Project Overview
How the Series Began
I joined American Warriors near the beginning of the series. Its creator, Warren Shultz, was in his seventies and was attempting to self-produce a modern version of a veteran profile series he had previously worked on at a local television station.
I had known Warren for several years and frequently rented camera equipment from him while working as a freelance commercial and documentary filmmaker, both locally and abroad. When he described what he was trying to create, the subject matter immediately appealed to me. I was also familiar with the physical and logistical demands of location documentary production, and it was clear that the project would be difficult for him to manage alone.
I volunteered to film an episode with him to see how we worked together. Warren directed the interview while I handled the cinematography, lighting, and technical production.
The collaboration went well, and Warren immediately recognized the difference that a more cinematic approach brought to the project. The series no longer felt like a traditional local television segment. The lighting, composition, and overall production quality gave the veterans’ stories greater visual weight and made the episodes feel more like standalone documentary films. Soon afterward, Warren offered me a full-time position with the series.
We produced the first several episodes together, but Warren’s elderly mother became ill and required full-time care. He stepped back from directing in the field and began focusing remotely on scheduling and finding veterans for the series.
At that point, I became a one-person documentary production unit, responsible for directing the interviews, cinematography, lighting, audio, editing, and final delivery.
Episode Five was the first film I produced completely on my own. When I submitted it for approval, Warren responded:
“Now that’s a documentary. You just set the new standard for this show.”
The episode established the creative and production standard the series would follow, but it also revealed how much time that standard required. I went deep into archival research, locating historical footage and even digitizing VHS tapes the veteran had preserved from his service during the first Gulf War. In practical terms I was doing the work of 5 people – Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Historical Researcher, but the finished film demonstrated how much those additional layers could strengthen the story.
In some ways that made the work more efficient because the DP didn’t have to ask what the Director wanted. Likewise the Editor didn’t have to ask the DP how he wanted the footage to look and the Historical researcher didn’t have to ask the Editor or Director what kind of material he was looking for. It also made the limitations of our production model clear. Maintaining that level of research, filmmaking, and post-production as a one-person unit would not be sustainable over the long term. To preserve the quality of the series while meeting Warren’s biweekly publishing schedule, we needed two filmmakers developing stories simultaneously rather than one person rushing through every stage of production.
We brought on Cody Rheault as the series’ second director. I had followed Cody’s work for some time, although we had never met in person. Our visual instincts and production methods were closely aligned, which allowed the series to maintain a consistent identity even though we operated primarily as independent production units.
For the next two and a half years, Warren managed the schedule and coordinated with the veterans, while Cody and I tag-teamed producing episodes. That system gave each of us more time to develop, produce, and edit each story while allowing American Warriors to continue releasing a new documentary every other week.
Creative Approach
First-Person Storytelling
The basic narrative structure of each episode was relatively consistent. I began with the veteran’s background and upbringing, then explored the influences that led them to military service. From there, the conversation moved through their training, role, duty stations or deployments, and the defining experiences of their career.
I always ended by moving beyond the chronology of their service and asking them to reflect on its meaning. How had the experience shaped them as individuals? What did they still carry with them? What did they want future generations to understand?
Those final questions were often where the most personal and revealing moments emerged. The goal was not simply to document where someone served or what they did, but to understand how those experiences continued to shape the person sitting in front of me.
Visual Tension Through Composition
Because many of the stories involved combat, uncertainty, and tense situations, I wanted the visual style to reflect some of that tension without distracting from the veterans’ testimony. I developed a small set of visual principles that remained consistent throughout the series.
I filmed every interview with two cameras. The A camera used a 35mm lens positioned slightly below eye level. I composed the veteran using a traditional rule-of-thirds placement with generous lead room. The lower camera position gave the subject a subtle sense of strength and authority by placing the viewer slightly beneath their eye line.
