This image placed in the first initial sequence of the movie. Cpt. Willard is seen naked and staring in his bloody hand, after punching the hotel mirror. The Captain state of mind in prior to image, unstable and seems to be an alcoholic. The result of seeing the many horrors of Vietnam War begins to take toll and left him in a vulnerable state.
In this scene, Cpt. Willard is standing in front of 3 men: Colonel Lucas, Captain Colby and Jerry. The scene is basically a briefing meeting between Willard and these three men. The mission is finding Colonel Kurtz, the order ""terminate Kurtz's command... with extreme prejudice"
This scene reference to the opera piece "Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen as the opera piece play along the sound of helicopters. The squadron of helicopter is seeing flying above the sea, represent the Valkyries, the mythical warrior women in Norse Mythology. The Squadron is led by Colonel Lieutenant Bill Kilgore.
Colonel Kilgore in this scene, is see bare chest naked under the heavy fire of artilleries. The colonel seems to not bother by the background, it's from here he delivers his famous line: "Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell? The whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end."
One of the many locations that Cpt. Willard crew travel along their mission. The battle station in this image, have been deserted for a long time, the rain pour down make everything surrounds feel more miserable. The playboy airplane in the back is from one of the previous encounter the crew past by.
The scene is located near the river shore of near the Angkor Wat temple. The Montagnard are Colonel Kurtz minions, mostly are tribal people or part of Colonel Kurtz units have been brainwashed by Colonel Kurtz. The scene is create an unsettling atmosphere for Cpt. Willard as he seems to worried whether if he is able to see his target.
Colonel Kurtz, is seen tired from the image, yet despite it he is eloquent and provide chilling monologue to Cpt. Willard. The black background and yellow hue make the character seen much more menacing like if he is a part of Cpt. Willard psyche. Colonel Kurtz present the questions to Cpt. Willard with the intention to make Willard be a part of the Montagnards.
The Photojournalist is one of the many memorable support characters of the epic films. The character is a crazed photojournalist who welcome the crew to the Montagnard, at the same time, a comic relief in the film. Behind this character, he is played the role of guide Cpt. Willard on his journey to understand the Colonel.
This image showcase a ritual is about to be commence. In this case, the Montagnard is sacrificing the buffalo as a piece offering toward the God. This scene present the spiritual aspect of the film and the beginning of what to comes to the end of the film.
This image cemented the decision that Cpt. Willard have made for himself. As he is emerge from the water, with his camo face paint, the Cpt. Willard seems to embrace what Colonel Kurtz have said to him. This image represent the final transformation of Willard mental state, as he becomes the Colonel Kurtz ideal of a "perfect soldier".
Deep underneath the dense jungles of Central Vietnam, across the channel of the Nine Dragons Delta, a single boat travels away from an eternal nightmare of war. The further away the war is, the closer it approaches the center of darkness; a darkness that only the most broken man would only be able to comprehend. The boat crew of Captain Willard along with Chef, CPO Phillips, crewmen Lance and “Mr. Clean” must trek through the elusive Nung River and head out to find Colonel Kurtz. The objective: “Terminate Kurtz’s command…with extreme prejudice”, a simple task to follow; however, with each encounter and people that the crew meet along their journey. The nature of both the environment and uncertainty of what lies behind the mission seep in the crew morales, the film is a representation of the dark twisted nature of men.
The film is a war masterpiece of both psychological and thematic, on the mindset of soldiers like Captain Willard have suffered in order to complete their mission. Cpt. Willard’s crew journey through the Nung River, along the way they meet up with a series of support characters to their mission objective. Each encounter leaves each member restless, eventually as the horror of war and chaos unravel more along their journey. The eventual climatic meeting of Cpt. Willard and Colonel Kurtz present two sides of both men on their ideology of war, and the conclusion of the film leaves more questions than answers.
Major Theme: War, Psychological, Ritual, Fever Dream, Carnage.
In war, there is no winner or loser, there's only the horror. In war, battle are not won by the numbers of killed or lost, they are only won when the opposite begins to doubt themselves. Soldier are no more than pawns to be toyed by the higher ranks, innocent dying like pest in the rice field. The question is not when will war is over, is how long will it take to end the war. Only in war, the heart of darkness of men will be revealed.
