Saturday, February 28, 2015

Directorate, BUMED Bethesda

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“BATH SALTS: It’s not a fad...It’s a NIGHTMARE.” That’s the title of a video produced by the Bureau of Navy Medicine and Surgery’s (BUMED) Visual Information Directorate (VID) that has gone “viral” since it was first uploaded to the internet on Dec. 20 of last year.
The video, depicting a Sailor using bath salts to get high, experiencing hallucinations and ultimately being hospitalized, has received attention from major news outlets across the country, including CNN and Fox News.
It has reached more than half a million views on the popular video sharing site YouTube. Compare that to a video about the synthetic drug Spice that was also produced by VID and uploaded by BUMED in October of 2011; it’s received approximately 18,000 views.
The project began when the directorate, located here at Naval Support Activity Bethesda in Building 5, was tasked by BUMED to create a video detailing the dangers of illegal bath salts to educate Sailors. The video’s creator, VID producer Chuck Allen, said at the time it was just one of many assignments. “We stay fairly busy,” said Chuck. “We’ve got about 80 projects going on at any given time, from simple ‘senior leadership message’ to documentary-type stuff.”
He said the steps for producing any video are routine. They first consulted with the ‘client’ and talked about the desired outcome. An outline and script were produced and reviewed based on that vision. Tweaks were made along the way.
Despite this particular project being “just another product,” Chuck admits he felt it had to be perfect. “Previously, we’d done a ‘Spice’ video and we had a ‘gimmick’ of doing all the action in reverse. For this one, we wanted it to be cool and have a similar ‘gimmick’ so we decided it would be filmed in the first person point of view.”
At this stage, the product was still being formulated. The level of collaboration can vary from client to client, he said. “Some are more involved than others. They may say, ‘Here’s some music choices that we’re looking at…’ – it just depends on how involved in the creation they want to get.”
“Bath Salts” may look like it was expensive to put together, but according to Mike Allen, the media production deputy, costs for productions are accounted for in the existing budget and resources.
“If you walk in today and say you need a video, I may say, ‘No, it already exists,’” he said. “We’re not spending taxpayer money; it’s already been done. If you come in and say, ‘We have a new ear procedure we need video for,’ then we’ll look, see that nothing exists and say, ‘OK, we can do that because it hasn’t been done.’ There’s a chain of things that happen to make sure that we’re as cost effective as we can be.”
“Bath Salts” did require hiring several actors to portray the user, his roommate and his girlfriend, but Chuck says that’s normal as well. “We use actors because you never want to show actual military members using drugs, or in a way that casts them in a negative light,” he explained.
BUMED paid for Lt. George Loeffler, the Navy expert featured in the latter half of the video, to travel to Washington, D.C. to be filmed as part of the content gathering process. “We got Lt. Loeffler in the studio for one day,” said Chuck. “I had him on camera for an hour and a half. I had to find which four minutes I wanted to use from all of the good content he gave us.”
Loeffler said working with VID was enjoyable. “Having zero training in television interviewing, I was looking to Mr. Allen and his colleagues for guidance. They put me at ease, asked me questions to get me talking, and soon I forgot about the camera a few feet from me.”
They also worked together to accurately represent how a ‘high’ from using bath salts could turn out.
“This video specifically called for hallucinations,” said Chuck. “I made sure we talked to Lt. Loeffler before I made any final decisions on the production. I had in mind, ‘OK, [the user] has got to get it. He’s got to do it. He’s gotta enjoy it. He’s got to suffer from it. He’s got to REALLY suffer from it.’
Are you really euphoric, or does it just speed things up?What kind of hallucinations do they have? Are they really ‘crazy’ hallucinations or are they just ‘colory’ [sic] hallucinations? I actually ran some of the things I had by him: ‘Is this possible?’”
One example of this was the depiction of violence by the user toward his girlfriend.
“He specifically mentioned domestic abuse – that is definitely a plausible situation,” said Chuck.
Another aspect of the video, one that has been shown over and over in a video still since it went viral, is the zombie effect Chuck used to turn the user’s roommate into a demonic-looking character.
“I really wanted to do the whole zombie thing. I kind of pushed that forward from the beginning, and I got some pushback for it being too cliché. I really thought with the whole zombie pop-culture kind of thing would really resonate. The zombie face morph had to happen.”
Mike said adding special effects may have taken a little more time, but that didn’t add to the cost of production.
“The costs are minimal,” he said, “With special effects, they’re not new. Chuck has a lot of software and the other [editing] suites do too. Sometimes that’s used for part of a medical procedure – enhancing the view – but that same software can be used for something like this.”
Once the product was finished, they handed it over to BUMED, where it was uploaded to their website and YouTube for dissemination worldwide. Though the video has received a substantial amount of attention, Chuck insists it’s not up to him to determine whether it’s a success.
“I thought it was really positive that it was getting that kind of attention, but to have the mainstream media pick it up and promote it was huge. I do think it adds an air of credibility to the whole thing,” he said. “My name isn’t anywhere on it, and I think that’s what makes the difference. I take pride in the fact that it’s being seen and knowing I did my best to get it right.”
Lt. Loeffler gives the team high praise for their efforts, “As the ‘talking head’ I know I became the face for the Bath Salts public service announcement, but I recognize Mr. [Chuck] Allen and his colleagues for doing the real heavy lifting. Bravo Zulu to them all.”
To see the video, visit http://www.youtube.com/USNavyMedicine and select “BATH SALTS: It’s not a fad… It’s a NIGHTMARE.”
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