The B camera used an 85mm lens for a tight close-up. It was positioned at eye level or slightly above, angled gently downward, and composed short-sided with the veteran placed on the opposite third and very little lead room. That composition created visual pressure in front of the subject and introduced a subtle feeling of tension, as though the veteran were looking toward something unknown or unresolved.
The contrast between those two compositions also helped shape the emotional rhythm of the edit. During lighter or more reflective moments, I tended to favor the wider frame. As the story moved into conflict, danger, or emotional intensity, I increasingly emphasized the close-up.
Still photographs, personal video footage, archival material, and music provided the remaining visual and emotional structure. Each element was chosen to deepen the veteran’s testimony rather than compete with it.
A Repeatable Series Format
I applied the same visual principles across every episode I directed, creating a consistent and recognizable style for the series even as the veterans, locations, military eras, and subject matter changed.
I also developed a repeatable post-production system. Over the course of the series, I built an extensive library of historical footage and meticulously cataloged and keyworded each asset so I could quickly locate material related to specific military units, locations, conflicts, equipment, and time periods.
In the beginning, historical research was by far the most time-consuming stage of production. I frequently spent hours searching for a highly specific photograph or video clip that accurately supported a particular detail in a veteran’s account. But every episode added new material to the archive. Over time, that collection became a deep, searchable resource that allowed me to find relevant footage much more efficiently.
The library substantially reduced the research required for later episodes while helping the series maintain historical specificity and a consistent visual language. What began as a labor-intensive process gradually became a production system that allowed me to work faster without lowering the standard of the films.
Unlocking The Memory Vault
Some veterans found it difficult to move beyond deployment dates, unit histories, and other factual details into the more personal and emotional parts of their experiences. I wanted each episode to reveal the human story behind the service record, so I began looking for ways to help veterans remember more naturally and speak more reflectively.
One method I used frequently was asking the veteran to sit with a photo album from their years of service and tell me the stories behind the images. When photographs were unavailable, I used unit yearbooks, uniforms, medals, awards, equipment, and other memorabilia as prompts. These objects often unlocked details and emotions that did not emerge during a conventional interview.
One of the most powerful examples was my episode with Carl Juhl, a 96-year-old World War II veteran who had served as a ball turret gunner aboard B-17s. A nearby aviation museum had an airworthy B-17 on display, and we received permission to film Carl inside the aircraft.
The formal interview had been challenging. Carl could recall the facts of his service, but it was difficult to reach the deeper details and emotions we were looking for. That changed the moment he saw the aircraft. As he walked around it and climbed inside, the memories began to surface. He pointed out specific parts of the plane and told stories with an immediacy that made the events feel as though they had happened yesterday.
It demonstrated something that became central to my interview process: memory is not always unlocked by asking a better question. Sometimes the filmmaker must place the subject in the presence of something that allows the story to return. Filming Carl inside that B-17 remains one of the most memorable experiences I had during the series.
Adaptability Under Pressure
Applying the same guiding principles across every episode gave the series a clear visual identity, but it also gave me the confidence to work effectively in unfamiliar situations with almost any subject.
One of my later episodes presented an unexpected opportunity to interview Lieutenant General David Bellon, then commander of Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces South. His career included leading Marines on the ground during both Battles of Fallujah and helping identify the growing insurgency during the early stages of the Iraq War. It was the kind of interview that could easily have felt intimidating, but by that point I had directed enough veterans and refined my process enough that I felt comfortable sitting across from someone with his level of experience and responsibility.
The opportunity came together with almost no warning during a large event honoring the Navajo Code Talkers in Window Rock, Arizona. I was given only minutes of notice that the interview might happen, and the available location was the lobby of a small airport.
I had approximately one hour to turn that lobby into an interview set, arrange the equipment, and conduct the interview.
After receiving permission to rearrange the furniture, I first chose the direction of the primary frame. There was little time for indecision and very few workable options. Using the same composition principles I had established throughout the series, I positioned the main camera toward a stone wall beside a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows.
