Pepper Tree Post is proud to have been part of the crew that brought “Fighting Spirit: A Combat Chaplains Journey” to a screening hosted by The Vatican this week.
Produced by Paulist Productions and the U.S. Army Chaplains Corps, the movie revolves around the story of Emil Kapaun, a combat chaplain who died as a POW in North Korea in 1953. The documentary examines the ultimate sacrifice made by hundreds of U.S. military combat chaplains.
The team at PTP were responsible for all aspects of Post Production and Finishing, including the restoration of historical material that appears in the movie – some of which came directly from the battlefield – the assembly and conform of a wide array of camera sources dating back to WWII, as well as the online/grade and delivery of the final movie.
Milton Adamou performed the final grade and supervised the restoration of some of the more challenging shots. “We approached this job with a sense of duty, making sure that in our creative decisions we were not embellishing the horrors of war, but instead being sensitive and guiding the material into a place of neutrality and harmony. I treated each story as moments, respecting the original look and feel of the various times in history, trying to even out the differences to create equilibrium in those moments.”
Reflecting on the overall experience, and what drove the team to spend an inordinate number of hours on seemingly endless details, Adamou says: “This is a story that deserved to be told. The selfless commitment these chaplains make to be with these soldiers, some barely out of high school, in their final moments, to bestow upon them a sense of peace as they are taking their final breaths, is both admirable and unfathomable to the average person.”
Client: Paulist Productions
Director: Richard Hull, Justin D. Roberts
Producer: Richard Hull, Daniel Schnider
Editor: Holly Stocking
Colorist: Milton Adamou
Special Thanks: Greg Emerson
Pepper Tree Post, Inc. 