One of the things I love computers for is how they have democratised the access to things that once were only attainable by a very few. This World War II short film called The German is a perfect example.
In the film, “a British fighter pilot pursues the german ace that shot down his friend across sky and country… with murder in mind. But he discovers it’s not so easy to kill a man when you have to look them in the eye.” Apparently, the Irish Film board gave about $US92,000 to fund the film, which only paid for the live-action filming. The director, Nick Ryan, ended with zero dollars for the visual effects, which are crucial to set up the story. So he did them himself:
I completed all the visual effects shots, over 120 in total, entirely by myself. Dave Head modelled the aircraft (and truck), but I textured, lit, animated and composited the shots over a six month period in 2008.
Six months of struggling and fun, I’m sure. An awesome job, indeed. [Vimeo via Bomoarts]
Dave
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 7:29 AMand they blew how much on transformers??
BTW dude thanks for making dog fights awesome again
Sevrin
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 7:55 AMZero budget? so the software used to create this was free? hrmmm
perrie
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 8:04 AMMy son did a short for a kids movie festival and that was good, this IS impressive absolutely brilliant, i’d like to hear an opinion from a real WWII fighter pilot… anyone out there. made me forget to look for computer defects and actually watch the film. BRAVO.
Jester
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 9:34 AM“Filmed On Zero Budget”. Sensationalist headline much? He had $92,000 for the filming and managed to do the effects himself without funding.
Please, Jesus, when something is this good, it doesn’t need you writing stupid titles to draw attention to it. Give us the facts and we’ll be just as blown away by anything half as good as this short.
Well done, Mr Ryan. Well done!
Heisenburg
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 10:12 AM“Please, Jesus, when something is this good, it doesn’t need you writing stupid titles to draw attention to it. Give us the facts and we’ll be just as blown away by anything half as good as this short. ”
+1
Sketchy
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 12:10 PMThat was amazing, and left me wanting to see more. Look forward to seeing a feature from this director.
and +1 for the unnecessary (and inaccurate) sensationalist headline.
Space2099
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 1:13 PMIn Hollywood they round budgets of to the nearest $500,000, so $92,000 would be rounded off to Zero.
Ammusionist
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 2:17 PMLooks like he used Softimage for the 3D work.
Blender’s new camera track facilities mean this can be done in Open Source now!
(Blender.org)
DC
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 10:55 AMGreat effects, great short movie….apart from the smug “welcome to Ireland” Irish surrender monkey at the end hampering the fully justified fight, led by the US and the UK, against nazi fascism and genocide….bloody hell I’m pleased I got that off my shoulders!
TSH
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 7:31 PMthat was really good. Concise, to the point and wonderful execution.