Graduation-Fatally Denied, Circa 2001

This is a video that Campus Firewatch produced in 2001 that chronicles a fictional student’s fatal encounter with fire, all shot through her eyes.

A video from 2001 that I produced about a fictional student’s fatal experience with fire, all shot from her perspective.  I got the idea for this video by watching an episode of M*A*S*H that was shot through the eyes of a wounded soldier as he was flown in on a helicopter.  This was (for me) quite the production…the Amherst Fire Department and UMass was great in providing personnel, support, letting us use the buildings.  Emergency Film Group did a great job of creative shooting and overcoming some interesting logistical barriers.  For example, the woman who was the “student” and was filming did not smoke…and we needed her to take a few drags on the cigarette for the video!  We overcame that with some oxygen tubing and one of the crew members (who did smoke) puffing on it over her shoulder.  We had to build the room to burn and the crew built a propane flame rig at the end of the bed that worked out great.  Also, at the time, the small cameras that make this type of shoot so easy today were not really available so it took some creative camera angles at times.

In retrospect, looking at it with today’s YouTube kind of view, it is too long, needs a faster pace, but I like the basic idea and concept behind it.  Ed Comeau