Movie competition WINNERS announced!

[GL2]

Congratulations to all of the filmmakers who participated in this film competition. I was honored to help with the judging. I hope this experience was educational and rewarding for all of the filmmakers, regardless of whether they placed in the top three. There's satisfaction to be had in merely seeing your vision through to completion, regardless of whether you receive any special acknowledgement for it.

I'm no longer active in the IL-2 filmmaking community, but I used to be back in the early years of this hobby. It was fun for me to step back in for a moment and see where things stand in the current community of filmmakers. I also enjoyed taking a look at the new graphics available with COD. The improved graphics (compared with the older IL-2 game platform) allow filmmakers to create art that approaches what you might see in a Hollywood film. There are a number of limitations filmmakers still face, but with creativity, study and effort, you can overcome many obstacles.

The difference between the films that placed in this competition and those that didn't is no doubt more than a function of the amount of effort put into the creation of each film. In other words, the films that won prizes didn't necessarily require more sweat and desire from their creators than the films that didn't. Other things like technical know-how, available time, and natural artistic skills certainly were important factors, as well. Looking forward, some of those limiting factors can't be changed for the individual filmmaker, but some can.

Back when I was active in this community, we communicated back and forth in the forums and through email quite a bit about the nuts and bolts of both the technical and artistic sides of filmmaking. A lot of time was spent analyzing and giving feedback on the work of other filmmakers in the spirit of constructive criticism. You could almost say that the entire film community grew with each new film release as filmmakers learned from one another about what works and what doesn't. It's impossible to convey all of the information that was shared back then, but I'll list a few pointers for filmmakers as they continue to work to improve their craft and create better and better films.

First and foremost, don't underestimate the importance of telling a good story in your film. Exciting action, good camera angles and artsy editing techniques are all well and good, but the best films engage the viewer on a deeper level. Even in a film with no dialogue that only lasts a few minutes, you can still manage to tell a story. It's challenging, but it's very doable. Joe90 made reference to the film Requiem in his post above. Requiem is one of the first IL-2 films ever made, yet it still stands to this day as one of the best ever.

Requiem is one of the few IL-2 films I've seen that was actually moving on an emotional level. Yes, the music makes an important contribution, but music alone does not a moving film make. The film manages to develop a cast of characters (a squadron of FW190s) that we follow through a number of battles on the eastern front. Along the way, we witness their mounting losses through both well shot/edited action scenes and through a clever visual representation of those losses at their airfield. As the film progresses, you sort of find yourself rooting for the FW190s and regretting when one of their number is destroyed. In the end, we see that even great skill and heroism is sometimes not enough to stave off the crush of overwhelming counterforces. I showed the film to my wife years ago, and, as I recall, she was almost moved to tears. Not bad for a film that clocks in at 4 minutes 54 seconds and doesn't contain a word of dialogue. In case you're not familiar with Requiem, you can watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVlFfG0n3Oo

Don't make the mistake of thinking your next film needs to be Requiem Part 2. Tell your own stories, but do have a unique and interesting story to tell. That's the point here. A lot of the films I've seen come out of the community over the years looked like they began life as a good day for the filmmaker while playing online. Put some thought into the creation of your story. If yours consists of little more than 'Force A attacks and destroys Force B,' well, that's been done before. About a million times before, in fact. If it's your first film or two and you're still trying to master the technical skills needed to make a film, it's understandable if you don't invest a lot of time in the story side. But at some point as a filmmaker, you should try to progress to a higher level and do more than just splice camera shots together. Just as children first learn to make sounds, then words, then sentences and (eventually) things like poetry, filmmakers should strive to push themselves to higher levels as they master the more fundamental components of filmmaking. The mechanics of filmmaking should ultimately fade to the background for you and become merely a means to convey to the audience something more than eye candy. It won't happen automatically. You have to work at it if you hope to improve.

