Oznets Question

Oznets Question

Saturday August 5th 2006
Metula
Northern Israel/Lebanon Border

Reflecting back on yesterday and the Hezbollah attacks on Kiryat Schmona, was best summed up by our young Producer Oznet. A couple of hours after the attack I came across her sitting by herself in the building, she looked up and said

"Can I ask you a question"

"Yes, of course"

"Were you scared up there on the roof, when the missiles were coming in"

The question required me to stop and think for a second, because there was a minute up there when a Katusah screamed just over our heads and landed a 100m away, I think my word at that moment was

"Shit, that is close, you have about half a second between the whistle and the impact, so long quotes and prophetic words are not possible, "shit" is about all I got out as I was swinging the camera.

I tried to explain that when filming war, I am seeing it thru a lens, I do not get to watch the war I am on a complete and psychotic rush of adrenaline that pumps you. I switch into this zone of pure concentration, the world is now only a lens.

It is also important to give viewers the impact and sensation of being there, taking them to the attack. we were live yesterday and the anchors on the Breakfast show were just gob smacked with the rush and the drama of what they were seeing.

Perhaps it is why I often write about the sounds of war , that is what I experience and feel more than anything else. I never get to watch the horror of war, I hear it and feel the physical percussion of air being sucked up as artillery shells are fired.

You do not have time to be scared, every nerve in your body is at its limits. It feels like when you stretch a rubber band till it nearly breaks, that is what it feels like to be filming war. It is a powerful drug, but like all drugs it can also be deadly and that is the more sane and sober side.

Oznet is young and scared, I cannot imagine the thoughts that ran through a young girls mind as she watched rockets rain down in here country. It is good to be scared Oznet, remember that.

And for my daughter Louise, who said to me " Keep Safe Dad"

Trying my best darling, trying my best .