Introduction by Tinus
(biltongbru) le Roux
A Relatively new genre of computer generated films has been around since the turn of the new millennium: Flight Simulator Movies. The production of these is based on flight sim games where the Russian "IL-2 Sturmovik" family of computer games have been the major source of material. The distribution and success of flight sim movies were mainly as a result of the internet and enhanced by the ability to do online viewing. The fast and modern PC's enabled individuals at home to do complicated and near-professional film productions using state-of-the-art capturing, video editing and sound editing tools. These movies are however confined to internet viewing and have not been exposed to television or cinema. The producers are mostly enthusiasts and hobbyists but the level of professionalism in some of the movies are within broadcast standards. Today there are thousands of these movies flooding the social video network sites where YouTube is certainly the most used. Some of the better movies are very popular hitting views near to the millions.
One particular flight sim movie needs to be mentioned: Faith, Hope and Charity. This is an outstanding production taken into account the "zero budget" nature and the fact that it was produced by a team of flight simulator enthusiasts contributing from different parts of the world, the members of which had never met each other in person. This movie, released in 2007, is an hour long production with a gripping historical story and excellent imaging and sound.
The importance of any movie, including Flight Sim Movies, having an engaging Story or Screenplay is discussed in an article by a co-producer and the screenwriter of "Faith, Hope, and Charity", Bruce Wallace, also known in the Flight Sim community as "Wiley" and "DoolittleRaider". Wiley's article reviews the history of flight sim movie-making, (also known as machinima), and takes a short glimpse into possible future developments.
Faith, Hope and Charity by Wingmen Productions
It's All About the Story by Bruce (Wiley) Wallace
More
than a dozen years ago, the term “machinima” was first used, essentially
defined as being the use of real-time PC computer graphics-rendering engines to
create real time animation, to create cinematic productions, which in turn were
referred to as either videos, films, or “movies”. Most often, videogames and
their engines were, and still are, used to generate the raw computer animation.A Relatively new genre of computer generated films has been around since the turn of the new millennium: Flight Simulator Movies. The production of these is based on flight sim games where the Russian "IL-2 Sturmovik" family of computer games have been the major source of material. The distribution and success of flight sim movies were mainly as a result of the internet and enhanced by the ability to do online viewing. The fast and modern PC's enabled individuals at home to do complicated and near-professional film productions using state-of-the-art capturing, video editing and sound editing tools. These movies are however confined to internet viewing and have not been exposed to television or cinema. The producers are mostly enthusiasts and hobbyists but the level of professionalism in some of the movies are within broadcast standards. Today there are thousands of these movies flooding the social video network sites where YouTube is certainly the most used. Some of the better movies are very popular hitting views near to the millions.
One particular flight sim movie needs to be mentioned: Faith, Hope and Charity. This is an outstanding production taken into account the "zero budget" nature and the fact that it was produced by a team of flight simulator enthusiasts contributing from different parts of the world, the members of which had never met each other in person. This movie, released in 2007, is an hour long production with a gripping historical story and excellent imaging and sound.
The importance of any movie, including Flight Sim Movies, having an engaging Story or Screenplay is discussed in an article by a co-producer and the screenwriter of "Faith, Hope, and Charity", Bruce Wallace, also known in the Flight Sim community as "Wiley" and "DoolittleRaider". Wiley's article reviews the history of flight sim movie-making, (also known as machinima), and takes a short glimpse into possible future developments.
It's All About the Story by Bruce (Wiley) Wallace
The creation of such “machinima” evolved from relatively simple real-time ‘capture’ of gameplay action in First Person Shooter videogames, most notably “Quake” at the very beginning, to more complex “movies” in which the full range of cinematic techniques came to be applied, to include cinematography, editing, soundtrack creation and mixing, Special Effects, post-processing filtering, etc.
Within the community of Flight Simulation gaming, “machinima” also took root around 2000 and simple “gameplay” videos began to proliferate, comprised essentially of captured “Tracks” (or game events/action), with some limited use of elementary cinematography in view/camera selection, and some basic post-processing editing. Such flightsim gameplay videos satisfied a number of very useful needs…to open discussions of on-line experiences and tactics; to offer Training in aircraft controls and instruments; to provide flying lessons in aerial maneuvers and gunnery lessons; to demonstrate positive features or negative bugs of the particular Flight Sim game; to promote Sales of the Game; or simply to display on-line kills/achievements, etc.
