as planned because my laptop could not handle the video editing. It was too slow and very frustrating so I gave up trying to edit on my laptop. I had hoped to have my Verdun video finished by now but instead I will finish it this week. I will also be working on a reflection video after I film interviews today.
Verdun Video Research:
For my Verdun video my primary source has been Christina Holsetin's books, and this site, which uses a lot of Christina Holstein's information in a more consolidated form.
There is less video from Verdun because it seems that the French even back then were less interested in documenting these sorts of events than the British were. Also the language barrier has made it harder for me to find footage.
Here is my first video. It is called The Somme. It is about our class's experience in the Somme and our explorations of some of the July1, 1916 mine craters.
The video is on youtube and also in my tourbuilder tour.
I added annotations to my video that link back to this blog and to my tour. When my next video is up tonight I will link the two videos to each other as well.
Here is the finalized version of the script:
"
In September of 2013 the University of
Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s Gorgraphy of the Western Front class, led by Professor
Joe Hupy, visited France. As the world approaches the centennial of the First
world war, our objective was to research, survey and map land that is still
scarred from battles that happened one hundred years ago. Our first battlefield
was the Somme, over the course of several days we learned about some of the
elements that make the post-war landscape of the Somme unique.
July first 1916 is touted as the
first day on the Somme of World War One. In the Somme offensive more than a
million men were wounded or killed making it one of the bloodiest battles of
the First World War.
The Somme Offensive took place in
the north of France on the rolling planes of the Picardie region. Picardie is
sparse farm country and the terrain looks suited to ancient pre industrial
battles. But, according to historian Fred R. Van Harts-veldt in his book The Battles of the Somme,
1916: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography, the Somme was a proving ground
for modern war machinery and tactics.
While tanks and airplanes are the
shining stars of the battle of the Somme and the most prominent modern
technology used in the First World War, the Somme also featured less famous
innovations that have had equal cultural impact.
Those innovations were mining and
the moving picture. (Hawthorn mine vid.)
To open the battle of the Somme,
the British detonated the largest mines ever used in war. According to a
propaganda video made by the British Topical Committee for War Films and
filmographer Geoffrey H. Malins, soldiers tunneled under the German lines to
place the charges. The tunneling company had to be ever vigilant for German
counter mining efforts. Once the charges were place the men returned to the
surface and the charges were detonated with an electric current.
The two largest mines contained 24-thousand kilograms
of ammonal. Two mines, the Lochnagar mine, and the Y-Sap mine were detonated at
7:30 am near La Boiselle. The third mine contained 18-thousand kilograms or
explosive and was detonated under the hawthorn ridge redoubt. According to
Malins in his book, “How I Filmed the War” the hawthorn ridge mine took seven
months to construct, but meer seconds to explode. This third mine was detonated
at 7:20am. Malins, who was filming on a hand-cranked camera at the time,
described the explosion in his book“The
ground where I stood gave a mighty convulsion. It rocked and swayed. I gripped
hold of my tripod to steady myself. Then, for all the world like a gigantic
sponge, the earth rose in the air to the height of hundreds of feet. Higher and
higher
it rose, and with a horrible,
grinding roar the earth fell back upon itself, leaving in its place a mountain of
smoke.”
After the mining the British troops
were ordered “Over the top.” Troops were assured that the mining and
bombardments had done all of the work and they just had to march over no man’s
land and take the German trenches.That
was not the case. The early explosion of the hawthorn mine tipped off the
Germans, and many British were killed or wounded because they entered no man’s
land unprepared for a real fight. According to IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM’s Voices of
the First World War Podcast, “the casualties” on July 1, 1916, “were the
heaviest ever suffered by the British Army in any 24-hour period.”
Today the Somme is still pock
marked and scarred with craters and trenches. On our recent class trip to France we visited both
the Lochnagar Crater and the Hawthorn Ridge Crater.
At the Lochnagar Crater there is a
small shrine to commemorate the lives lost in the war. Surrounded by farmland,
the crater is one of many small memorials in the area. At the Lochnagar Crater
the class put up a kite with an infrared camera and a regular camera. The hope
was to create a digital elevation model from the pictures but the wind was two
strong to take a good picture.
On the other hand, the Hawthorn Ridge crater is hidden in a stand of trees and
unmaintained. There is little evidence from the road that the stand if trees
hides part of history’s angry past.
Inside the crater it is clear that the
area was shelled many times after the initial explosion. The hole is so deep that the nearly hundred-year-old
trees growing inside barely reach the lip of the crater. The tree cover
prevented us from using the kite, but in the crater our class explored the
micro topography. The ground is still rutted and hilly. And it is evidsent that
incredible force and violence lifted and twisted the earth here.
As we left I was able to capture
the hill from a point of view similar to Malin’s famous Hawthorn Mine film.
After our adventure at the Somme
our Class moved on to Verdun."
Next Video: the next video I am working on is the stollen video. The script is shorter, but I am going to let the video do most of the talking.
"
After leaving the Somme, our class ventured to Verdun.
