Approximately every hour a U.S. veteran commits suicide.

A quarter of all returning veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress, with families and communities hanging in the balance.

As the U.S. prepares for the final drawdown of soldiers from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Soledad O’Brien and MediaStorm take an intimate look at two veterans and their families’ lives as they struggle with the transition from war to home.

Delon Beckett is one of those veterans. He returned from Iraq a changed man. Now, he drinks to calm his suicidal thoughts.

Garrett Combs served in Afghanistan and Iraq. For the sake of his family, he wants to learn to control his anger.

Both men suffer from post-traumatic stress, and both have decided they need a drastic change in their life, one that they can’t address on their own.

Their hope for change comes from an organization called Save a Warrior. Founded by retired veteran Jake Clark, this five-and-half-day program claims it has found an answer for veterans like Delon and Garrett.

But with an issue as complicated as post-traumatic stress, what real change can happen in less than a week?

Will Delon and Garrett find the relief they so desperately need?

NAACP Image Awards
Year: 2014
Place: Nominee
Category: Outstanding Documentary - Television

MediaStorm, in partnership with Soledad O’Brien and Starfish Media Group, developed a film that takes an intimate look at two veterans and their families' lives as they struggle with the transition from war to home and their battles within. To truly understand their struggles, MediaStorm would delve into their lives, spending time with both them and their families. We then journey with these wounded warriors to a program in Malibu, California called Save a Warrior, which uses a combination of therapies to help veterans heal and find peace of mind. To answer the question "did the program work" we followed the soldiers home to document the immediate impact of the program on the veterans and their families.

Documentation in the field required a sensitivity for the subjects, their families, the organization, and the issue of post-traumatic stress as it relates to veterans.

Because many of the soldiers in the program were openly suicidal, MediaStorm needed to delicately balance the needs of these men, and the needs of a primetime audience on CNN. The last thing MediaStorm and Starfish Media Group wanted to do was to prevent these soldiers access to the healing they so desperately needed while attempting to create a compelling documentary about an important issue.

The project would also be MediaStorm’s first project with an on-camera correspondent. MediaStorm and Soledad O’Brien would need to find a way to balance the correspondent model with a more verité style of documentary.

In the production suite, MediaStorm needed to navigate the often complicated but necessary restrictions of broadcast television, and do so in a compressed amount of time.

A substantial amount of research was conducted before shooting began, including background information on the issue, the potential subjects, the organization; developing interview questions for each subject; and logistical information. The resulting sixty page document was distributed amongst the crew before production.

MediaStorm and Starfish Media Group spent a substantial amount of time conducting interviews with potential subjects, attempting to find individuals that would be both open to the process, and able to get what they needed from the week of counseling sessions at Save a Warrior. MediaStorm was as open with the soldiers as possible about what the process would look like so that there were very few surprises about what our crew would be asking for once production started.

MediaStorm prides itself in working in small teams. As such, we act as ‘flies on the wall’ letting a process unfold without getting in the way. This approach seemed absolutely essential for this film, which covers so much sensitive ground. MediaStorm hired a small crew for the shoot including Cinematographer Rick Gershon, and Audio Technician Jonathan Seale to work with Director of Photography Andrew Ellis. Doing so allowed MediaStorm a greater opportunity to act as witnesses to the healing and capture intimate moments without interfering in the process.

In post-production, MediaStorm worked closely with Starfish Media Group and CNN to ensure that all broadcast standards were met while maintaining the integrity of the project and it’s sensitive subject matter. It was important for the team to show not only what it is like to live with post-traumatic stress, but to provide a broader context for the issue. MediaStorm and Starfish Media Group decided providing context would best be done by Soledad O’Brien. This allowed for a combination of “fly on the wall” shooting and correspondent centered documentary. The result is a potent combination of actualities and fact-checked context about the issue.

With the exception of several in-person critique sessions, communication between MediaStorm, Starfish Media Group and CNN was done almost entirely through email and google docs. Doing so allowed each company to have a record of what one another was responsible for in the creation of the film.

The film was broadcast on CNN August 12th, August 17th, and on Veterans Day 2014. On the night of the premiere, the film was watched by over 700,000 people.

In the days preceding broadcast, Soledad O’Brien promoted the film on Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, Anderson Cooper 360, New Day, This Hour with Michaela Pereirra and John Berman, as well as Wolf Blitzer Situation Room. Save a Warrior founder Jake Clark also participated in an interview with TheLip.tv.

The day of the film’s debut on CNN, O’Brien held a Google Hangout with Jake Clark as well as Delon Beckett, one of the film’s main subjects. She also held an open Ask Me Anything on Reddit.

Over 2,000 tweets using #WarComesHome, a hashtag developed by Starfish Media Group for the film, were sent leading up to and during the television premiere. Statistical analysis of a sample of 2,000 tweets shows the hashtag had over 900 contributors with an estimated reach of 16 million unique users following the first airing of the documentary. Online conversation centered around users sharing similar experiences to the veterans featured, expressions of support for the film and the work of Save A Warrior, as well as calls for more programs to address the needs of returning soldiers. Several veterans reached out to Save A Warrior to participate in the project.

The film has been shown to private audiences across the country, and in conjunction with concerned individuals and organizations like Eric Garcetti, the Mayor of Los Angeles, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Starfish Media Group is an integrated media production company and distributor, dedicated to uncovering and producing empowering stories. We take a challenging look at often divisive issues of race, class, wealth, opportunity, poverty and personal stories. Founded by award-winning journalist and multifaceted broadcaster Soledad O’Brien, Starfish Media Group uniquely resonates with today’s diverse global audience through impactful topics that define our time. Soledad’s established credibility positions SMG as a mainstream voice with millions of engaged fans that follow her work via major broadcast partners, local appearances and social media channels.

CNN/U.S., the leading 24-hour news and information cable television network and the flagship of all CNN news brands, invented 24-hour television news. CNN/U.S., provides live coverage and analysis of breaking news, as well as a full range of business, weather, entertainment, health and science news programs and topical in-depth interviews.