The images that are being presented in this collage portrays the two front of the Vietnam War. A blend of real-time photography and propaganda poster demanded audience attention to the environment, the people who suffered from the conflict, and instill the idea of horror. The contrast between propaganda poster of the Viet Cong and the photos of US G.I are presented with through two languages and type: English and Vietnamese; this helps emphasize the division in ideology of both the US troops and the Viet Cong. In the end, this collage provides a general perspective of the Vietnam War.
Apocalypse Now Color Palettes have a unique blending of complimentary colors, in this case the film major color hue are green and red. By the time, the Montagnards are introduced the palette begins to focus on the color Brown, then Yellow to Black from Kurtz image. The various level of saturation of Yellow in the later scene represent the climatic moment of the film; the Orange and Blue complimentary palette of Willard emerges from the puddle of water create a contrast to the dark ambient and shift the viewer focus back to the main character.
This collage is mostly focused on the common environment and effects that are using in the production of the movie.
The inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola epic war film, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is where it all begins. The story of Charles Marlow, a sailor who takes on an assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in the African interior; till this day is widely regard as one of the most analyzed literature piece of all time.
A 1972 epic historical drama film produced, written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in South America in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado. In the same vein with Heart of Darkness, the film creates a vision of madness and folly, counterpointed by the lush but unforgiving Amazonian jungle. Through the context of this film, it provides a solid background and visual inspiration for Coppola's reimagination of the Vietnam War.
One of The Doors greatest masterpiece, The End is an epic ritual that everyone should experience once in a lifetime for themselves. What started as a breakup song, the song manifested itself into an epic poem about lost, lust and the apocalypse. Heavily inspired by the sound of Indian music, fueled by LSD, sex and Paranoia. Jim Morrison's haunted vocal performance along the mesmerizing organ sound of Ray Manzarek, the masterful guitar licks of Robbie Krieger combined with enchanting snare and drum beats from John Densmore lay the foundation of psychedelic rock.
Polyphonic analysis of The End provides an additional layer of context into the major themes of the song. As the viewer listen to the information, the connection of the song itself begins to tie back to the movie itself. In a weird twisted of fate, the stories behind the song, the life of Jim Morrison fit so well with Coppola's film, it comes off as a stroke of genius that rarely seen in cinema.
The intro sequence to the film is as epic as it can get, when the viewer begin to listen to the 7 minutes long of The End. When pay attention to Cpt. Willard face expression, vision, the setting and his body language, we as the viewer are now being push into watching a ritual dance unlike no other.
The Horror Speech will forever be solidified as one of the best film monologue in cinematography history. Colonel Kurtz epic monologue tackles the essence of life and death, he challenges the viewer to question within themselves what lies beyond good and evil. His cryptic and poetic message on the moral ambiguity of horror, why he believe is through facing the horror of killing or death is when we are most powerful.
As the face of Colonel Kurtz fades away, we are now throw back to the same ritual at the beginning. Cpt. Willard gradual transformation from a broken man, an "errand boy" into the perfect soldier is now playing along with the music. Frame by frame, it's disoriented and confusing, but inevitably a sacrifice must be made; as Cpt. Willard holding his machete and terminate the Colonel with extreme prejudice. Kurtz's eventual death is not a of triumphant victory, but a moral reminder of the true nature of horror, itself.
Experimental, this is just the basic layout of the inspiration for the final concept.
This concept is a reimagine of the fiction in the newspaper and the soldier's reality.
This concept take the distortion element to the background and well, it's not a great piece of concept but it serves it purpose.
The final draft of this concept, titled Fragments of War is an amalgamation of three previous concepts to create one single concept.
This is more as a supplementary concept to the final main concept. This concept is named "Soldier of The Hell Storm".
Opening Credit for the film publisher.
The smoke begin to blow into the right, sound of the music begins. The color gradient fade in as the smoke begins to display. Effects and Camera: The smoke display to the right, as well the color pallete begins to fade in the background.
The diary pages begin to appear from the smoke, as the smoke dissipated near the end. Martin Sheen name begin to slowly appear from the smoke into the page. Effects and Camera: Smoke effects slowly disappear, diary begins to appear in the frame.