That's actually 90 percent of what I wanted to say. Beyond that I'll add that you don't have to settle for films with no dialogue. As Requiem shows, there's nothing wrong with films that don't have voice actors, but the story-telling possibilities really open up if you have speaking roles in your film. When the IL-2 filmmaking community was at its peak back around 2004-2007, many of the biggest films made fairly extensive use of voice actors. You don't need to hire actors, you just need friends with microphones. Help each other out on your films. The biggest IL-2 film I'm aware of that made use of voice actors was Faith, Hope and Charity. It was a massive collaboration of people from the IL-2 filmmaking community and had about a half dozen or so actors who helped make the hour-long film. A story that long would have been impossible to pull off successfully without voice actors. If you're a member of an online squadron, enlist some of your online friends to help out with speaking roles. One bit of advice, though: You might want to audition people before you commit to using them in your film just to make sure they can deliver their lines convincingly.

Lastly, I would urge filmmakers to learn from the best of the IL-2 films that have already been made by watching and studying those films closely. As Sir Isaac Newton once wrote, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Joe90's site Flight Sim Machinima is a great resource for finding those films (www.flightsimmachinima.com).

Best of luck with your future filmmaking endeavors.

[DoolittleRaider]

@GL2

Thanks immensely for your thoughtful comments and advice to the members of the IL-2 Cliffs of Dover movie-making and video-making community.

Those of us from the old Days of IL-2 movie-making remember quite well that it was your entrance into the Community in 2004 with your superb analysis and critiques of the early IL-2 videos which really kicked the Movie-Making "Directors" into high gear!

You've been missed. Hopefully you'll drop by now and then to see how things are progressing. You're always welcome on this Forum!

Of course, I can't pass up on the opportunity to place a link for viewing:
"Faith, Hope, and Charity"



DR [aka Wiley]

[Mysticpuma]

Originally Posted by GL2

Congratulations to all of the filmmakers who participated in this film competition. I was honored to help with the judging. I hope this experience was educational and rewarding for all of the filmmakers, regardless of whether they placed in the top three. There's satisfaction to be had in merely seeing your vision through to completion, regardless of whether you receive any special acknowledgement for it.

I'm no longer active in the IL-2 filmmaking community, but I used to be back in the early years of this hobby. It was fun for me to step back in for a moment and see where things stand in the current community of filmmakers. I also enjoyed taking a look at the new graphics available with COD. The improved graphics (compared with the older IL-2 game platform) allow filmmakers to create art that approaches what you might see in a Hollywood film. There are a number of limitations filmmakers still face, but with creativity, study and effort, you can overcome many obstacles.

The difference between the films that placed in this competition and those that didn't is no doubt more than a function of the amount of effort put into the creation of each film. In other words, the films that won prizes didn't necessarily require more sweat and desire from their creators than the films that didn't. Other things like technical know-how, available time, and natural artistic skills certainly were important factors, as well. Looking forward, some of those limiting factors can't be changed for the individual filmmaker, but some can.

Back when I was active in this community, we communicated back and forth in the forums and through email quite a bit about the nuts and bolts of both the technical and artistic sides of filmmaking. A lot of time was spent analyzing and giving feedback on the work of other filmmakers in the spirit of constructive criticism. You could almost say that the entire film community grew with each new film release as filmmakers learned from one another about what works and what doesn't. It's impossible to convey all of the information that was shared back then, but I'll list a few pointers for filmmakers as they continue to work to improve their craft and create better and better films.

First and foremost, don't underestimate the importance of telling a good story in your film. Exciting action, good camera angles and artsy editing techniques are all well and good, but the best films engage the viewer on a deeper level. Even in a film with no dialogue that only lasts a few minutes, you can still manage to tell a story. It's challenging, but it's very doable. Joe90 made reference to the film Requiem in his post above. Requiem is one of the first IL-2 films ever made, yet it still stands to this day as one of the best ever.

