Pretty much ever since I appeared on 4 Guys and a Comic, we’ve been working on Flying Pirate Ships! It wasn’t our intention to announce much else about it until we had more of it done, because we know that talking about something we’re going to do is the fastest way to not get it done.
That was until last night…
Flying Pirate Ships! is the most ambitious project I’ve ever planned (for publication). Working on a bit of math no one will ever see, I realized that the adventure of writing an adventure might make for some worthwhile blog fodder.
So, we announce that Flying Pirate Ships! is – will be – a thing, and it has a facebook fan site.
We’ve been playing with a new free mod for DCS World, and just love the performance envelope of the OV-10A Bronco. This aircraft was designed to operate from short, unimproved fields, so it’s slow, can land just about anywhere, and take off again.
As for the filmmaking, this was a different sort of experience. Normally, DCS World allows us to use (what’s called) a “track file” so we can re-watch a flight from any angle we choose. They are a little buggy, but when they work, we only have to fly a stunt once, then we can go back and film it as though we had a thousand cameras all filming a live event. The track files for the OV-10A are completely “horked,” so we couldn’t use one to film a short takeoff and landing. Instead we flew multiple takes (in 3rd-person point of view), filming as though we only had one camera – just like a real movie. Not every take was the same action. We edited is all together to make it look like we did the thing. There are a few points where we (knowingly) have “continuity errors” (like having the external fuel tank attached after the shot where we dropped it), but the point was using different materials and practicing different tools.
In fairness, the “after-credits scene” is a raw cockpit recording of our pilot flying into and out of 1300 feet of “hole in the jungle,” so we could demonstrate that we did, in fact, do the thing.
We’ve been posting more videos than other content over the last year. Most of it has been sim-aviation related, though we did recut a video of D. playing Rockband 2.
Yesterday we put up something of an “out takes” reel that we’re pretty happy with.
We put together another video in Adobe Premiere last night. This one was a technical challenge. The source material had a displayed timestamp, and I wanted it to be sync’d throughout.
As I’ve been “flying” and re-learning old skills in a new sim, I’ve also learned that aerial refueling is tougher than simpler sims make it out to be. Please enjoy a video I captured, that also happens to show off the Flying Pirate Ships skin I’ve been toying around with.
