Nick Berg video deserves an oscar

[writekid]

as a video editor, the video of nick berg getting his head cutoff makes no sense to me at all. i would raise 5 questions.

1. why is he in an orange US prison jumpsuit? we've never seen iraqis make US prisoners change clothes. remember, we're not fighting police or soldiers. we're fighting insurgents who barely have clothes themselves. why/how would they take the time to put him in an orange jumpsuit?

2. why is there no blood? i've never seen a beheading, but i've heard nurses describe neck lacerations as tremedous spurting fountains of blood.

An interesting theory for this, posted here http://www.brushtail.com.au/nick_berg_hypothesis.html, suggests that US intelligence had questioned berg on video. during that video he was calm, relaxed and unrestrained. he answered questions like "my dad is ...., my mom is...." Because that's the only video they had of him alive, they had to dress him up in that same way to stage the beheading because at the time of the beheading, he was already dead.

3. why were multiple camera shots edited together? the beheading was taken from two camera angles at the same time. this would suggest that the murderers just happened to have 2 cameras and editing equipment. how would insurgents have editing equipment and why would they need to edit a video? to a non editor it would appear that someone shot a continuous scene with one camera. there's no way on earth that that happened. it had to have been shot with one camera at different times and/or locations and edited together. this would suggest that what we see in the video is not really what happened.

if you imagine the life of an iraqi insurgent, he's probably spending all his time either hiding, shooting, or scurrying about trying to fit in with civilians. he probably moves from safe house to safe house. how is he going to tote editing equipment with him. again, as an editor i can assure you that it is not easy to do. don't let those HP ads fool you.


4. why would they drag him off screen to do the actual beheading? If you're going to do something as gruesome as behead someone, why not show it all? and if you're the camera man, wouldn't you instinctively follow the action? have you ever shot video of anything? do you simply let the subjects walk out of the screen? especially if the subject is about to get his dome lopped off. One possible reason is that the guy is already dead.

5. how come every iraqi that we kill or capture is dressed in civilian house rags with one brown shoe, but these guys are all decked out in ninja outfits with sneakers?

i'm not speaking as a conservative or a progressive, i'm speaking as an editor who knows video. this makes no sense to me at all and i don't believe it at all. what's the most famous murder scene in the most famous movie of all time? PSYCHO of course and the famous shower scene complete with screeching music. nobody argues that the girl got murdered, but few remember that we never actually see the knife hit the flesh. we assume the rest because of all the associated shots, the screams, the blood in the drain, the shadows. the berg beheading was about as real as the famous PSYCHO murder scene, yet somehow we all believe this actually took place.

whoever directed the berg video deserves an oscar.

[taxidriver]

1. wow. that's one of the best violations of FOXspeak that i've ever seen.

the thought police will be coming for you shortly.

[papercut]

2. Calling Cyril

I'm awaiting Dr. Cyril Wecht's analysis of the Berg video. I'm sure he'll have some fascinating insights.

[NMDemDist2]

3. re the "terraists" shoes it just struck me that in all the video I see

from Iraq, most men there wear sandal/thong things

i cant ever remember seeing a man wear tennis shoes or boots

am I wrong? I remember when they were beating Saddam's statue they all had those slip on sandals

hmmmmmmmmmm

[donhakman]

4. This CIA video wins no awards...

but is a little better than the bin Laden "lool alike" video that didn't look anything like him.

There are 5 frames that show a US serviceman's cap atop the head of one of the presumed camera men. There is also embedded in the last 2 seconds of the video the voice of a man with an American accent saying in English, "how do we go about this".

I understand the CIA's perceived need to show the world that Arab torture is worse than US torture, or conversely, our torure is better.

I even understand the justification of "we are at war - all is fair".

Ultimately I understand that propoganda that is not presented by the media in its entirety has all the impact of a horror film that is too dark to see, thus leaving the viewer to imagine the worst.

Conceptually I give this short film a C+ and an F for technical merit.

[Disturbed]

5. Plenty of this has been discussed.

Many inconsistencies are evident.

Two more:

1)Why would al Zagawi disguise himself when this Video is credit to him and his photo has been broadcast world wide quite a few time already.

2) Al Q. sends it's Videos to Al Jazeera. Why was this one sent to a front org in London for the Net?

Side note: I feel that the CIA could have done a better job of this. I suspect it was some mercs with an idea to help the war on terror.