There was not enough time to build a traditional lighting setup, so I used the windows as the primary source. To create contrast and control the daylight hitting the background, I hung a black curtain along the wall. That simple adjustment reduced the ambient light behind him, separated his face from the environment, and created a polished image using little more than the available architecture and natural light.
The experience demonstrated the practical value of developing a consistent visual system. Because I already understood how I wanted the interview to feel, I could make decisions quickly and adapt those principles to an imperfect location without sacrificing the visual standard of the series.
When I sent the finished episode to the General for his approval, he responded:
“I didn’t know what to expect from this interview given the circumstances, but I am impressed by the art that went into this. I’m genuinely thankful.“
About a year later he was preparing to retire and his staff reached out to me and requested to use one of my images to be printed on the formal program for his retirement ceremony.
Selected Highlight Episodes
This episode highlights: Large scale storytelling, with a skeleton crew. I travelled to this special event with one assistant. Our coverage of this event resulted in enough content for 3 episodes each telling a different biography and service story. Special note, the primary subject of this episode, Mr. Peter MacDonald was one of three remaining Navajo Code Talkers still living.
This episode highlights: This was a rare opportunity to interview Col. James Ray who had been a Prisoner of War for 7 years during the Vietnam War. This was a 5 hour interview where Col. Ray shared vivid and terrifying details of torture, brainwashing, and the heroic subversive resistance efforts of American POW’s in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. In order to condense such a lengthy historical interview into a manageable and watchable story, I turned it into a 5-part mini series. This approach enabled me to do justice to the gravity of his story without turning it into a full length movie. On a special note, in my historical research, I actually discovered old footage of Col. Ray on the day he returned home in 1973.
This episode highlights: Access. I interviewed Maj Haden “Gator” Fullam at an airshow where he was performing with the USAF A-10 demonstration team. In addition to the interview, I was given full flight line access to film during his preflight prep. I was able to capture up close footage of Maj Fullam in the cockpit of his A-10 which is pretty rare access for a civilian film crew. I also got to mount my GoPro camera inside the cockpit during his demonstration flight.
This Episode highlights: This is the episode that “Set the new standard” for the series. My production model continued to evolve after this, but this is the moment when I was given license to practically do whatever I wanted.
Results and Legacy
- 41 Episodes
- 13 hours of total finished content
- A biweekly publishing schedule sustained for more than two years
- 10.5K channel subscribers
- Stories from: World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan
- Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps
The full series is available on YouTube.
Closing Reflection
I was standing at the end of the runway, camera aimed straight ahead looking towards a pair of F-18 Super Hornets lifting off and speeding towards me at 200 mph. The heat waves from the Texas sun on the runway made the approaching jets look like a mirage appearing out of thin air. I knew what was coming. As the jets continued to accelerate to vertical climb speed, the oncoming shockwave was going to hit like a wall of sound and pressure as the jets passed overhead. I double checked my earplugs and braced myself.
Boom!
I thought to myself, “Man I have a cool job.”
American Warriors was a unique period in my career. For more than two years, Cody and I operated as independent production units, alternating episodes while Warren kept the series moving. The workload was demanding, but the pace forced me to refine every part of my documentary process—from my equipment packing list, to directing interviews and adapting to difficult locations to historical research, cinematography, and final delivery.
When the series ended, the moment was bittersweet. I was exhausted, but I was also extremely proud of the body of work we had created. I was ready to slow down and return to other kinds of filmmaking, but I missed the feeling that the work was contributing to something larger than any one episode.
The comments and messages we received continually reinforced that these stories mattered. Some viewers had served themselves. Others recognized the experiences of parents, grandparents, friends, and members of their communities. The films helped people understand military service through the voices of those who had lived it, while giving veterans and their families a permanent record of stories that might otherwise have gone undocumented.
More than any other project, American Warriors taught me how to listen, adapt, and build a complete documentary around the voice of the person who lived the story.