In the main, the sequence of events in the majority of flightsim GamePlay videos consisted of take-off (sometimes preceded by engine-start procedures); flying to a point in time and space, sometimes just for sightseeing, more often to encounter enemy targets, either airborne or ground targets, which are then engaged with guns or rockets or bombs; a resolution of the combat engagement occurs which may or may not result in the ‘loss’ of the pilot(s) or crew(s), or a safe return towards home base…often continuing all the way through landing and engine shutdown. Very often, a gameplay video would begin ‘airborne’ and consist solely of constant, or nearly constant, air-to-air combat action. Another popular theme was the non-combat sightseeing flight over the countryside or cityscape, intended to display the realism and beauty of the particular Flight Simulation game’s graphics, both landscapes and aerial vehicles. Soundtracks consisted of just gameplay sounds or a single commercial song. In fact, with regard to the use of musical soundtracks, many of the videos, if not most of them, were of the MTV Music Video style, with a single musical piece or song as soundtrack, for which flightsim game visuals were then edited to fit the song duration and synchronized to one degree or another with the musical beat, movements, and/or words. These seemed primarily intended as ‘artistic’ pieces.
In December, 2002, a video using the IL-2 Sturmovik flightsim game engine appeared which had an instant impact upon the IL-2 video-making community. Its name was “Requiem” and it differed from all earlier flightsim videos, in that it Told a Story! It used no words to do so, no dialogue, no text, just some well-edited visuals, some post-processing special effects, and a well-chosen musical score. Nevertheless, the “Requiem” story was an exceptionally emotional one and its theme of sacrifice in the face of inevitable defeat brought actual tears to the eyes of many a viewer.
It was instantly recognized by most active IL-2 movie-makers that the necessary 'backbone" of a truly successful cinematic production, the critical backbone of a movie, is "The Story" or "The Message".
Beginning in 2003, movie-makers in the IL-2 flightsim community began to produce Movies of ever-increasing sophistication in all aspects, from engine graphics capturing techniques through application of advanced cinematographic and editing skills; from basic single song musical soundtracks to more complex mixed Soundtracks of music, game sounds, Sound Effects, spoken dialogue, voiceover narration.
Most importantly, however, the very best FlightSim Movies began to incorporate a much greater variety of events than the simple captured air combat action of earlier years’ videos, and specifically during the 2004 through 2009 timeframe, movies came to be orchestrated by a “Story” or screenplay which established an emotional connection of one sort or another between the viewer and the “humans” at the aircraft controls. One excellent example in 2004 was “I Promise”.
Bill & John Episode 1 "Danger dedans le ciel" was nominated for Best Picture, Best Writing, Best Independant Machinima and Best Off-the-Shelf Machinima in 2004 the first FlightSim movie ever to be so recognized and honored.
In 2005, the IL-2 movie-making community delivered a wealth of excellent movies, each now conveying a moving Story. More than a dozen of the very best of those are on the 2005 page of the FlightSim Movies website, among which “Pictures of War” is most noteworthy, as it was nominated for Best Editing at the 2005 Machinima Festival.
The movie “Bill et John, Episode 2” using the flightsim “Lock On Modern Air Combat” in 2006 actually won the Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Independent Machinima awards as well as it was nominated for Best Direction, Best Virtual Performance: Puppeteering, Best Voice-Acting Performance, Best Sound Design and Best Writing. It is a magnificent, laugh-out-loud comedic tale…a Great Funny Story!
So…let’s digress for a moment from the historical recounting of the evolution of Flightsim movies, and the recognition being achieved in the greater Machinima world, and focus upon the composition of any successful Flight Sim movie’s story/screenplay.
Generically speaking, the typical Story or Screenplay of a Hollywood movie or a Broadway/West End stage play most often follows a structure in which there is a Beginning (setup), Middle (crisis) and End (resolution), sometimes referred to as the 3-Act structure. The structure is often more refined, such as: Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution.
This structure can be applied to even the shortest of movies, and most would agree that, with rare exception, simply must be followed with longer movies; in that regard, the outstanding IL-2 movies have been as short as 2 minutes, and as long as One Full hour…but at both extremes the best movies have employed some version of this 3-Act structure.
Returning now to the evolution of Flight Sim movies…While the average duration of a flightsim video/movie from 2003-2009 was less than ten minutes, the ones with the best Stories were 15-30 minutes. “The Desert Dogfighter” and “Not my Time to Die” are two such outstanding movies which present exciting stories, in both cases engaging and exciting documentaries. It had become increasingly obvious over the years that, with very rare exceptions, movies longer than 5 or 6 minutes which did not have an engaging Story/Screenplay rapidly reached the point of being Boring to most viewers.
