FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- A picture might be worth a thousand words, but in today's social media-drenched society, nothing makes a statement or proves a point quite like video. To keep up with the trends of information-sharing, personnel at Fort Campbell's Sabalauski Air Assault School recently began a video series to highlight some of the more popular aspects of the program.
At the helm of the video project are two Soldiers: Staff Sgt. William C. Lloyd Jr., 563rd Aviation Support Battalion, 159th Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, and Sgt. Derek C. Johnson, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Abn. Div.
"Our commander, Capt. Michael Finch, wanted us to do more outreach to promote the Air Assault School," said Lloyd, who lends his computer expertise and video editing skills to the series. "Just anything that is interesting that would highlight the Air Assault School and that's fun to do."
With the help of Johnson, who claims the starring role in most of the video projects, Lloyd is currently working on a nine-part series that highlights each segment of the school's obstacle course.
"It's to help Soldiers understand the standards of the air assault obstacle course and to show civilians the rigors of the Air Assault School," explained Johnson. "They saw me doing the obstacles and asked if I could demonstrate them for the video. It's pretty fun to do."
The process for producing a video -- from compiling footage of Johnson in action to making edits and adding music and effects -- can take up to a week, according to Lloyd.
"Getting the footage for an obstacle takes an hour or two at most," he said. "We get a first-person point of view where he's wearing a GoPro camera, and then we get a couple more angles from a third-person point of view."
The rest of the time is devoted to the technology required to produce a well-polished final product. The majority of the work is done on 70 pounds worth of Alienware computer equipment -- which Lloyd lugs in from his home to work on the projects.
"With the editing, I spend a lot of time doing the special effects stuff, because I'm still learning how to do this," said Lloyd. "Just throwing pieces of video together, you could finish that in a couple of hours. But I don't want to just throw it all together with some boring music. I'm trying to make it a little bit nicer."
While a lengthy process, the final product is a concise video segment, averaging between only one and two minutes in length. Lloyd explained that shorter videos are optimal for holding the attention of their viewers. Still, some exceptions are made where necessary.
"Some of the obstacles like the Tough One are two minutes because that's the one, historically, that we have the most failures on," he said.
"It gets everybody. So that video is longer because we go into more detail about how to navigate that obstacle."
On Friday morning, the pair spent some time on the obstacle course capturing footage for the low belly-crawl obstacle and the challenging Six Vaults.
"On the Six Vaults, when you go over them, the only part of your body that can touch the obstacle is your hands," explained Johnson prior to the shoot.
"If your feet or legs touch, you're going to be a no-go. You have to hop over, kick your legs up and land on the other side."
As for the best methods with which to traverse the vaults, Johnson said that the best thing a person can do is focus on core strength -- and practice until an individual method is found.
"You just have to find the technique that works for you," he said. "You can't try something that works for someone that's 6 feet tall if you're not."
As each video is completed, it is uploaded to www.facebook.com/sabalauskiairassaultschool for Soldiers and civilians to enjoy.
According to Lloyd and Johnson, the series has been well-met by viewers -- particularly retirees and Veterans who often inquire about when the next video will become available. The most popular video they've produced is "10 Days of Air Assault School," which has had nearly 300,000 views, 4,000 shares and has reached nearly 750,000 Facebook users to date.
Lloyd said the video series has given him a chance to combine outreach with one of his greatest passions.
"Obviously I'm a computer nerd, so anything that has to do with computers where I get to mess with them all day, I'll do it," he said.
"This will continue for as long as I'm here, at least -- and I've got another year."
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