[Journ 495BJ] Exercise: Afghanistan Touch Down in Flight Multimedia Analysis

What is the focus of the story?
Afghanistan: touch down in flight is a multimedia piece delivered in a short video format by Lukas and Salome Augustin. The video challenges people’s perspectives of an otherwise misunderstood nation.
“As each of us have our own impressions of Afghanistan, predominantly marked with pictures of foreign forces, explosions and terror, we were privileged enough to have access into the daily life of the Afghan people,” said the authors.
“We hope the pictures you know will merge with the pictures you see and will enrich your views of the country.”

What story forms where used to tell the story?


A bible passage at the beginning of the video helps set the mood.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.” -Ecclesiastes 3:11.
The video itself is made up of a series of environmental video-portraits with a strong b-roll narrative that helps carry the story forward. Also, the combination of ambient sound and music help the viewer’s lock their attention on the short film.

What was the focus of each story form and how did each contribute to the overall goals of the piece?
The bible passage is an appropriate metaphor for a country whose main conflicts derive from religious beliefs of eternity and entitlement. In contrast, the focus of the video-portrait was to present the lifestyles of the Afghan people from a more mundane perspective.

Was the presentation effective? Why or why not?
What made this presentation so effective, in my opinion, was the use of the classical environmental portrait in the video style. It brought the faces to life and enabled a new level of intimacy that a standard still portrait might have not been able to achieve.

Was the design and navigational structure easy to follow? Confusing?
I had never seen another presentation quite like this so its “navigational structure” did take me by surprise, at first. My initial impression was the images, although engaging, lacked context. By the end, however, the video made a lot more sense and a lot of the clips I had seen previously could have stood out by themselves.

Was the Package engaging? Why or why not?
The first close-up portrait of the young men at 00:45 was a bit uncomfortable for me. But, I think it was that same initial awkwardness that helped establish the level of intimacy the authors were trying to convey.

What where the strengths of the package?
The use of detailed close-ups, wide shots, and medium shots helped balance the narrative. Each shot was very well planned and the video was well edited and color graded with the use of Final Cut Pro, as described in the video description.

What where the weaknesses of the package?
Perhaps the lack of a verbal narrative could be seen as a weakness but instead I choose to believe it was a preference of style by the author. I appreciated the lack of a narrative because it lets the images of the video speak for themselves.

Did the piece leave you satisfied? Confused? Wanting more?
Even after watching the piece several times, I wanted to see more to study the different techniques used to make this video.

What is one significant concept you learned from this package?
By simply taking the concept of a still image and applying it to a video format, I learned of a new way to execute the environmental portrait.