Recently, myself and Frenzy The Ninja B3ar collaborated on a video project – a tribute to Call of Duty: Black Ops entitled ‘The Future is Black’.
The idea for this was for him to put together footage from both the campaign and the multiplayer aspects of the game and for me to write an accompanying script for it. As well as celebrating both of these aspects of the Black Ops experience, this video was also looking forward to the release of Black Ops 2, due for release in November (hence the use of the Black Ops 2 Main Theme as the music).
Throwing about some ideas, we decided on having the voiceover being from the perspective of a Vietnam war veteran speaking about how easy killing had become in warfare (Black Ops was set in the era of the Vietnam war, whereas the sequel has a near future setting), but then ending with him wishing he was young again and fighting for glory instead of being left to growing old with nothing to show for it.
It was challenging for me to write as I had to try and keep the writing as politics-less as possible (that's why I made the opinions personal to the veteran himself and not for all soldiers in general), and it had to build to a rousing finale (to match the climax of the music). So whilst it still alludes to the difference of setting between the two games, the veteran wishing he was back in the fight again to earn glory allows for a rousing call to arms for his fellow young soldiers to do likewise, lest they live to grow old and regret it like he did.
Again, the aim was to try and stay away from an overtly pro-war or anti-war stance but instead just to describe one man’s own personal feelings.
For research, I watched a fair amount of motivational war speeches, so you can probably hear bits of General Patton, Henry V, Aragorn and William Wallace in there somewhere. The Branagh version of Henry V’s Saint Crispin’s Day is a personal favourite as it is particularly rousing – but then again I’m a sucker for a good bit of Shakespeare… (Bonus: also look out for a young Christian Bale in the crowd in that clip!)
So here is the finished video, with script read by Frenzy himself. Whilst not perfect, I am pretty happy with the end result – not bad for our first collaboration, and hopefully it serve as a fitting tribute to Black Ops as well as to hype fans up further for the release of Black Ops 2.
For more of Frenzy's Black Ops videos go to his YouTube channel or follow him on Facebook.
12 Oct 2012
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