Case study
- Project Type:
- Event Production for Eurofighter Typhoon - 'Nothing comes close'
- Client:
- Eurofighter GmbH
- Location:
- Munich
The Brief
Eurofighter GmbH wanted to do something very different for Farnborough 2004 and create a cinematic experience for public visitors to their exhibition at the airshow. The primary requirement was that it had to be a big screen presentation and illustrate the full range of the aircraft's 'swing role' capabilities - from ground attack to air-to-air combat. As not all capabilities existed for real any motion graphics had to look photo-real.
Solution
Up until that time 'big screen' generally meant shooting in 35mm film. However as the only way to fully illustrate Eurofighter's capabilities was to create some action sequences in motion graphics this would have incurred substantial costs in high resolution film scanning in order to enable the graphics team to composite the motion graphics and special effects within the live action.
The solution lay in what was then the newest shooting technology - High Definition. There was very little in the way of advice available within the production community as only very few had shot HD in anger other than Hollywood. But after researching the relative merits of 35mm versus HD we settled on HD which, while expensive for filming, gave us the greatest flexibility and cost efficiency in post production when it came to compositing special effects.
In order to make the film look realistic we wanted real locations and equipment. The RAF's trials range at Spadeadam provided us with an excellent realistic background which included the control room and former Soviet bloc surface-to-air missile hardware. We shot a number of sequences around this establishment including low level helicopter air-to-ground sequences as plates for motion graphics.
We shot air-to-air action sequences from the Vectorvision equipped Lear Jet of Italian Air Force Eurofighters in Sardinia and other sequences with the German Air Force in Germany. The RAF helped out again by enabling us to film AWACS sequences at their simulator at RAF Waddington.
Our motion graphics team went on to create nearly 1000 special visual effects and photo real models along with hundreds of sound effects. The film was then edited on our in-house HD edit suite.
Result
The result is an 8 minute film that's a roller coaster ride portraying a dangerous mission deep into enemy territory. The experience was further heightened when shown on the intended 8 metre screen. Both the public and the professional community thoroughly enjoyed the exciting and slightly tongue-in-cheek storyline.
Awards
The film was recognised with two top awards at the 2005 US International Film and Video Festival - the Gold Camera Award for Best Special Effects and the Silver Screen Award for Best Promotional Programme.