Verdun is south east of the Somme in the historically
contested Alsace Lorrain region. While the battle’s for the Somme and Verdun
happened at the same time during the same war, the geography of the regions forced
the armies into very different style of fighting.
While the Somme is a land of flat rolling hills, the terrain
around Verdun is a series of cuestas. The city of Verdun lies on the Meuse
River, nestled among the ridges and hills and surrounded by forts.
This geography and heavy fortification slowed the advance of
the German army. They were forced to dig in and fortify their lines for the
long haul.
Even now a hundred years later the ground to the north and
east of Verdun is crisscrossed by a large network of German tunnels, and underground
command posts.
On our class trip to Verdun we found a small collection of
these bunkers------ outside the Village of Azanne-Soumazannes in an area of the
forest managed by the French forest service, the Office National de Forets.
We were looking for Professor Joe Hupy’s old research site
when we found our first bunker. WE were traipsing through the woods when we
found a rocky mound. This was likely a bunker that was destroyed either by
shelling or by a grenade. We then found an opening in the ground and decided to
go inside.
The entrance to the bunker was small, but it was likely
larger when it was in use. Most of the class squeezed head first into the
bunker.
Inside was surprisingly roomy. At one end was a collapsed
tunnel that likely led to the rubble mound we found earlier in the woods. There
were also remnants of communication wires.
We then found Professor Hupy’s field sites. He used a GPS
unit with the coordinates to lead us there through the forest.
After looking at the field sites we found some more bunkers.
The entrances to the bunkers were steep and often obstructed
with rubble or brush. These bunkers, unlike the first one had much larger
openings.
The next bunker that I explored had a very steep entrance. I
was trying to steady myself on an tree and I almost fell in. In the entrance
there was a very long balck pipe that was possibly used to pump concrete into
the bunker from a narrow gauge rail line near by. Inside the bunker we found
remenants of what may have been bunk beds or barracks of some sort.
The second bunker we entered is the largest bunker that
Professor Hupy said he had ever found.
The tunnels branched in two different directions. In one
direction the tunnel was collapsed, but in the other direction the tunnel
turned twice and then stretched off into darkness.
Inside most of the bunkers we found remnants and artifacts.
There were shovels, bottles, ration tins, and what may have been part of a
grenade.
Inside the largest bunker we even found bones, but in closer
inspection we decided that they belonged to an animal.
Climbing into these bunkers was dangerous. The entrances are
steep and they are filled with debris. SOMETHING SOMETHING CAUTIONARY TALE"
For this video I am struggling with two things:
Do I include in the video the GPS data over Google Earth images, or should I put that in my tour builder and have the video display at that tour stop. Or both?
I feel like I should include a "do not try this at home" warning at the en d, but I would like some help phrasing it.
My plan is to put together the video and audio tonight.
Up Next:
The Monday after Thanksgiving, I will have my third video finished. It will be about the Forts around Verdun.
That day I would also like to gat video of the class to make a reflection video.
The following Monday I would like to have the reflection video finished.
As I finish the videos I will be updating my tourbuilder accordingly.
I will also be adding many more pictures to my tourbuilder tour to flesh out the project more and give the viewer more stuff to look at.
As I upload the videos I will link then between each other, back to my blog, to the website and to my tour.
I messed around with my video this weekend and ended up deconstructing it and pulling it off youtube. I didn't like the way I wrapped the video up the first time and I am working on a better ending. I don't know if I should wrap each video up as one unit or segue from one video to another though the script. I also pulled some clips out of the lineup so the video that I have to show today is incomplete. Right now the video is almost 4 minutes long.
Here is the script I am working from right now:
July first 1916 is touted as the
first day on the Somme of World War One. In the Somme offensive more than a
million men were wounded or killed making it one of the bloodiest battles of
the First World War.
The Somme Offensive took place in
the north of France on the rolling planes of the Picardie region. Picardie is
sparse farm country and the terrain looks suited to ancient pre industrial
battles. But, according to historian Fred R. Van Harts- veldt in his book The Battles of the Somme,
1916: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography, the Somme was a proving ground
for modern war machinery and tactics.
While tanks and airplanes are the
shining stars of the battle of the Somme and the most prominent modern technology
used in the First World War, the Somme also featured less famous innovations
that have had equal cultural impact.
Those innovations were mining and
the moving picture. (Hawthorn mine vid.)
To open the battle of the Somme,
the British detonated the largest mines ever used in war. According to a
propaganda video made by the British Topical Committee for War Films and
filmographer Geoffrey H. Malins, soldiers tunneled under the German lines to
place the charges. The tunneling company had to be ever vigilant for German
counter mining efforts. Once the charges were place the men returned to the
surface and the charges were detonated with an electric current.
