A Battlefield Tourist

Getty Submission 2009 Complete

Jul 6 at 9:09pm by David Tate

3/8 Marines in Bakwa, Farah Province

Well… I have to admit, it has taken two months longer to complete this project than originally projected, embarrassing actually.  I mean seriously, I’ve been home from Afghanistan four months and I still have yet to get my clips to Getty Images and it’s stressing me out; until July 4.  It’s on that day I finally finished.  It took ten times more time than I expected.  Not to mention the myriad of personal problems;  I’ll tell you the last six months has been crazy.

Who is This Guy?

For those unfamiliar with my work, here’s the skinny:

Since 2003, I’ve been taking time off, sometimes months at a time, to venture the world building a video archive of mostly US troops in action.  It is a passion of mine that I want to do on my own terms, so it is taking a while to do it full time.  That means I have to somehow juggle a “real job”, with a family and a passion for video, history and adventure; plus the overwhelming challenges of funding, dedication and proper equipment.  I still can’t believe I’ve been doing this seven years now, six with A Battlefield Tourist.  That’s a long time in “milblog” terms.  In fact, considering inception came in January 2003, I may actually be the oldest milblog out there.  I was a milblog before there was such a term!

Five times since 2003, I’ve kissed the wife good bye, wrote “the note” and took off for a conflict zone; either Iraq or Afghanistan.  I always pick critical times so I know my video will be used forever:  Pre-invasion Iraq, Operation Mountain Storm, the first Afghan presidential election, the “surge” in Iraq and now finally, the escalation in Afghanistan.  These are moments in the history of these conflicts that will always be drawn on by filmakers of the future and is the formula to achieving my dream of being one of those people that contribute those images.  Then, when I hooked up with Getty Images in 2005, the dream was realized.

The Project

In February, I spent three weeks in Afghanistan’s Regional Command-South, trying t get imagery that would tell the story of the US escalation in the Afghan War.   The surge force in this conflict RIP’d out in November 2008, paving the way for the start of the escalation in force with the formation of the Special Purpose Marine Air/Ground Task Force that replaced it at the beginning of the year.  That is what I went to cover.

The units covered in this submission are:  3rd Battalion, Eigth Marine Regiment in Musa Qala, Helmand Province and Bakwa, Farah Province.  While there I also managed to get video of 1st Bn. The Rifles (UK), Royal Ghurkas (UK) and the Afghan National Army.  Extras included good imagery of Kabul and Kandahar Air Field.

In all I spent more than 300 hours putting this submission together.  When you have an 18 month old daughter, lose your job, get a new job,  and you’re suffering through a recession in other ways – this is a monumental effort for one guy, to be honest.  A little here, a little there…

Regardless, it is done and in the mail;  405 High Definition video clips of all of the above.  This is VERY exciting for me and my family.  With this submission, we hope to start realizing royalties that will help pay back the $15,000 it took to get here (not to mention the guy that loaned us $5,000 as well).

This will also give me an indication of the market for military stock footage in High Def.  If the demand is there, which is determined by royalties, I hope to go back into this profession fulltime by 2012.  Right now, I am under a local three year contract, which runs through April of that year.  When that contract is up, we’ll see where we’re at and make decisions at that time.