You can see the work here. It was submitted to Anime Boston 2024 (non-finalist) and ConnectiCon 2024 (non-finalist).
This work is a logical continuation of past works exploring the Russo-Japanese War and the Battle of Balaclava. I had been reading a lot about the allied bombing campaign against Japan (for a good summary see Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan 1942-1945 by Barrett Tillman, 1416584412) and I was particularly interested in both nuclear attacks. After reading a lot of personal accounts (see https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/voices/oral-histories/atomic-bombers/ and General Paul Tibbets – Reflections on Hiroshima) and seeing some period interviews (see example one and example two) it felt like a good idea to explore further. I wanted to cover Nagasaki given it was the second attack and thus it is usually given less prominence. I was of course very lucky that there is an anime featuring this attack: Nagasaki 1945: Angelus no Kane. It is nothing special, but it does a good job covering the event and is reasonably well animated. Song wise I did not put a ton of thought into. I mostly trawled around youtube until I found something I liked well enough. I do like how it is mostly instrumental with occasional vocals, which allows me to do basically the same thing I did with my Charge of the Light Brigade video.
Production wise this was fairly quick to put together. I simply listened to a lot of interviews and pulled out some quotes that stood out to me. Then it was just a matter of finding matching footage and calling it a day. The movie is less than 90 minutes so there was only so much to work with which sped things up. I am very happy with how it all turned out. I think this is the best AMV I have ever made and I doubt I will ever match it. I love bringing all this history together in a concise package and it is fascinating to hear the thoughts of the actual people involved. That said, it is a very Americentric way to look at the event. There are some recordings from victims of the attack, but I would have to provide subtitles which can be tricky to integrate well. That said, a companion video featuring their thoughts would be a good follow up.
Finally, over the summer in 2023 I was able to visit The Bockscar, the plane that dropped the bomb, at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Which was a nice way to wrap up the project.
I do not plan to stop with this video so you can expect (or dread) many more historically themed AMVs in the future.
Director’s Commentary:
00:04 : It is neat to have the Massachusetts connection with Charles Sweeney being from Quincy.
00:15 : The primary target for the second nuclear attack was Kokura, but they aborted to the secondary target as Kokura was obscured by heavy fog that day.
00:45 : I had to do a little audio cutting here as the interviewer says the plane is the Great Artiste which was on the mission, but was not the one Kermit Beahan was in. That was the Bockscar. I also think the audio mix between audio and music is not quite right, but it is good enough.
1:03 : I like the use of black here, both to focus the viewer on the audio and to more acutely highlight the brightness to follow.
1:04 – 2:07 : As mentioned above I like how this song has sparse vocals. It allows the interview audio to fill in the gaps, but also highlights certain parts visually like the actual bombing here.
2:32 – 2:33: I faked this scene by cross-fading in an all white clip.
2:36 : It was by pure accident that I put this section and Olivi’s statement about duty together. They work well together.
4:11 : I considered putting some archival footage of Nagasaki here, but I think it was better to linger on Spitzer’s final words and at four minutes, the video seems long enough.