AK-47 bullet
Made in Ukraine
Shot in Sierra Leone
KEY FACTS
Type:
Short film (movie credits)
Duration:
3.01 minutes
Director:
Andrew Nichol
Visual effects supervisor:
Yann Blondel
Watch in:
Lord of War (2005)
INGREDIENTS
INTENTIONS
Cross cultures
Show capitalist evils
TACTICS
Make the hidden visible
Follow the thing
Show the violence
Add mood music
RESPONSES
LOL capitalism
They aren’t experts
It’s so badly made
That’s racist
I’m humming that music
IMPACTS
Now we’re talking
Activism is publicised
Image credit
followthethings.com
Life of a bullet
IN BRIEF
Imagine you can follow the life of a bullet from sheet metal in a factory shot into the head of a child soldier, like a Point of View (POV) video game. These are the opening credits of the Nicholas Cage movie ‘Lord of War,’ set to Buffalo Springfield’s 1960s counterculture song ‘For what it’s worth’. For some, this 3 minute CGI creation is the best part of the movie. For us, it’s the most brutally clear follow the thing example we’ve found.
How to read this page
We are slowly piecing together a ‘followthethings.com handbook for trade justice activism’ and are publishing the pages here as we write them. This is an ‘example’ page. The wide column paraphrases and condenses this example’s followthethings.com page, section by section. The narrow column contains some details about the commodity, some key facts about the activism that took place around it, and a list of its ‘ingredients’: its intentions, tactics, responses and impacts. These have been identified during the writing of this example page and, as more handbook pages are added, you will be able to click each one to read about it, and there will be links to other examples where we have found that ingredient, and a list of linked ingredients. This hypertext format, we believe, will help readers to understand how trade justice activism can work, and what it can do.
Original
Description
You’re sitting in front of the screen. The movie ‘Lord of War’ is about to start. Its star Nicholas Cage makes a short spech to camera. Then the music starts. There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear. There’s a man with a gun over there. Telling me I got to beware… Buffalo Springfield’s 1966 song ‘For what it’s worth’. Playing over the opening credits. A three minute point of view (POV) mini-movie: the life story of a single bullet. You see what it sees. You hear what it hears. You are the bullet. Emerging from sheet metal in a Ukrainian factory and dying in the flesh of a Sierra Leone firefight. People along the way inspect, carry, load, fire and are killed by you. In the final slo-mo scene, you whiz down a street into the forehead, the brain, of a black African boy, a child soldier. He stands there, looking you in the eye as you career towards him. Death is the end product. The music stops. The credits fade to bloody red and black. Thrills give way to chills. The film starts with a bang.
Inspiration / process / methodology
Conceptualised by Andrew Niccol and overseen by Yann Blondel, it was built using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) – XSI, Shake, After Effects, Photoshop, Matchmover – not by strapping a tiny camera to a bullet. Studying factories, they found bullet-making ‘insanely complicated’ and simplified it. Arms trade people might find it ‘inaccurate’. Stephen Stills wrote the song after Hollywood’s 1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots and it became a civil rights anthem for the Vietnam War. Blondel didn’t have it in mind when the CGI was created. This jarring film and music combo nails the movie’s message: ‘violence round the world begins and ends directly at your doorstep’.
Discussions / responses
It’s like a Bond intro. Or bowling alley graphics. An episode of ‘How It’s Made’. An NRA ad. ‘The adventures of the little bullet who wanted to kill’. A magical journey from Russia to Africa. Seeing more of the world than I have. Bullets fear no death. I wish I was a bullet. Longest killcam ever. Wish mine played that song. A ‘mindblowing’ end. LOLz. He should have seen it coming. It was moving so slowly. Don’t stand up in a battefield. You’ll get shot in the head. What an aim! Most bullets miss. Imagine how many bullets they had to follow to find the story they wanted. How did they strap a camera to it? Or is it CGI? That killing gave me a warm glow. It made me want to fire my BB gun. I like guns, but I’m anti-ammo now. The killing of a child soldier, forced to fight? Yeah, but look closely. He had a gun too. It’s like a POV game. But how many gamers have fired an actual gun? Or worked in a bullet factory? Do they know who these bullets kill? No! It’s just a job, like any other. Gunnies will be mad. Bullets aren’t made, shipped, loaded or shot like that. It’s not a documentary. It’s a movie. Enjoy it. Arms manufacturers should die this way. Bullets don’t kill people, people do. The Russians give guns and ammo to spread communism, the US to spread democracy. White people make weapons for black people to kill each other. You could blame the ‘white man’ or get activist. Following the trade’s money would be a better story. 10 years on, that CGI looks sooo bad. But the message is there. Don’t shoot people in the face. Two fingers, repeatedly picking up the bullet. Men blankly peering at it along the way. Responsibility is collective. What’s that song?
Impacts / outcomes
What it showed was true, said Amnesty, Oxfam and the Internatonal Action Network on Small Arms. Audiences should sign their ‘control arms’ petition, to press for an international arms treaty. My mates in the USA have been talking about it. Especially because the DVD has that spoof AK-47 advert on it.
CONNECTED EXAMPLE
Teleshopping AK-47
FOLLOWTHETHINGS.COM PAGE
Cook, I. (2019) followthethings.com/life-of-a-bullet
BACK TO HANDBOOK CONTENTS PAGE 👉
DEPARTMENT: Security
By Ian Cook (June 2025)