The longest IL-2 movie ever created was the aforementioned “Faith, Hope, and Charity” at just over one full hour in duration! When released in 2007, it received an unprecedented level of effusive praise throughout the flightsim and machinima communities for virtually all aspects of its production, but the core of the movie’s success lay in the impact of its emotional Story, as told through narration, dialogue, supporting imagery including CGI sequences, and musical score. As the title of this article states, “It’s All About the Story”!!!
At the 2007 Machinima Festival Europe, “Faith, Hope, and Charity” (FH&C) was a final nominee for Best Direction, Best Visual Design, and Best Story. At the same Festival, “Pictures of War 2” was also a final Nominee in the same categories. In 2008, at the Online Machinima Film Festival, FH&C was named Best Film of the Year, and took home Second Place in Best Drama, Best Original Sound Design, and Best Custom Content.
Digressing once again from the historical recounting of flightsim movie evolution, some more discussion of the elements and types of Stories and Screenplays should be useful. A movie-maker, including FlightSim movie-makers, must plan ahead before ‘shooting’ or ‘capturing’ his first raw ‘footage’; he must plan and think beyond merely Action-Action-Action. Think about the "story", about the “message” and/or the “emotion” to be conveyed. When we say "emotion", we aren't talking "Chick Flic". You've got Happiness, true, but also achievement, pride, sorrow, respect, fear, patriotism, sacrifice, camaraderie, bravery, cowardice, heroism, humor, etc. It has been proven in Flight Sim movies that it is possible to convey emotion, to engage the audience, without on-screen human actors or even animated characters. If, at the end of your movie, the viewer is left Thoughtful, Wondering, Smiling, Laughing, Enlightened/Educated, or even with a Manly Tear in his eye, you've told a Story and you’ve produced a MOVIE!
Returning now to the evolution of flightsim movies, by 2010 the visuals had advanced with the incorporation of Green-screening techniques to insert shots of human actors, as well as CGI-type animated human characters. “I Flew for the Fuhrer” is an excellent example of the former, the use of live actors. “BOB Storm of War” and “Battle of Britain Kanalkampf” are examples of the latter, the use of animated characters. Aside from the advancement in visually “humanizing” the movies, these three movies and several others in the 2009-2010 timeframe had the all important element of creative Stories.
In 2010, a new WWI Flight Sim “videogame” was released…”Rise of Flight”…which had, among other positive attributes and advancements, outstandingly beautiful graphics, both landscape and especially aircraft ‘skins’. “Rise of Flight” (RoF) also provided improved user friendly tools which greatly improved and facilitated “camera” and “capture” options, making the creation of videos/movies simpler, and thus bringing many new individuals into the “movie-making” community. A plethora of videos immediately flooded Youtube, hundreds in the first year alone, thousands perhaps over the first 2 ½ years. Unfortunately, with the exception of a very small handful of RoF “movies” which were accepted for showcasing at the FlightSim website, these RoF youtube videos were almost exclusively “Action-Action-Action”, raw gameplay capture, often displaying merely the single camera “cockpit-point-of-view”, limited or only basic editing, and most disappointingly there appeared almost no meaningful Stories or Themes or Messages…no emotionally engaging screenplays, dialogues, narration, or related aspects which could engage the viewer interest. It was almost totally Fly-and-Fight, Fight-and-Fly…a return, or some might say regression, to the IL-2 (and Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 1, 2, and 3) gameplay videos of ten years earlier. A few excellent Movies did appear, some documenting in visuals and text narration the events surrounding the last flights and deaths of a select few of the most famous Aces of WWI; others told short fictional emotionally moving Stories. “Death of Mannock” is an example of the former type movie, while “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” and “Hearts and Minds” are examples of the latter. Unfortunately, these story-telling RoF movies were few and far between.
A year later, the long awaited sequel to the IL-2 Sturmovik flightsim series was released…”IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover”…which, as with RoF, was characterized by especially beautiful and realistic graphics. Aircraft “skins”, realistic damage modeling and visuals, improved “human” generic animated characters/crewmembers, more realistic explosive effects/visuals, etc, all seemed to promise a new era of fantastic WWII combat aviation movies, specifically set in the historical context of one of the most famous air campaigns of the war, the Battle of Britain. However, once again with the exception of just a small handful of documentary type Movies emulating phases of the Battle and a few excellent trailers showcasing Cliffs of Dover aircraft visuals and damage modeling, the community of flight simmers followed the “Rise of Flight pattern” and reverted almost exclusively to the production of simple gameplay videos (predominantly of the single ‘cockpit-POV camera’ type), with little to no artistic creativity or originality. Basic cinematography and editing techniques were often disregarded, as even the dreaded ‘verboten’ manual camera-panning returned. As with RoF, several thousand such Cliffs of Dover videos flooded Youtube overnight.
