GUIDANCE FOR SETTING DEADLINES FOR VIDEO: Deadlines will vary from mission to mission but a good rule of thumb is to give your soldiers about three days to shoot, write and edit, produce a package, and then re-edit with any corrections that may need to be made. With that package should be 6 to 8 minutes of their best b-roll from the shoot and any interviews they shot, in their entirety, with slates. Factors that you should consider are equipment issues (one beyonds and cameras will probably go down at some point during the course of your year in the sandbox), mission logistics ( your soldiers will most likely get stuck somewhere at some point), sick call (yes, you can look forward to Saddam’s revenge or the ‘creeping crud’ as I like to call it at least once in the 12 months), and possible follow up questions or the necessity to gather additional b-roll to complete the story.

What my CDR did and I think its brilliant in its simplicity is to send his teams out for two to three weeks at a time and give each soldier a quota for the whole period (Qs had 5 print stories and Rs had a minimum of 5 video packages with slates, b-roll and interviews). Each soldier was responsible for his own time management. When we returned to Speicher, we would do post production and put together our newsletter and video magazine with everything that was shot. Memorials should take no more than two days, they may need to go home with the soldier accompanying the body.

Remember, ‘hooah videos’ and special projects are very time intensive and could take weeks. Hope this helps! If you have any additional questions, my email is nikki.prodromos@us.army.mil or nikki.prodromos@gmail.com.