Author Topic: 325th Documentary  (Read 619 times)

Offline Swoop73

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325th Documentary
« on: November 26, 2012, 12:28:30 AM »
Just to let you folks know, if you're interested, Part 2 of the 325th FG documentary "Checkertails" is in public release tonight. Part one took almost 3 years and coveres the first half of the War when the Checkertail Clan was flying P40's and P47's. Now, 3 years later, Part 2 is done. Run time 2 1/2 hours. This is the 325th flying Mustangs through to war's end. Those of you familiar with Part 1 know the project has been an all-volunteer effort by writers, researchers, talented skinners and a professional narrator. As things got rolling people began contacting Neil Pugh "Mysticpuma" with offers to send film and stills that had never been seen before. Many people helped where they could and Cutt, Johnnymac and I had a blast as virtual pilots in some of the early battles. We had to use IL2 because of the powerful film recorder. I was privileged to put Neil up for a few days at my place in New Hampshire 5 years ago and fly him in a rented Arrow out to Northern NY to interview one of the 325th pilots. All in all, the project went from the basic idea of a 5 minute CGI short to a full fledged documentary with probably 20 hours of video interviews in the can, thousands of stills and some film that had never been seen in public. Something like 200 individual and authentic skins were done over the years. Notably, not one person has or will ever make a dime off this. It is free to anyone. Here's the link to the Checkertail web site where you will be able to stream both parts or, should you have a few hours and some computer savvy, you can download the 6.5 and 7.5 GB files to burn a dual layer, high quality DVD. Hope you enjoy it. I'm posting this info here because I think the FSO comunity is more into WWII history. The Checkertails never had much publicity during the war. They fought in Italy and that was harder for a correspondent's to get to than London. Now they have a documentary we hope will match or exceed anything the 8th AF has.....And it was done on zero budget.   :-)       www.checkertails.org
"Had to...Had to keep 'em from the bombers"
325th Ace Art Fiedler on why he and 3 other Checkertails
charged into 40 FW 190's over Regensburg, Germany in Jan., 1945.

Offline Shifty

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Re: 325th Documentary
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2012, 05:50:59 PM »
Watched half of part one. Going to watch it all when I get the time. Thanks for posting this Swoop.  :salute

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Offline WxMan

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Re: 325th Documentary
« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2012, 08:44:56 AM »
An outstanding effort, as good as anything you will see on TV, if not better.   :aok :aok
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Offline SlipKnt

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Re: 325th Documentary
« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2012, 01:12:39 PM »
This is really good.

Has anyone approached The Military Channel or The History Channel to get this aired?

I truly stand behind this film that it should be shared with the world in this capacity.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. 

 :salute
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Offline Bino

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Re: 325th Documentary
« Reply #4 on: November 27, 2012, 02:03:17 PM »
Way cool, Swoop!   :salute


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Offline ImADot

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Re: 325th Documentary
« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2012, 02:30:57 PM »
Has anyone approached The Military Channel or The History Channel to get this aired?

If it does get aired, most (if not all) of the advertising dollars that the hosting channel would receive should be sent to the Checkertails organization.


And I agree, this is a great piece of awesomeness.
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Offline Swoop73

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Re: 325th Documentary
« Reply #6 on: November 27, 2012, 03:29:49 PM »
Appreciate the comments, folks.

Airing either or both of these on something like the History or Military channel has been discussed many times. Actually a small CGI part of Barrie Davis' near fatal encounter with Romanian ace Ion Dobrin was used by Nicholas Dimancescu in his documentary "Knights of the Sky" and was shown as a national Geographic project on Romanian TV last year. Sadly, Nicholas died in a fall a short while later while filming prehistoric caves in the Carpathian Mountains.He was in his early 20's and helped us many times in the Checkertail project. To air on TV, just about all the music would have to be stripped out and copyrights adhered to...something we don't have to worry about if it is all free. Also, there were people from the UK, Italy, The U.S. and other places who worked very hard for free. You can only guess the mess that would ensue if money began to flow. Neil Pugh, the writer/director of the whole deal, decided back at the beginning that it would all be free on the internet and that served to eliminate all the politics and strife that go with large human endeavors. So there goes my own dream of standing on a stage in Hollywood, thanking the Academy.......     :-)
 
"Had to...Had to keep 'em from the bombers"
325th Ace Art Fiedler on why he and 3 other Checkertails
charged into 40 FW 190's over Regensburg, Germany in Jan., 1945.

Offline Nefarious

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Re: 325th Documentary
« Reply #7 on: November 27, 2012, 03:49:52 PM »
Great documentary, good job.
There must also be a flyable computer available for Nefarious to do FSO. So he doesn't keep talking about it for eight and a half hours on Friday night!