Hi Vic,
Your comment about filming the bodies as they were falling being "OK,"
but filming them after they hit the ground being "Not OK" makes sense.
It does sound a bit callous, yes, but also understandable.
I must confess that I had a perverse obsession with those falling
bodies after I saw them falling; I think it might have been some sort
of trauma, or a need to imagine *different* outcomes than the obvious
one, I kept asking people I knew, "What do you think happened to them
after they fell?"
To my surprise, other people seemed as eager to imagine less horrific
outcomes as I was. My husband said the speed of their falling and the
height at which they fell probably caused the bodied to disintegrate
before impact. Some other people said that the people falling probably
fell unconscious long before they hit the ground, and thus did not
suffer the trauma of hitting the ground. It's too horrible to think
about, even now.
But I think it's interesting that the decision NOT to film the
aftermath allowed viewers some sort of imaginative consolation, or more
personal (albeit perverse) ways of imagining what happened to those
bodies.
----- Original Message -----
From: Vic Flores <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Monday, March 20, 2006 10:09 am
Subject: Re: Hello
> Thanks for the continuing emails, I certainly seem to have sparked
> off a few
> of you to put hand to keyboard!
>
> On what you say Elizabeth and the falling people from the WTC, as
> a former
> news cameraman in that situation, I don't think I would have had a
> problem
> filming those shots because I have always felt that the camera
> lens has always
> emotionally distanced me from what I am filming. Sometimes I have
> filmed things
> which I have had great difficulty in watching afterwards! Now,
> there's a
> subject to be looked at !!!
>
> That particular incidence is a fantastic example of crossing the
> line, as I
> don't think I would have filmed those people on the ground after
> they had
> fallen, but on the way down would have been acceptable. I know
> that sounds very
> callous and no disrespect to anyone affected but I'm just being
> honest. Wether
> those images should have been broadcast is not my decision in
> that
> circumstance, thats the job of the editor, but I would feel
> obliged to give him that
> choice.
>
> Here in the UK, we are told as cameramen that there is no point in
> shooting
> corpses as they will never be shown and the vast majority of
> cameramen abide
> by this. There are various guidelines in fact, for instance, NOT
> filming the
> registration plate of a car involved in a fatal accident, in case
> the footage
> is broadcast before relatives have been able to be informed.
>
> Regards
>
> VF
>
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