For last year's 9th annual GI Film Festival, U.S. Marine Corp Sgt. Tammy Hineline missed the submission deadline to enter her two short documentaries and one music video. But this year, she was determined not to commit last year's mistake.
"So this year I decided I wasn't going to miss the deadline," said Hineline, a 9-year veteran and videographer at the U.S. Marine Corps' Combat Camera section in the Pentagon.
Her proactive submission this year paid off: both of her films (Letters: A Hero's Journey to the Medal of Honor, Return to Iwo Jima) and a music video (Stand) will be screened at the Angelika Film Center and Cafe at Mosaic, one of several movie theaters that will screen GI Film Festival works around the National Capital Region, in Fairfax, Virginia.
"I was very surprised," explained Hineline, who said she sometimes questions whether or not she is good at the craft. "I was very surprised that all of them got in."
"I just always feel like I could have done better, or could have done more," she explained.
But Hineline's excitement was parsed in increments. Co-founders Brandon Millett and Army veteran Laura Law-Millett, who reviewed and evaluated all submissions, accepted her three entries separately.
Hineline said she received an email March 15 while she was at home recovering from a level-two spinal fusion surgery.
"I had been waiting a few weeks by then to hear back and I got an email saying that one of them had been accepted," said Hineline. "I was happy to at least have one, but then I got another e-mail a few minutes later stating that my other two films had also been accepted--and I was congratulated on the 'hat trick.'"
Her journey
Hineline's love for visual storytelling, via the medium of photography, began in high school. After high school she continued to do photography and even started taking classes at community college. Hineline said she didn't attend the class for long because she felt she wasn't being challenged.
"I was just really bored," Hineline said.
Hineline had been talking to a recruiter and after much thought, she decided to join the Marines. Though she had signed up to be a Marine, she still wanted to do photography.
"I had done some research about Combat Camera and got the [military occupational specialty] guaranteed on my contract before I would sign and ship to boot camp," said Hineline. "However, the Combat Photographer MOS is 4641 and I had officially received the Combat Videographer MOS -- 4671. I was pissed for a few days until I started my training--and I realized I really liked video, too."
As part of her military training, she completed a video course at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland. But Hineline also credits her skill in visual storytelling to her own will to learn her craft and be good at it.
"A good majority of my video and photography skills have been acquired through self-learning: reading books, attending conventions, workshops, training videos, and a heck of a lot of shooting," said Hineline. "This industry is a creative one that is always advancing. If you don't keep up with it you'll get left in the dust...talent only gets you so far. The rest is all hustle."
Her work
Hineline said she wants audiences to understand that the characters in her films are human. Letters and Return to Iwo Jima are in general about former service members who revisit their past when they experienced pain and how those experiences radically altered their realities.
For example, in Letters, Marine Corps veteran Cpl. Kyle Carpenter's mother reads letters that he sent to her while stationed in Afghanistan, where he suffered multiple wounds. While stationed in Afghanistan, Carpenter wrote letters to his mother about his life at war. As his mother reads the letters, an image of Carpenter pop up of him with his fellow Marines dressed in combat gear followed by images of Carpenter when he first entered the Marines. One of the highlights of the films is when Carpenter received a phone call from President Obama informing him that he was going to receive the Medal of Honor. The production particularly highlights Carpenter's combat scars, which were caused after he jumped on top of a live grenade to save his fellow Marines.
The film also portrays his perseverance through his recovery, healing and transition out of the military and to becoming a college student.
In Return to Iwo Jima, Medal of Honor recipient and veteran U.S. Marine Hershel "Woody" Williams and Gen. Lawrence F. Snowden wrestle with why they lived and others died.
"I just hope people feel a connection with these people because I feel these days--veterans who come out of the military, myself included, seem very disconnected from the civilian world because there is such a separation," said Hineline. "The military does a great job of making civilians into the Soldiers, but not so much the other way around. I think my goal with these videos is to make these people relatable and to just tell their stories, honestly. Everybody has a story; and it's about the human connection, so I hope the people watching these videos feel that human connection in them."
What's next
Hineline said she thinks the opportunity will open doors for her to network, but that isn't her only goal. She said she likes the idea of moving forward and said this film festival could help her to do that.
"I never want to just make one thing and say, 'Welp, that's it, that is the best I can do and I want to do that one thing for the rest of my life,'" she said. "I hope that the best thing that I've ever made is always going to be the next thing that I make. So while I do believe that these films have a certain life cycle where they will run a film festival life circuit, and people can enjoy and love them, there is always another story to tell."
Hineline is separating from the military in September and for her next creative endeavor--the next best thing, as Hineline calls it--she hopes to make a story about her own life. She said the military has provided her many opportunities to tell others' stories, but she is looking for the day when she can see what she can create about her own journey.
"I anticipate that it will be a story about transition and finding my place in the world," she said. "I am hoping that I can be successful...as successful out of the military as I have been in the military."
Hineline said that these two themes resonate with her because she has to overcome injuries, loss and disappoint and, like the characters in her documentaries, she too has persevered.
Whatever the future for Hineline, one thing is certain: she wants to continue to use her creative abilities to tell people's stories.
"I think it goes back to the human relations, the human story," she said. "Everyone is trying to find their place. Some people find it faster than others and some people never find their place. It's harder for some and easy for others. I think finding your place in life is just a relatable story to everybody."
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