An interesting short (10 minute) video shot largely using CGI and funded to the tune of €70K by the Irish Film Board.
The German from Nick Ryan on Vimeo.
The visual effects breakdowns are interesting as well.
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“The German”By lex, on February 2nd, 2012
35 comments to “The German” |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
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fantastic!
…and a snippet of history as well. I’ve read a story about a Yank who was interned in Ireland. I think he was in one of the Eagle Squadrons and stationed in Ulster.
Seriously awesome.
Mike
Not a lot of wingman protection and finger 4 formations in the German fighter effort filmed.
I thought most of the Germans detained in Ireland were Kriegsmarine, and Abwehr, not Luftwaffe. More Luftwaffe bomber crews were detained than fighter pilots, ISTR, but I can’t place my source for this.
I love this film on several different, and very diverse levels.
GP Hanner, thanks for that link!
I’m Involved on another site as to the various reasons why Ireland was neutral. But that is tangential to this extraordinary film.]
Interesting. Was that a result of what was supposed to but didn’t happen after WW1 Home Rule / conscription, etc?
I am a descendent of John Redmond and Willie Redmond, from Wexford. When that all went to bleep the family came here.
The reasons for Ireland’s neutrality in WWII are many, and are very complex. There was much controversy, intrigue, and divided interest in their neutrality. Good summaries on Wikipedia:
The Emergency, and here.
Of course not mentioned in those discussions are of the long persecution of the Irish and their natural hatred of English confiscation of their lands and outlaw of their religion. …. from the invasion, penal laws, Cromwell, flight of the Earls, flight of the Wild Geese, absentee landlords, religious persecution, exploitation, and the virtual genocide to get rid of “Paddy”.
British-Irish history has always been ugly, and is still a bit contemptuous today if you visit the Republic, not the colony.
Very Nice. Regards the non-killing event near the end, I believe Rod Serling wrote a similar but fictional piece where enemy soldiers become stranded, equal, and support each other until a point where they are thrown back into the fire and become enemy again. One kills the other if I remember it right. I think this is a common theme for sane people forced into combative type situations. Though maybe not so much when radical islam combatants are involved.
Very nicely done. IIRC, the Bf 109 didn’t have the range to reach Ireland; but presumably he just kept going west well past bingo fuel.
Yeah, I had the same problem. If memory serves, the 109 had about 15 minutes of combat time over England before bingo fuel. It’s a bit of a leap to figure that one would make it as far as Ireland and not be swimming in the Irish Sea…and just did a Google Earth, London to Ireland nearly 300 miles, and from a field halfway between Paris and the coast, 190 miles.. Wiki says 528 miles range.
Hollywood and their “experts”?
‘To reach Ireland and come back to base’, that is
Correct.
How about doing a GCI 12′oclock high?
then gets thought of Travolta or Cruise
as Gen. Savage….
AAAAHHGGGH!!!
Good short, BTW something similar happened in WW2 especailly with Italian interenees. When they surrendered,
the were were several camps in the eastern Washinton area.
there were several Italian Crewed AA units at or near Hanford!
Read this years ago like to find out more aobut that….
The problem with CGI today in most major movies is the Directors being idiots.
They concentrate so much on the realistic LOOK of the CGI planes, they completely ignore the realistic BEHAVIOR of the CGI planes.
Since the CGI plane is not a real plane flying through the air, the Director can have the plane do what he wants it to do, and how he wants to to maneuver, in total disregard that real planes do not and cannot fly the way he is showing them fly.
What we wind up with is a very realistic looking Wile E. Coyote cartoon fighter.
Just look to Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor” for examples of P-40s and Japanese Zeros dogfighting not 10 feet off the ground dodging through alleys between hangars and around ambulances.
And most recently, just go see George Lucas’ “Red Tails”. The planes LOOKED great, but acted like caracatures of real planes.
For example, the “maneuver” used by the German pilot and later duplicated by one of the Tuskegee Airmen.
Also when the lead bomber pulls out of formation to head home with damage… They are shown flying 180 degrees opposite the formation straight back over the top of the formation by about 50-100 feet. Any bomber making a 180 turn, by the time they completed the turn would be several miles BEHIND the formation and offset a mile or two to one side or the other. Bombers cannot rotate “in place” and fly right back the way they came!
Because CGI is not tethered to reality, Directors completely abuse it.
But it LOOKS great!
I was there when they made “Pearl Harbor”, and they used real planes (although I recall they were non-Japanese planes painted as Zeroes) and then edited that footage. The planes did fly awfully low. I recall one of the planes crashing during the making of that film after hitting a palm tree (so you know it was flying low). However, nobody was hurt.
