"A Special Place" Virginia Tech documentary preview

This is a short preview of my feature documentary "A special place".

On the morning of April 16, 2007 me and my friend Carl were walking the campus of Virginia tech in Blacksburg, VA. Randomly deciding which buildings to go into, our last decision would be to go into McBryde hall, and not Norris hall.

We were there for a one-week exchange from Sweden, but the academic meetings never took place. Instead, over 30 people were killed in the very next building. This film will tell my story, with the perspective of those around me and family and friends in Sweden who were starting to realize that something terrible was happening, in the place were I was.

My footage gave me a crash course into how media works around a major story, and the hype that followed, making me recognized everywhere. It is also a story about a small town, filled with amazing Hokies, who experienced the unthinkable. I believe Carl said it best:

"You can't really grasp the fact that people are actually dying."


More on the film on my blog:
http://princeword.wordpress.com/category/a-special-place/


Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/princeword

Facebook
search "Martin Arvebro"

Email
princeword[dot]hotmail.com

All music written for the film by:
Dane Walker

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• yt:quality=high
• martin
• arvebro
• virginia
• tech
• blacksburg
• documentary
• massacre
• media
• hokie
• sweden
• stockholm
• 16
• april
• 2007
• karlskrona
• bth
• radford
• montgomery
• county
• new
• river
• valley

[Dougieslittlejoanna]

forgiving. It might very well not work, but it'd be well worth a try. Last thing- the people I feel most sorry for are not the parents of the victims, but rather the parents of the shooter. It must be terrible to have to deal with the reputation that you gained for something that you probably had no idea about. Imagine discovering that your son (or daughter) that you raised ended his life being a shooter.

[princeword]

@Dougieslittlejoanna I know exactly what you mean. I think about his parents too. The South Korean ambassador apologized for him being from there. Just imagine what the parents must have thought. BBC did a very good documentary/profiling of him.

My angle will not deal too much about the shooter and why, cause it's not in my story. It's more about the response to major tragedy, and the failure to understand how serious the situation was, before we truly knew what had happened.

Hugs

[TheSeriouslyrandom]

oh, you were there? The whole story is so sad :( Great documentary, looking forward to see more!

[princeword]

@TheSeriouslyrandom kommer börja slutredigera så fort min uppsats är inlämnad i maj. can't wait

[filmester]

wait! i am seeing this for the very first time! this is incredible! how are along are you? when r u planning to be finished?

[princeword]

@filmester I feel that when I finish my thesis I can dive into it a lot more, doing little here and there doesn't work, I need to bury myself in the material to really figure out structure (which I'm sure you know everything about) :)

Happy New Year ester

[Dougieslittlejoanna]

@princeword It sounds nice. When you're done I'm definately going to watch it (especially since I'm from Virginia and know a lot of people that go to VT now, though not really then). I hope it turns out well. :)

[Dougieslittlejoanna]

room with me. It's probably not at all accurate to how I would actually react, but I would like to think that I could find some bravery in myself not to sacrifice myself for everyone else's life in that room, but to show some compassion to him (or her). I wouldn't want to make him any more mad by glaring at him (or her) and such, I would like to believe that I would react in the same way that I would react to any other person who is going through much pain; with patience and (cont. #2)

[Dougieslittlejoanna]

I've been thinking on this recently. I've been thinking about why the shooter did it. No one just wakes up one day and randomly decides to kill people and take their own life. He felt alone and I've only recently realized how alone he felt (don't worry, though, I have VERY strong standards with postulations on why not to do that). I was thinking how it might feel to see people's reactions if you were the shooter. Then I thought about how I would react if there were a shooter in a (cont.)

[LiveThisLifeStudios]

it was very sad i lived in virginia at the time

[TooFreakingRelaxed]

Quite an experience. Looking forward to see the finished work. As I noted before, I like the picture in picture effects that you apply in your editing.