How do you convey escalation of danger? (think nuclear weapons)?

Question

The escalation of distribution of nuclear material, or nations joining the nuclear family, bombs being produced, all out nuclear disaster.
I have to make a 3 minute experimental video. But I need help in forming a great story w/ a great message.
The story i have now is an tiny dustball rolling as countries join the nuclear family, it rolls into a bigger dustball (countries names will be the dust) until it gets so big and in the end it will explode into a mushroom cloud.
I am looking for more creative stories and ideas...

Answer 1

I think you have a very good start. Perhaps you intend this from your dust ball, but when the countries are smaller you might not be able to see that the dust ball is the names of the countries. Then as each new country is added to the dust ball we can see it's name be rolled-over and picked up by the dust ball until the most recent additions are so big they are easy to read from a distance.
If you haven't thought of that, your description makes me see you showing the development of the bomb in some detail and then the name of the first country to develop it historically, in big red letters that fall out of the sky like bombs, then roll around into the dust ball.
The next country to develop it is spelled out in a faded red, and falls out of the sky the same way, and rolls into the ball. This continues, with shorter and shorter clips of the making of the bomb (maybe run the clips faster and faster, as well). As the making gets faster, and the red letters perhaps fade into brown, then finally into a beige like the color of the mushroom cloud, the letters get larger as I suggested above. The background noise during the bulk of the movie is that of machines and assembly lines. Once the dust ball blows up, then leave it totally silent.
How was that? I get an A? Hope you do. Wish I could see the end result.

Answer 2

Show the image of a count-down timer approaching zero in 10ths of a second. They are available.... and stop at a tenth before the end, flash to negative of image, and then fade to white screen only. No need for the mushroom cloud. The countdown timer is what escalates the danger, as the dustball rolls.

Answer 3

I'm really not that great with making a story sound awesome but I do have good ideas.
Maybe you could talk about the countries of the world and culture differences and that sort of thing. People really need to come together and I'm sorry to say that we won't any time soon but I really don't believe any country would drop one in the near future either. Anyway our world really lacks unity and I'm into that and the human struggle against ourselves. Best of luck with your paper! I hate them.

Answer 4

But you also need to show nuclear deterrence. This is that since everybody has them, everybody is afraid to use them as a result. Nobody wants to use a nuke if they know that their home will be vaporized as a result. Nukes are more of a final FU, like screw everybody, we're all gonna die now. But since nobody wants to be vaporized by a retaliation nuke nobody will use them thus is the process of nuclear deterrence.