-
Member
Well, it's done, it's uploaded, and it's ready to go. My second movie created soley with IL2 entitled I Promise.
I think this may become my 'magnum opus'. It has been quite the labour. One which started in late April of this year and continued on until about 5 minutes ago, that's nigh-on a half a year. Hopefully this movie will be viewed as being one of, if not thee most ambitious IL2 movie project released to date. Some may view the story as flakey or maybe hard to follow and not 'tight' enough. Some may view the techniques I used as too complicated, unneccessary, or even distracting. Some may view this telling extremely flawed and inaccurate... I don't think I would disagree with any of that
but I hope all will view it and be able to say, "wow, you can't argue with his ambition"
.
I also apologize for the size, but this is as small as I wanted to go. I wanted to retain a clear unfettered picture quality so as not to distract from the movie, plus it's over 20 minutes long. For any that want to re-render this at a lower data rate and resolution and repost, you definitely have my blessing! When it comes to picture quality I think I've learned a boatload since my first movie "Brother", and I think you'll see that as well.
I look forward to any and all reviews, positive and otherwise, just be gentle
.
I Promise
DivX 5.05
1250kbps data rate
512x384
Zipped at 194mb
MrVH
-
Senior Member
So so glad you got there in the end MrVH
. Having seen both trailers i am expecting to more than enjoy your efforts. However with it being such a large file i will download it whilst i sleep tonight and look forward to viewing and reviewing on Sunday.
All the best.
-
Senior Member
Maybe I am the first lucky person to download the 200+ MB movie and watch it!
MrVH this is a very moving and Epic movie in all definition of greatness. Countless uses of effects, many of them that probably I will never get to use but they went well with this movie. Most important for me about your movie was the story, for me it was well thought out and emotional, it provoked an emotional response at the end. Great ending by the way!
Some of the memorable moments was the D-Day take off by Dover and the truck escaping scenes! Those were fabolous! Some parts looked as taken from actual footage, great work.
At the begining and some scenes I did notice our not to welcomed guest "Stuttering". Also some non-nocturnal parts were too dark and had a hard time know what was what. Your movie reminds me so much on how the "director's cut of Blade Runner" was made. A naration from you or a voice actor would have made this film the nirvana of IL2 films. Your film begged for one since some parts of the movie left me in the air until later on I rewinded to find out what was happening. But these are minor issues to what for me it's a great and monumental IL2 film! It quickly found it's nice spot in my IL2/virtual film private archives! Keep it up MrVH !!
-
Member
Thanks for the review NTESLA. Yes, there is a bit of stutter in a couple of scenes in the first act. The flyby over the town, over the jeep, the jeep arriving at the C47, and the flyby over the C47s at runway. I never really noticed the stutter in those scenes until I was well into the third act and by that time I made the decision to leave the whole first act as is (the C47s also have the DDay skin, whoops!). I definitely could have refilmed it but I gotta be honest, it was laziness and a desire to move forward in the other acts... so I left it.
As for a few non-nocturnal scenes being a bit dark... I was going for a high-contrast, low saturation look. As I watch the final render I would have to agree that I think I centered the 'high contrast' a bit darker then it should have been, but it does give the overall effect I wanted it to... a muted, kind of surreally realistic look (ya, that would be an oxymoron wouldn't it
).
Voice over narration... I wondered about that. Myself having created it and watched it hundreds of time over it's life, I of course was well intune with the story but the thought did cross my mind, "is everyone going to be able to follow this throughout the length?". I just didn't know how to incorporate it, where, when, and how much narration would be needed. I, rather, decided to let the general story theme rule the film instead of getting caught up in the details of the story. But again, I actually do think some small sort of narration probably would have been advantagous in a couple of spots, I just couldn't figure that out in the allotted time.
Some scenes took me hours and days to complete, for instance the 'war room' where the debris falls over the map table. I created that all in Adobe After Effects using textures and a jpg of a map, camera layers, obstuctions layers, lighting effects, particle effects, etc etc.
Anyways, again, thanks very much for the viewing and the review. When you make a project like this it gives you a real satisfaction to read something that someone has thought about it, pros and cons.
Thanks again.
MrVH
-
Member
Well MrVH you weren't bragging about it being the magnum opus of IL2 films. The bar has been raised again! Ditto what everyone else has said about the techniques used. The spaceshot scene remided me of the "Celestia" program I've recently downloaded. Only two nits to pick with the film was the use of the HE-111z's as bombers. I think JU88s were used in that role late in the war. Also the PE-2s with German markings.
Overall I would give this production a strong A.
Bravo!!!
-
Member
Great Movie Man!
Im not much of a critic but its definately good movie ,and added to my favorites aswell.Ofcourse I like everyone of them I see 
I think all you guys combined could make a real one,completely amazed everytime I view one,Good Job!
-
Member
S!
Downloading it now.
Man I cant wait to see this.
Of course I would NEVER learn from or use any of your techniques 
Doing great man, I know how much work you have put into this, maybe you can tell me where you got the DIVx codec from over at VWC, I like the look of it.
-
Member
S!
God this is going slow, 12% finished.
I know how nervous you are and your popping back every few minutes to read the reviews.
NP mate. I know this will knock them for six, and for those that want to nit pick about minor historical details, dont worry about it mate, art is art, not history. And from what I seen from your previous work your a bloody good artist mate.
-
Member
MrVH-
Wonderful! This is movie is an epic! Excellent story and very well told. It covered a lot of ground, from beginning to end. The movie was well balanced between story and action. Most of the effects are original for an IL-2 movie, at least I have never seen them done before this.
In summary, "I Promise" is an incredibly enjoyable movie. Don't miss it. It's well worth the download.
S~Knife
-
Member
hi
woooow what a nice movie. there is one thing i missed in this movie at the end....... comming soon in cinema near you