The two largest mines contained 24-thousand kilograms
of ammonal. Two mines, the Lochnagar mine, and the Y-Sap mine were detonated at
7:30 am near La Boiselle. The third mine contained 18-thousand kilograms or
explosive and was detonated under the hawthorn ridge redoubt. According to
Malins in his book, “How I Filmed the War” the hawthorn ridge mine took seven
months to construct, but meer seconds to explode. This third mine was detonated
at 7:20am. Malins, who was filming on a hand-cranked camera at the time,
described the explosion in his book “The
ground where I stood gave a mighty convulsion. It rocked and swayed. I gripped
hold of my tripod to steady myself. Then, for all the world like a gigantic
sponge, the earth rose in the air to the height of hundreds of feet. Higher and
higher
it rose, and with a horrible,
grinding roar the earth fell back upon itself, leaving in its place a mountain of
smoke.”
After the mining the British troops
were ordered “Over the top.” Troops were assured that the mining and
bombardments had done all of the work and they just had to march over no man’s
land and take the German trenches. That
was not the case. The early explosion of the hawthorn mine tipped off the
Germans, and many British were killed or wounded because they entered no man’s
land unprepared for a real fight. According to the IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM’s Voices of
the First World War Podcast, “the casualties” on July 1, 1916, “were the
heaviest ever suffered by the British Army in any 24-hour period.”
Today the Somme is still pock
marked and scarred with craters and trenches. On our recent class trip to France
we visited both the Lochnagar Crater and the Hawthorn Ridge Crater.
At the Lochnagar Crater there is a
small shrine to commemorate the lives lost in the war. Surrounded by farmland,
the crater is one of many small memorials in the area. On the other hand, the
Hawthorn Ridge crater is hidden in a stand of trees and unmaintained. There is
little evidence from the road that the stand if trees hides part of history’s
angry past.
Inside the crater it is clear that the
area was shelled many times after the initial explosion. The ground is rutted
and hilly. The hole is so deep that the nearly hundred year old trees growing
inside barely reach the lip of the crater.
Next Video Progress:
My next video is going to be on the stollens because I think the video from the stollens is the most fun. It has been a little difficult to find historical footage from the German side. Probably because of the language barrier. But, I am planning to have the video completed by next week Monday.
Even though December feels far away I know the end of the semester is creeping up very fast. Here is a list of the things I would like to accomplish in the coming weeks. These are my new deadlines that I would like to adhere to because I feel like I have been lost in research land for a while.
Week of Nov 11- I want to finish and publish my video about the Hawthorn Mine and the first day on the Somme to my tour builder map.
Week of Nov 18- I want to finish my second video and publish it to my tour builder. This video will be about the stollens.
Week of Nov 25- I want to finish my third video and publish it. This video will be about Verdun. Depending on how productive I am this video may get published the Monday after Thanksgiving but no later.
Week of Dec 9: Tie up loose ends with the other videos, and publish a video of the class reminiscing about the trip. This means that on the ninth or earlier I will need to do mini interviews with the class.
I have all of my research ducks in a row so putting together one video a week should be doable. Last semester I put together a news package a week for fourteen weeks straight. Admittedly these videos are longer, but now that I have all of the research down the mechanics of putting them together is the same.
This past week I was incredibly busy. I had a lot of projects and tests in other classes, so I was not able to devote the usual amount of time to my videos. I kind of feel like I dropped the ball this past week but I have a lot more time to make up for it this week.
Progress:
I finished the first draft of my script and I am working on final edits before I record my voice track. I have decided to do all of my work in Adobe elements and Adobe Audition because both programs are readily available on campus and will not give me any compatibility issues. The only problem I can foresee is that Elements and Audition are not on the computers in Phillips, so I will be doing all of my work in Hibbard or the 24 hour lab. I live in Hibbard most of the week anyway, so it's less of a problem for me and more of a problem if I want anyone in class to see my progress on my video and audio.
Challenges: Another thing that I have been thinking about is my reading style for my voice track. I really took my reading style for granted and I recently discovered that I only know how to do one style of reading well. I did some vocal test reads and my usual authoritative news reporter voice and it was just not engaging in relation to my subject matter. The videos I am making are going to be longer that a traditional news package and authoritative news reporter voice just gets really tiresome after several minutes.
I tried to read in a more friendly, active and "actorish" style of voice and I struggled so much. My inflections are off and you can hear how hard I am trying by the strain and tension in my voice. The recordings I made of those attempts are embarrassing.
In an effort to improve my reading voice for these mini documentaries I turned to YouTube. I found some examples of women voice actors doing VOs for documentaries.
Both of these videos show very engaging styles of voice overs. The top video has a more educational tone, but the bottom one is a more dramatic reading that really only works because the video is reenacted dramatizations. My VO style for these videos will probably lie somewhere between these two styles because the subject matter is educational and also from a dramatic part of history. I have also been watching a lot of VO tip videos from working voice actors, the only drawback to those is that they are usually giving tips for commercial work and not for documentary style work.
This process has forced me to work on a personal quality that I kind of never thought about before. I am naturally not an animated person. I am definitely deadpan and sarcastic and straightforward with my communication style. Now that I am voicing these videos I'm really going to have to retrain my communication style and learn some new "actorish" behaviors that I was a little disdainful of in the past.
