WOW!

I would love to see how the post was done. Thanks for the link -

After seeing this, it's pretty hard to justify thirty trailers of equipment, a caterer, dozens of grips, etc., etc.

Hollywood is dead. And, this is a good thing.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this effort. You are the future.

Actually i's probably much faster to do it the hollywood way and will look better ( I'm sure this looks like crap on a real screen since I can spot fake stuff in this barely watchable youtube clip )
Besides if you are goint to do it the way they describe it, they are way over the time / budget necessary to do it ( they say themselves, 4 days of shooting and lots of compositing ). I could do the same thing by myself in a couple of days.

Very inspiring.

Paul Greengrass started with a Super 8 camera that he found in a high school art room.
He made his first films using old dolls, classroom junk, and dummies laying around in the storage room of the art class.
After college he went to a school for television in Cambridge and then spent ten or eleven years making documentaries after saving up his money working part time in order to travel to different places where he could capture real turmoil. Northern Ireland was of particular interest to him. Then he branched into fiction in the late 80s and won a film award for "Ressurected" that got him into television series work.
His movie Bloody Sunday in 2002 was an indy film that attracted the producers of the Bourne Identity movie. Paul Greengrass ended up with a huge Hollywood budget for Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum - two of the most successful films to come out of Hollywood directed by a former indy filmmaker - Paul Greengrass.

John

I'm glad to see your emphasis on the 'former' part. The Bourne Ultimatum spent huge amounts of money avoiding CGI doing practical stunts, including having some brave (or foolish) cameraman take a leap between two buildings just to get a few frames.

Hollywood as we've known it could well be dead, see a recent thread here about BD and how it exposes all the flaws in CGI and digital mattes. BD is only HD, 2K pushes it harder and 4K cinema projection provides a monster challenge to every department in Hollywood productions. For decades the low res of 35mm release prints has let Hollywood get away with a lot.

On the upside we might see a return to the old school way of doing things although I dread to think what the budgets will be. Maybe that'll force the studios to be a bit more selective about the scripts. Less quantity and more quality all around.

Bob.

truely awe inspiring, however:

a. agree with one of the previous posts; bet it would look pretty dire on the big screen, and i'm not too sure how it'll look on a good home theatre.

b. bugger the high tec - it was mostly wet wear that put the concept / script / camera angles / and a thousand other things together..

c. you don't get such wet wear and talented people at 'budget prices'.

all the same , bloody terrific work....

leslie

I saw the production when it was shown on TV here (in the UK) over Xmas as part of the BBC's Timewatch series (a regular popular series dealing with topics of a generally historical nature).

The quality was up to the standard of a normal broadcast presentation - I'm sure the BBC would not have transmitted it if it hadn't been. You could tell that the battle scenes had been created using compositing/cgi but it certainly didn't detract from the overall effect.

Previous programmes in the Timewatch series have used related techniques -there was one a little while ago concerning the Commando raid on Saint-Nazaire which made considerable use of compositing/cgi/modelling, and was presented by Jeremy Clarkson (who, probably not co-incidentally, co-presents Top Gear, a BBC motoring programme, alongside Richard Hammond, the presenter of the Omaha Beach programme).

Mark

Incredible - inspirational - and wonderful.

" I could do the same thing by myself in a couple of days."...

Hey - tell me is good - show me is better.

My hat's off to whoever made that film.

v

Thanks for making this thread . . .

My Father was on a British beachhead on June 6th 1944.

He asked me to tape Timewatch's "Bloody Omaha" for him. He started watching it, but needed to leave off, and come back to it. It was far too harrowing. He is in his 90th year. D-Day was 63 years ago? Not for my Dad it aint.

And regarding Timewatch's "Bloody Omaha", read this for a further in-depth production day-by-day view of how things happen when making a docu. IMO, this is priceless PRICELESS information for those of us serious about doco work, and the ability to explore the narrative which goes with it.

Pay particular attention to how things are discovered - the Maisy Germany battery - and the place it can take when rolling out a production.

See how discoveries can influence the core of a project. How flexible the production animal is in responding, is a real test of creativity, ability and a downright passion to do the best for the storyline. That Timewatch team are amazing at what they do, and here, what they did with "Bloody Omaha".

NB: This page begins at the edit. If you wish to read prior to the edit then you will need to go to the bottom of the page and navigate "backwards" in time.

http://open2.net/blogs/historyandthearts/index.php/?cat=90

This is a GREAT thread. Erase from your brain what you know about this production and read every post after watching the How They Did It video.
Half of us (myself included) assume it's one thing which it's not. Others might think our comments are way off beam without realising they know something we don't. Then finally the context of the production comes to light. A good example of the power and danger of the internet.

Bob.

Eh? You have confused me?

Just really great stuff, inspiring, and all that.
Low-budget film-school in a 4:02-minute bottle :)

My father was also at D-Day, a U.S. war correspondent who got there aboard a UK destroyer. Got shot but only lightly. Passed away in '86.

I feel he would have enjoyed the ingenuity of these film-makers for he was a very DIY type of man.

I'll leave the rest of you to haggle over details and perceived shortcomings.
I found it brilliant as-is.

Well I (and no doubt others) started out thinking this was an example of "How to do Hollywood on the cheap" and the discussion flowed along from there. Then finally it turns out it's nothing of the sort, it's a historic recreation piece. They don't have to be photorealistic at all, probably better if they aren't.

So the discussion starts out without knowing the context in which the piece is going to be used. If I'd know what it was for I would have said "Yeah great work" etc, etc.

Bob.