The viewer begin to read the diary page, it begins to lit up and starting to burn itself. Some of the writing begins to blur out, while the diary page continue to burn. The text begin to warp as the fire continue to burn the page. Effects and Camera: The fire of the paper burn begins from the bottom left, then make it way up to the right corner as it start to burn harder. The letterform begins to warp, as it slide to the frame.
After part of the page is burn out, the writings of the diary is now all blur. Martin Sheen name is type write out the blank space between two fragments of the journal. Effects and Camera: Name slide into the gap and completely warp, the letter form is all blur out and smudge to create distortion.
The page of diary begins to fade out, the river begins to appear and distort to create a illusion of smoke. Journal text begins to fade into the frame. This frame will be fill with water effect, a reference towards the river aspect of the film Effects and Camera: Journal text fade in, journal page fade out of the frame.
The camera begins to follow the text of the last frame, it move down to show the other journal text as it float into the frame. The background color shift again. Effects and Camera: The camera is move down from the previous frame, the river image fade in along with the journal text.
As the camera continues to move down, two journal entry blocks appear and the name Albert Hall already distorted, appear behind some kind of a river. Effects and Camera: The camera is focus on the whole frame.
The camera from the last frame move down to this frame. This frame, each element of a newspaper begins to move certain way to fit into the frame. Effects and Camera: Camera move down, each of the elements of the newspaper to move in the frame.
The background color of the frame begin to shift again, the tittle of the page begins to appear. A part of the B52 plane begins to drop bombs from it. The name title for Robert Duvall slowly fade in. Effects and Camera: The newspaper title move down along with the part B52 airplane and the bombs.
The image of the bombs explosion appear first to create allure the impact of the bombs from the last frame. The first tittle for the Tropic Thunder appears first to provide context, while second tittle of the G.I appear later. Robert name eventually appear towards the frame Effects and Camera: The bomb explosion appear at the beginning, the two tittles fade in slowly to the frame one by one.
The newspaper come into the frame as the main background. Part of the image in the newspaper is smudge, while part of the newspaper being block out to create the characteristic of Robert Duvall character. Effects and Camera: Rectangular shape is blocking the news page, while the image on the left is partly distorted.
A part of the graveyard appear of the right, while the title begins to enlarge to emphasize the meaningless of the war. Laurence name is slow appear into the screen Effects and Camera: Part of the graveyard move into the frame, while title enlarge alongside with the slightly visible Laurence name appear.
The smoke begin to blow out the grave and shows the coffin of American soldier. The name Laurence become more and more visible. Effects and Camera: The smoke effect come in the background, the coffins and the name slowly appear.
The smoke then blows to the right along with the memorial name of the fallen soldier. Part of the bottom is blur while the top right is show. Laurence Fishburne appear fully but with a bit of distortion to show pain. Effects and Camera: The smoke display to the right, along the memorial stone. The name is move in the opposite direction.
Description: As the smoke from the last frame disappear, a top secret folder emerge in to the frame Effects and Camera: The folder slowly appear from the background.
Description: The folder then disappeared to reveal two pages of description about a certain character. Effects and Camera: The collage of file paper appear in the background.
The frame shift into the image of a newspaper describe a briefing of the My Lai Massacre. Marlon Brando appears on top of the tittle of the Newspaper. Effects and Camera: Name of the actor on top of the title of the newspaper.
Description: The frame shift to another newspaper article, then it begins to be distorted and blur certain part. The name of writers in large bold fonts. Effects and Camera: Part of the top newspaper have a smoke effect quality, the text is being darken while some part is highlight.
Description: This frame is a snapshot from the last scene of the film. This frame is for cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Effects and Camera: Vittorio Storaro name slowly appears from behind the background.
Description: The frame is layer by two image from the film, they appear with each other one by one. The edited by title appear along the boat while the name of two editor of the film is position both opposite side Effects and Camera: Image are overlay with another and text appear one by one as the image emerge.
Description: This frame get the same treatment from the last frame, but the name title is Francis Ford Coppola. Effects and Camera: The name appear from the horizon.
Description: This frame end the title sequence back to black and the film tittle emerge center of the frame while in the back is fire effect. The color green and orange fill in the text. Effects and Camera: Fire effect mask behind the text.