Aircraft and Inquiry

Well the air sequence of my film has led to a whole bunch more inquiry. To make the film appear realistic I am doing the only time era open to silent movies about aircraft and that is World War I. The only problem with that is I know very little about World War I. It has always been overshadowed by World War II and recieves little attention. There are a few websites such as The Aerdrome and I even found that there is a magazine (good luck in finding it) but this time period and topic are kept in near obscurity. And its no wonder. I found out a fighter pilots lifespan averaged three weeks on the front and most of the major aces, the Red Baron included, died in combat, often in their early twenties.

Well like I said, my son's ceiling is covered with models that I have created so I looked at the World War I ones (numbering four) and decided to work with them. There is only one German (a Fokker Dr. I, a triplane for those of you who don't know)and this one would be needed for the enemy. I needed to find out when it was used and found out 1917 before it was pulled out of service. I then looked at the good guys and the Sopwith Camel would become the main advesary as it was during the war. Maybe my folks and any modern day audience wouldn't know this but I would and went at it as keeping it as accurate as possible.

So now I had settings and a plane. Using the white cloth technique I got some good shots (an apple corer makes a great gunsight) but could not get everything I wanted. I couldn't get the plane to look like it was taking off or being shot down for that matter and that is where footage from Hell's Angels came in. From what I've read (and understood) in copyright laws, as long as what you are doing is being shown to a small group and not for money, you are OK to use it. In fact many things that were made before 1937 fall into the public domain. The copyright can be renewed but the older the work the less pertinent the copyright is.

So I have filmed a few shots of the movie and placed them in. The movie is very inaccurate from what I researched. The German planes are old British De Havillands with crosses painted on them. But I got some good stuff and used it to good effect.

Now that I had all these shots and had them loaded into my computer, I had no idea of what I really wanted to do with them. I had no script, no direction and learned really quickly you just can't start lumping things together and make a story. There needs to be something to go off of. So I made a script, reshot a few scenes and started piecing the film together.

For the word cards I used my uncle's technique with great success. I have even found some old art deco lettering that really fits the time period. So now I am about halfway done with making the film together. For a three minute film if I keep at the pace I am going, it will take about ten hours to make. You never appreciate the work you see on the screen until you actually have to do it.

I also watched a modern day World War I flying movie, Flyboys which was a neat experience. It seems like nowhere is accuracy strived for. While the aircraft are the right types in this film, all German planes are red, just like the Red Barons. I found this comical as most of these types were either camoflaged or in blue but this film makes them all red.