They used a handful of real planes for a couple of shots. Usually up close shots where the actors were visible (think Japanese tail gunner yelling at the kids playing baseball to seek cover).
They used the same T-6 Texan trainers modded over to resemble Zeros as they did for Tora Tora Tora.
The vast majority of all aircraft shots were in fact CGI to include all the ridiculous cra… Stuff, I was referring to.
Amen, CG. I’m no expert but I often see movie planes and people also, move in ways that look unnatural and it bugs me.
Agreed. The physics in Red Tails are horrible. They didn’t know a darn thing about the aircraft, either. I lost count of the number of Fortresses that went down after a single pass, and it was not unusual for the wing to break off.
Also, they constantly mis-numbered the engines, with the co-pilot calling out “number three is on fire,” but the #2 engine is shown burning. I don’t think they had the slightest clue how engines are numbered on multi-engine craft.
…Don’t even get me started on P-51s dogfighting Me-262s, and knocking them down right & left. Urgh. BTW, George Lucas, if a Swallow did hit a Mustang with those four 30mm automatic cannon, it would pretty much shred the entire aircraft, not shoot cinematically-exciting teeny holes in the pilot’s shoulder, or chest.
…Then there’s the hideous historical inaccuracy of the entire movie. Urgh. Again.
The physics in this short were much better.
Nah. Bruce Willis as General Savage. Hell, Willis should have been Jim Doolittle in Pearl Harbor, would have saved that whole misbegotten movie.
Mike
CG you hit the nail right on the head!! I could not agree more.
I look forward to seeing the rest of this, even if we have seen all or the air to air shots already.
Looks fantastic!
Saw the movie “Red Tails” and there is so much CGI, it becomes distracting to the point of rejecting the premise that airplanes behave the way the movie director wants you to believe as CG-23 Sailor points out.
agree with all on GCI….
I disliked “Flyboys” because of that- and the Lafeyettes desrve better..
Do not watch “The Red Baron” from Gemany BTW bad. Very Bad..
I want to see “Redtails” just because I worked with a Relative of “Chappie” James…
Did you see “The Blue Max”? Also about a German pilot in 1918. I liked it but it’s bee awhile since I watched it.
That was a good movie, but it was made back in the 60s. It was in the Armed Forces theaters when I was in Germany. I didn’t see it then as I was considered too young to watch such things.
Yes, Flyboys had the same problem. Because the director can have the computer generated plane do whatever, he is not bound by reality and the laws of physics. What you wind up with is junk.
Sad to say that in the era of very high tech CGI, the best air to air in a big budget film remains Top Gun. {{{shakes head sadly}}}
I’d have to say the absolute worst and most glaring example of misused CGI in an aerial sequence would have to be that utterly ridiculous Wile E. Coyote and his Acme rocket shootdown scene with the SAM and the Superhornet in “Behind Enemy Lines” with Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman.
LOL,
Who on here was talking about Ground Controlled Intercept? (GCI).
;P
One thing Red Tails did get right that most Films with aerial scenes usually FUBAR, is the ground strafing.
I have yet to ever see two perfectly parallel rows of bullet impacts stitching their way across the ground and into targets.
The effects are nice, but two things really bothered me. First off, I have a hard time believing that snapping off 90% of the wing of a Spitfire would not result in it augering in. A semi-controlled crash-landing is the province of the gamers and the R/C boyos.
Second, why on Earth would a Spitfire and a Me-109 be dogfighting over Ireland? Even at a narrow point, the Irish Sea is something like fifty miles wide and given that the Me-109s were already operating at the far edge of their combat radius when they were over southern England, it’s hard for me to buy the premise of the film.
(When the Germans flew bombing raids against northern Britain from their bases in Scandinavia during the Blitz, the only escorts that could make the trip were the Me-110s. The attackers got repeatedly chewed up by the RAF.)
Yah, the two most fortunate belligerents ever to live to tell the tale; seems a s-t-r-e-t-c-h to me, too. Artistic license we’ll call it, just to be nice.
I liked the Webley though.
Just to be a true nit-picker, note that the Brit cocked the Webley twice; once while following the German, and the second time when he got ready to shoot the bugger.
Whoops.
There was one flying bit they got correct. At one point the 109 dived. the spitfire rolled inverted before following. That is historically accurate as the spitifres fuel system tended to quit under negative g. Their standard procedure was to roll to make sure any dive induced positive g only.
This was later cured by the use of a metered orifice.
It was thought up by a female engineer and had a number of funny names.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Shilling's_orifice
Alas, the Spit couldn’t dive worth a darn, and the -109 could use that maneuver to escape.
When the Jerries tried the same thing against Thunderbolts, whoo-doggie did they get a surprise!
Anybody besides me notice they fell flat?