Gone Nuke - Short Film (2018)

Gone Nuke is a short film about the Hawaiian missile alert scare that happened in early 2018. It was produced for a class in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Literature. Below are a more in-depth description and analysis of the film. Hope you enjoy or enjoyed it!

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The inspiration for making Gone Nuke came from being reminded by the Hawaii missile false alarm of a tale that I was told many times as a child. This is the tale is called “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and turns out to be one of Aesop’s ancient fables. This boy would yell for help because a wolf was coming even though there was none. He did this repeatedly until one day a real wolf came, he cried for help, yet no one came to his rescue. In the less disturbing story, his herd is gobbled up while in the more upsetting version it is the boy who is devoured. Regardless, the moral of the story is that giving false alarms will render them inefficient. Crying wolf when there is no wolf will take away your credibility. This old tale came right to mind when the missile-alert ordeal happened because it highlights some invisible consequences of it that were hardly ever mentioned. The combination of the two brought me to concoct Gone Nuke.

There are a few concepts that I tried to convey through Gone Nuke. The first one is the same moral that surfaces in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf;” the idea that a false alarm has the unintended consequences of discrediting future alarms. To convey this idea, while transporting it in the modern world and making it relevant to the missile-alert emergency, I decided to have repeating events. The shots I used are all very similar but have some key differences. These are there to carry some meaning or illustrate a point. For example, the first time I open the cabinet there is no food, the second time there is one box of Spam and the third there are many boxes. This is to show that at first, a false alarm might spur us to be more scared and ‘prep,’ but after too many, we become desensitized. Much like in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” the last time it happens, I do not care anymore.

The second central concept that I wanted to convey to viewers is a critique of the culture of alarmism that has grown prevalent in modern media. It seems like every-day we turn on the news there is some apocalypse happening, some emergency. In some way, this is also desensitizing us to the gravity of some of the issues that are presented. Even if something terrible happens, it will stay on the news for a few days or less, and then disappear. There is no follow-up, which is in part due to its format, yet it is shaping our view of the world, so it is worth to be aware of. In some way, the actual missile-alert had a local impact, but then the story was picked up and amplified to the whole world. Running this story for days and days fomented at least some animosity towards North Korea, even though the nation was not involved at all in the incident. I wanted to draw attention to the fear that these institutions try to instore in people.

The third dominant idea that I wanted Gone Nuke to convey is how consumerism has somehow reached even the apocalypse. This was done by emphasizing the cans of Spam. It seems like even the end of the world, which should be the end of consumption as we know it, is a good excuse to sell you something. Buying a few cans of Spam, buying a knife or a gun, or even buying an apartment in a luxury bunker is nothing else if not a way to psychologically mitigate our fear of dying. I wanted to highlight how futile and stupid all of this is, especially the fear of dying. By showing the increasing amount of stuff that I needed to have, and how useless it all was in the end, I hope to shine a light on the pre-apocalypse industry. An industry built upon the exploitation of our primordial fear of death.

I used all the filmic strategies at my disposal to push the viewer to understand the previously stated concepts. I selected a repetitive song that gave me the idea of time passing as well as a feeling of sadness because, well because it is the apocalypse. I also highlighted the passing of time and rhythm of the song by cutting the shot in accordance with the music. The song I chose is called “Dark Taupe” by Arden Forest, and I have permission to use it for distribution on YouTube. I kept the film silent except for two types of sounds. There were background sounds which included: people screaming, sirens, birds chirping, and wind noises. But there were also specific sound effects that complemented the visuals rather than adding to the ambiance and feeling such as water running, opening a knife, opening a can and so on. I also desaturated the first three times the alarm went off while I really saturated the last time. This was one of the filmic strategies that I used to highlight the contrast between the first three times it happened to the last time it happened, the time I stopped caring.