Much more importantly than the aforementioned weaknesses, true “Movies” with solid, creative, emotionally engaging stories were virtually nowhere to be found, in any flightsim community as 2012 arrived. The Flight Sim Movies sponsored a Cliffs of Dover Movie competition, offering tangible cash prizes as well as very substantial 1C Maddox Game prizes. In spite of that, participation was extremely low in numbers, although some entries were promising in offering more than just gameplay and a bit more than merely fly-and-fight scenarios.
It should be noted that one epic documentary movie just released in November 2012 runs counter to the sad trend of lackluster and/or nonexistent stries/screenplays. It is “Checkertails, Part II”, produced by MysticPuma. It is the final half of a Masterpiece documenting the true story of the USAAF 325th Fighter Group in WWII. Incorporating extensive real WWII documentary footage with IL-2 flightsim visual sequences, the Movie brings to life specific aerial actions and combat experiences of the unit and its individual members. "Checkertails, Part I" was 1 hour 40 minutes in duration, and Part II is 2 hours 35 minutes long. The full story of the 325th has never been told in such detail, and the production involved many of the actual 325th veterans, and both Part I and part II have been viewed at the unit’s conventions, and highly praised. One short 7-minute excerpt from Part I is called “Star of Altoona” …Though short in duration, it very effectively tells a dramatic Story of one combat encounter experienced by a 325th fighter pilot. A second excerpt from Part II called "Svengali-An Unorthodox Victory" tells the tale of a very unique aerial Victory by another 325th pilot flying a P-51 against a Luftwaffe Bf109.
What else does the future hold for the Flight Sim Movie-making community? 1C Maddox has just recently released its last Patch for Cliffs of Dover, announcing that its efforts will now be focused exclusively on finalizing and releasing the sequel to Cliffs of Dover…“Battle of Moscow”. Cliffs of Dover has thus received its final tweaks and modifications, and remains a quite beautiful and realistic flight sim. As a game-engine resource for movie-making, especially movies set in the Battle of Britain context, it will continue to offer spectacular visuals…while the FlightSim community continues to await the production and release of emotionally engaging movies with Stories, real or fictional. After all, there have probably been more books and articles written about the Battle of Britain and its participants than about any other WWII Battle, Campaign, or Theater of War. These stories cry out to be told on screen.
With exception of the masterpiece 1969 “Battle of Britain”, the major ‘big screen’ cinema production companies have failed to produce credible movies about WWII combat aviation and events. “Battle of Britain” was produced by a British company, directed by a British Director, written by British screenwriters, and primarily filmed at Pinewood Studios west of London. One other highly recommended big-screen cinema production, “Dark Blue World”, was a joint effort by several Czech Republic film companies, released in 2001; it is a superb movie, a fictional story based on true events, about the Czech pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain with the RAF. Hollywood, itself, has proven incapable and/or totally uninterested in matching those two successes, its two attempts being the laughably bad “Pearl Harbor”, also released in 2001, and the recent "Red Tails" disaster! Perhaps the small screen world of Flight Sim (machinima) movies will fill that void for the community of people interested in the stories, real and fictional, of WWII combat aviation.
With the imminent release of the IL-2 Cliffs of Dover sequel, “Battle of Moscow”, it is likely that there will be a prolific period of BoM movie releases, as the Russian flight sim community especially is, and has long been, very active in movie-making. In spite of the language translation obstacles, it is hoped that Stories of the Russian WWII air war will abound.
Finally, a new FlightSim currently in BETA testing, called “War Thunder”, is characterized by attractive and realistic visuals, terrain especially. Though still in open BETA, the producer Gaijin has allowed BETA participants to create and release “Fan videos” (aka movies). Three of these have already been selected for showcasing at the FSM Website, two set in the Pacific Theater and one in the Battle of Britain. Each movie, though short and trailer-like, displays excellent cinematography, editing, sound tracks, and artistic special effects…and each presents a small story of sorts, though limited by the trailer-like objectives. War Thunder will offer an extensive number of aircraft types, covering all nationalities and theaters of the war, all timeframes, and a variety of terrain and maps. The War Thunder game engine resources will be available to tell virtually any story, documentary or fiction, of WWII aviation.
In summation, it is hoped that in the coming year the FlightSim community will see the release of some great engaging Stories about WWII aviation…The tools are now available to put Hollywood and History Channel to shame. Let’s do it!
