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Filming the The War Tapes

Feb 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Darroch Greer

Soldiers go behind the camera to capture the war in Iraq.

The War Tapes is the first war movie shot by soldiers themselves. Unlike documentary footage shot by George Stevens and John Huston, who were attached as filmmakers to the U.S. Signal Corps during World War II, The War Tapes was shot by members of the New Hampshire National Guard unit C Company, 3rd of the 172nd Infantry (Mountain) Regiment while under fire in the Iraq during 2004.

New Hampshire filmmaker Deborah Scranton was offered the opportunity to be embedded with the unit, but she decided instead to give Sony one-chip MiniDV cameras to the soldiers themselves.

“I asked for volunteers,” Scranton says. Ten out of 180 stepped forward to take cameras, tripods, lavs, mics, tapes, and extra lenses, and to receive rudimentary training. “Basically, it consisted of pressing record,” she recalls. “We talked about some technical things as far as framing—not to have something back-lit, and that type of stuff, but basically soldiers are very technically-adept guys. They’re used to a lot of gear, running it and maintaining it, so it was pretty simple for them. I think these days everybody is kind of camera and visually literate. They know what looks good.”

Once overseas, and stationed in the Sunni Triangle, the soldiers were pretty much on their own. They mounted their cameras on Humvees and gun turrets using monopods stripped from tripods attached with zip-ties and duct tape. Scranton also gave them two POV cameras, which could be mounted on their Kevlar, and a thermal imaging camera for night work. It was all designed not to interfere with being soldiers. “With these handless mounts, when they would turn on their GPS and other systems, they would just press record on the camera,” Scranton says. “They were soldiers first; they were not filmmakers. And they’re all very adamant that they are not filmmakers.”

Scranton kept in regular communication with three soldiers– Sergeants Zack Bazzi and Steve Pink and Specialist Mike Moriarty – by email and instant messaging. “Because there’s obviously such a time difference, and they were doing day-missions, night missions, I never knew when they would be on,” she recalls. “I actually dug out my 6-year-old’s baby monitor and kept it next to my computer. When they would log on to IM, I would hear the ping and be able to go on and talk to them.

“The film’s not about the Internet, but it could never have been made without it. It allowed us to talk. For instance, the Tikrit car-bombing. Steve Pink sent me an email and attached some photos. I saw in one of my IM windows that Moriarty was on base. I pinged him and asked him to go get interviews with Pink’s squad because I wanted that immediate reaction. That’s the interview that you see in the film.”

Altogether, there were 27 cameras used over the course of a year. They used the Sony VCR 105, 109, and 350. Dust was the biggest technical problem and necessitated waterproof housing. Stateside, Scranton shot interviews with the soldiers’ families using 3-chip cameras. She opted away from HD to better blend the footage with the one-chips. A colorist eased the contrast, but in the end it was a visceral look that Scranton was after.

All of this made for 800 hours of tape from the frontlines in Iraq. Added to the 200 hours shot stateside, it was one hell of an editing assignment for Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Stevie) and Leslie Simmer and their two Avids. As opposed to the Iraq war itself, The War Tapes is a brisk 90 minutes.

For more information about The War Tapes or to see a preview, visit thewartapes.com.

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.