Brilliant photos Victor, thanks for sharing them. Wow, all those Sea Furies in one place. They look fantastic.

Mark, that’s an interesting story. I saw a very good British documentary not so long ago about a large scientific study into the disappearances of ships in the trinagle. They concluded that there is a lot of seismic activity on the sea floor which sends up huge bubbles of gas, and as they hit the surface they can disrupt the current and cause vortices that will suck even the largest ships under. They even proved the theory with controlled tests and eye witness accounts of sudden surface disturbances matched their theory too.

So, perhaps you may have been inthe edge of one of these and were very lucky. What do you think? Plausable theory for our case maybe?

This is an interesting thread. Amazing what they could do with a Tiger Moth to replicate so many other types.

Here’s one that might make you scratch your head though – instead of a Tiger Moth posing as someting else, this is apparently a replica of a Tiger Moth!
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/880411/M/

It has staright wings. Is it just a Gypsy Moth? Or is it somethign different?

Yes, I know what you mean James and I fully understand all that. What I was trying to say is as a filmmaker my personal choice would be to make a film I was proud of becuase I knew it was right, and in 30 years time would still be acclaimed as an accurate portrayal; rather than sell out to the almighty buck and dumb things down, if you know what I mean.

I know people watch films due to ‘names’. Personally I don’t like celebrities that much, unless they are actually good at what they do. Very few of them are. I’d prefer to find very good no-names, they cost less and my film might make them a star too, which would be better for the world at large to have more good stars. I’d rather that than recycling old hacks that are in every war film, or whatever genre it’s in. If the public don’t know the actors, tough.

Sadly almost the entire feature film industry is geared towards the dumbed down, mass audience market however where actors and scripts are constantly recycled – and you will only get funding for a film on those terms from most funding agencies otherwise they see your innovative new ideas as bad risks for their investment, so I doubt I’ll achieve my vision of a good film.

…Saving the world in 1940… hobbits… are you suggesting they want me to direct “The Few”? 🙂

Well I did realise the difference in costs between a Harvard and a fighter, both in fillng the tank and hiring the aircraft. Yes, that’s always a consideration. Personally if I were the filmmaker – and someday soon I hope to be – I would go for cheaper actors in order to afford better accuracy.

Look at films from the 1960’s and 70’s. The big name, expensive actors came and went – they’re now as inconsequential as if they’d been a no-name. I can watch an old film with people I’ve never heard of, it does not affect the viewing. Often new faces are btter than tired old stereotypes like John Wayne who were paid much more of the film’s budget. Anyway, regardless of the actors, the glearing innaccuracies still remain after all these decades, and as the world gets wiser they show up more.

I’m not saying that then it was the fault of filmmakers that they had to use Harvards for everything back then. I understand the conditions they were under. But there has been a warbird revolution. There are now all sorts of types flying around the world, real, look-alike (aka Buchon) and replica (there’s plenty of replica FW190’s flying that would look right in air combat filming).

I just think that today there are so many more options, and filmmakers can chose to make a good job of their film, or they can chose to go down the tired old route of hoping for the best.

This particular film has done a great thing in using a B17 rather than tarting up a DC3 or something. I am not trying to diss the filmmaker, and I realise that as it’s a European film it won’t have the huge budget of Hollywood. So money is an issue of course. It is great that the film is getting made at all.

I am merely speaking in general with my comments that it does seem odd and outdated to paint up a Harvard. But as you say, the avergae viewer won’t know the difference. And I fear that often the average filmmaker doesn’t know or care either. Perhaps that’s why some of them produce average films?

John B, very well put about history films. I hadn’t heard that about The Right Stuff being criticised. Yep, that is picky. I love that film, and I agree that it has has such a powerful atmosphere, a mood, of reaching the new horizons that it gets the message across – as did From the Earth To The Moon and Apollo 13 in my opinion.

Other space movies have also tried to capture that same atmosphere pretty successfully when not even being about triue history – like the great comedy/drama film Space Cowboys and The Cape TV series.

I think Pete was trying to say that Field of Dreams was a good Costner film to rebut my statement, rather than it’s a good history film. I disagree of course. I thought it was pants. 😀

PS Where in NZ do you live, have you always lived there and are you crying out for architects because the UK is beggining to get up my nose but due to political corectness can’t say why.

I live in Cambridge, the exactcentre of the North Island, and currently a hugely desirable place for UK immigrants. We are a Pommie Enclave almost. Every one of them seems to have the same story – we came here because NZ is what the UK used to be like, and we’re sick of what it’s like now. Sadly I fear the influx of foreigners will soon make NZ like the UK now, and we’ll lose ‘our’ culture and heritage and lifestyle. It is already fast disappearing thanks to globalisation. But, in the meantime, architects rom the UK are probably very desirable here – there’s a massive housing boom to house all the foreigners coming here. Cambridge has jumped from a population of 10,000 people about five years ag to 15,000, and currently new subdivisions of over 1000 homes are underway. It really irks me. Everyone wants to come to Cambridge for it’s quaint old English charm with it’s village square and old oak trees, etc. But in doing so they’re turning us into a city like they wanted to get away from. Those of us who’ve lived here all our lives see the place rapidly evolving suddenly. Sad. But, at least it’s mostly Poms coming because they enjoy our beer culture.