Requiem is one of the few IL-2 films I've seen that was actually moving on an emotional level. Yes, the music makes an important contribution, but music alone does not a moving film make. The film manages to develop a cast of characters (a squadron of FW190s) that we follow through a number of battles on the eastern front. Along the way, we witness their mounting losses through both well shot/edited action scenes and through a clever visual representation of those losses at their airfield. As the film progresses, you sort of find yourself rooting for the FW190s and regretting when one of their number is destroyed. In the end, we see that even great skill and heroism is sometimes not enough to stave off the crush of overwhelming counterforces. I showed the film to my wife years ago, and, as I recall, she was almost moved to tears. Not bad for a film that clocks in at 4 minutes 54 seconds and doesn't contain a word of dialogue. In case you're not familiar with Requiem, you can watch it here:

Don't make the mistake of thinking your next film needs to be Requiem Part 2. Tell your own stories, but do have a unique and interesting story to tell. That's the point here. A lot of the films I've seen come out of the community over the years looked like they began life as a good day for the filmmaker while playing online. Put some thought into the creation of your story. If yours consists of little more than 'Force A attacks and destroys Force B,' well, that's been done before. About a million times before, in fact. If it's your first film or two and you're still trying to master the technical skills needed to make a film, it's understandable if you don't invest a lot of time in the story side. But at some point as a filmmaker, you should try to progress to a higher level and do more than just splice camera shots together. Just as children first learn to make sounds, then words, then sentences and (eventually) things like poetry, filmmakers should strive to push themselves to higher levels as they master the more fundamental components of filmmaking. The mechanics of filmmaking should ultimately fade to the background for you and become merely a means to convey to the audience something more than eye candy. It won't happen automatically. You have to work at it if you hope to improve.

That's actually 90 percent of what I wanted to say. Beyond that I'll add that you don't have to settle for films with no dialogue. As Requiem shows, there's nothing wrong with films that don't have voice actors, but the story-telling possibilities really open up if you have speaking roles in your film. When the IL-2 filmmaking community was at its peak back around 2004-2007, many of the biggest films made fairly extensive use of voice actors. You don't need to hire actors, you just need friends with microphones. Help each other out on your films. The biggest IL-2 film I'm aware of that made use of voice actors was Faith, Hope and Charity. It was a massive collaboration of people from the IL-2 filmmaking community and had about a half dozen or so actors who helped make the hour-long film. A story that long would have been impossible to pull off successfully without voice actors. If you're a member of an online squadron, enlist some of your online friends to help out with speaking roles. One bit of advice, though: You might want to audition people before you commit to using them in your film just to make sure they can deliver their lines convincingly.

Lastly, I would urge filmmakers to learn from the best of the IL-2 films that have already been made by watching and studying those films closely. As Sir Isaac Newton once wrote, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Joe90's site Flight Sim Machinima is a great resource for finding those films (www.flightsimmachinima.com).

Best of luck with your future filmmaking endeavors.

To quote Rafiki:

"The King has returned"

Welcome back to the fold GL2

Cheers, MP

[Lolsav]

hows part 2 of checkertails is going Mystic? see the banner pointing to september... still a bit to go a presume.

Will await with patient and eagerness to see the outcome.

[Freycinet]

Well-deserved congrats to the winners!

[F19_Klunk]

Flight Sim Movies Website is down?!?!

[DoolittleRaider]

Originally Posted by F19_Klunk

Flight Sim Movies Website is down?!?!

FSM Site is working as of the Date-Time of this post.

[zapatista]

is that flightsim movie website down again ? cant connect to it to view the movies

and err... wouldnt it be useful to provide some direct links to the winning movies ? might get them viewed by more people, i still havnt seen them and tried to track down the links several times

[DoolittleRaider]

Originally Posted by zapatista

is that flightsim movie website down again ? cant connect to it to view the movies
...

I apologize. In the first Post announcing the winners, the links to the FSM website were the old URL which has changed since that post. I've corrected those links. Also, you can follow the link in my Signature to FSM.

Meanwhile, here is a direct link to the page where the Winners are available for viewing.

DR

[major_setback]

Originally Posted by DoolittleRaider

I apologize. In the first Post announcing the winners, the links to the FSM website were the old URL which has changed since that post. I've corrected those links. Also, you can follow the link in my Signature to FSM.

Meanwhile, here is a direct link to the page where the Winners are available for viewing.

DR

Thanks for the link!

I enjoyed all the films very much. Congratulations winners!