It is seriously
depressing video of a human getting decapitated. No wonder source of
such videos are often from terrorist who have been releasing such
videos time and over. They are normally shot on hand held camera with
low resolution. Their amateurishness is worse than those of a amateur
youtube uploader. For best it can be compared to home made videos who
are more concerned with content than the production values. But, a
recent video showing decapitation
of American journalist made me reconsider this conclusion.
The video is not
hand held or does not uses cheap camera. It clearly uses a decent
DSLR or even video camera which is held in a good tripod that does
not shakes in desert's constant wind where this is filmed. The voice
is not disturbed by the desert wind. One of the big thing to notice
was it is in 720p resolution. The camera angle changes depending on
where to focus sometime on the terrorist and sometimes keeping the
victim at center. I am sure the team behind this must be obsessed
with Hollywood production techniques.
Lets focus on the
content. I am not going to talk about decapitation as it is actually
not shown in the video! It starts like a movie trailer or even GOT
season trailer. There is an introduction which is obama speech about
his authorization on strikes on ISIS members. It then blackens to
show the main scene. The victim who is a photojournalist says without
any fear or doubt that it is US who is responsible for his death. I
can feel no sense of fear or even hesitation. The angle of camera
changes from center to right side during this time similar to what
happens in movie trailer to show intensity of the situation. The
camera is still during all this time. It feels they are taking
multiple shots for this shot or using multiple camera for single shot
which was later merged. The killer who talks in heavy British accent
is next shown talking explaining the reason why he is being killed.
He screams no Koran lines or any of those loud Arabic words. He
reminded me of the wannabe terrorist guys from the movie Four Lions.
All while watching this video, I was thinking there must have been a
lot of 'cut' calls and two guys ending laughing of the mistake while
taking the line. Considering the seriousness of the content, I always
ended up regretting this thought. Then there is break in video and
next part shows the guy moving on with chopping the head. It
basically shows the terrorist applying the knife without any blood
spilling out. The next part shows directly the decapitated head of
the journalist. The decapitation process is not shown. Obviously, the
censor board of terrorists video should actually require decapitation
as mandatory part of video. But, it was not shown. Perhaps, the
terrorist have learnt of humane way of killing and displaying it. Or,
was it that these people are motivated by Hollywood style movie
trailers or Japanese porn that censors from showing genitals. Or,
perhaps it was the work of Hollywood people. We can only speculate.
