I am currently in my 7th quarter of study of an online MFA program at the Art Institute/Miami International University. This has been a demanding and very rewarding program which has given me the opportunity to focus on some areas of digital production that I would not otherwise be able to do in my everyday work. Story telling, both visual and written, is my primary area interest. This is a great program well worth checking out. http://www.miu-online.com/
The process of creating REQUIEM started about 6 years ago. I had a waking vision of sorts...thinking about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the sacred energy it holds. That vision haunted me for several years until the Winter Quarter of 2006 when I created the first storyboard for my Animation Studies class.
During that class we created storyboards and script outlines for four separate projects...one of them, SPEEDTRAP , I made into a three minute short film last year. REQUIEM was the project I knew I wanted to do for my thesis and now that process begins. It will take the next year to complete and this blog will document the journey.
Here's the back story of REQUIEM:
A chaplain in Viet Nam makes a promise to the company of men that he ministers to – that if they die in combat he will take care of their unfinished business. Facing a major offensive by the North Vietnamese the men write their last wills and include the one thing that they need the chaplain to take care of for them.
The next day the entire company is killed in action. The death of his friends shakes the chaplain’s faith in God. He leaves the Army and the ministry and freefalls into a dark existence of anger, grief and pain. He blames God and blames himself for not keeping his word. Years go by.
The letters from the fallen men lay at the bottom of an old trunk. Their voices and memories haunt his waking and sleeping hours. In a last attempt to make peace with the demons of
When he reaches the memorial and touches the names of his fallen comrades a vision like a bolt of lightning courses through him. He is confronted by the dead and their unfinished business of 30 years ago. He knows he must keep his promise and sets about finishing the unfinished business of the men he served.
The Wall is the story of the chaplain’s redemption – and a journey that connects the past and present. Each letter he opens holds a new journey of healing, reconciliation, justice. Guided by the contents of the letters - a few clues on a piece of paper, a small snapshot - a 30 year old address or phone number - the chaplain knows that until he fulfills his promise he can’t rest …and neither can his dead comrades whose memories reside inside The Wall.
Duane Loose
