Forgotten Flier is now Remembered, and sent to Slaughter!

Yep, I’ve submitted The Forgotten Flier: The True and Amazing Story of the First Controlled Airplane Flight! to the Vimeo Film Festival.  I submitted it to the Documentary category because:

1. It IS a documentary
2. Most documentaries are boring and self-important (especially many of mine)
3. This documentary was specifically designed NOT to be boring
4. MOST IMPORTANTLY – I’ve got a philosophical thing about expanding the notion of what a documentary is, while still honoring the strand of truthiness and journalistic integrity that is assumed to be part of the documentary art form.

In point number 4, I wrote “art form”….and that’s because documentary is a form of art.  Journalism and Scholarly Research are both very noble and important pursuits.  But they are different than documentaries.  The English Language has  even seen fit to give them different names from each other to help distinguish them.

I may or may not dive into this issue on this blog.  Whatever I write, however witty and profound, will still be a pale imitation of the Truth I received on this topic at the feet of Dr’s Aufderheide and Engel at American University….but reading this blog is free, and tuition at AU is not.

Stay tuned!

Remembering a Forgotten Flier

I’m so pleased with what I wrote on my “Current Work” page that I’ll quote it here:

I’m making an animated documentary about Gustave Whitehead.   He was a flier, and was largely forgotten.  The reason why this is interesting is because he made a controlled, powered flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle two years before the Wright Brother’s flew!  So, I’m making an animated documentary about him.  Perhaps this work will inspire other people to innovate and push the envelope of human discovery, knowing that even if they never achieve fame, even if they die penniless, it’s possible that someone might make an animated documentary about them.  Indeed, a chance at immortality.

Yep — I am indeed doing it!  I’ve made the bulk of the artwork, which is charcoal pencil on heavy watercolor paper, and I’ve got it into After Effects.  The voice track is done and I’m quite pleased with it!  An original score is also underway.  Exciting things!

Below are some low-res captures from my first renderings.  I’ll no doubt do some general color correction and maybe throw a vignette on it and whatever other finishing is needed.  Blah blah.  Here are some stills!

Since when do airplanes cast shadows on the sky? Since I adopted a puppet show aesthetic for my new documentary! That's when.

Gustave Whitehead exhorts his assistant to stoke the steam engine!