You know what I would like to see? -Smoke On 2!

mattfinch · Post by **mattfinch** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 6:59 pm

I'd like to see another Smoke On. That film was awesome, and a really brilliant display of flying skill and technical prowess. But that was three years ago now, the Virtual Thunderbirds have changed, what with new pilots, and new flight models, it would be awesome to see another film like Smoke On.

Is anything like that in the works, or likely to be soon?

Luse · Post by **Luse** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 7:26 pm

Chances are even if there was another Smoke On going to be made, it would take a while to be produced.

I would imagine it was no small feat for Lawndart, and everybody else to put together. With that being said, I agree

Burner · Post by **Burner** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 8:39 pm

Smoke On took the better part of a year to put together. Hopefully they will take the plunge with the 09 show

Post by **Lawndart** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:30 pm

We sort of "invented the wheel" in the making of Smoke On, and for that feat alone I don't think we'll ever see another Smoke On. That being said, most of our sorties nowadays are far more procedurally sound and with better optics (positioning) than three years ago. (The flightsim genre and computer peripherals has also come a long ways since). In other words, the material to make a movie isn't as hard to get by as it was back in '05-06 for us when we had to literally figure out, not only how to fly everything in the process of making of the movie, all at the same time.

We'll see what the future holds...

In the meantime check out our other videos from '07 and '08 here.

shylock · Post by **shylock** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 11:40 pm

I think the future is now LOL... meaning I too would love to see a Smoke On 2. The points you brought up Lawndart are the very reasons why I think the next one will be one hell of a video and for sure class the field once again in the flight sim community.

Tailhook · Post by **Tailhook** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 1:25 am

Given the time, dedication, resources, motivation, and determination to produce another "big-screen" production like Smoke On, I would have to say takes a lot of work. As much as I would like to see a Smoke On 2, I would let LD take a rest from making back-to-back Full Shows (Smoke On and VFAT07 vids). I think he is just waiting for that shiny red, white, and blue F-16CJ Block 52 to be fully complete before he makes another 100% in-dept movie.

For now, lets just call Smoke On 2..."Transformers 3".

Post by **Lawndart** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 1:55 am

shylock wrote:I think the future is now LOL... meaning I too would love to see a Smoke On 2. The points you brought up Lawndart are the very reasons why I think the next one will be one hell of a video and for sure class the field once again in the flight sim community.

@Shylock, you are most likely correct. In fact I know the flying and the video itself would be a lot better. That being said Smoke On has its place in time as "one of a kind" for so many reasons more than most people would even consider. As far as making another one, see the rest of my reply below...

Tailhook wrote:Given the time, dedication, resources, motivation, and determination to produce another "big-screen" production like Smoke On, I would have to say takes a lot of work. As much as I would like to see a Smoke On 2, I would let LD take a rest from making back-to-back Full Shows (Smoke On and VFAT07 vids). I think he is just waiting for that shiny red, white, and blue F-16CJ Block 52 to be fully complete before he makes another 100% in-dept movie.

For now, lets just call Smoke On 2..."Transformers 3".

@Tailhook, you are correct too. I am optimistically awaiting the next gen of our F-16C Block 52 model to hopefully get done by Q2 of 2010 with improved 3D shapes and a completely new skin. I'm certainly not making any promises, however, I can admit that I've been thinking about producing a new video for quite some time pending the model amongst other things going on in the background. There are projects with higher priority right now (several involving our partnership and sponsors), but I'd definitely like to showcase precision flying and optics at the level we've come to expect in our routine sorties by the current team. I'm not even sure we quite understood back when we were making Smoke On half of the things we know now, and I know for a fact that we can produce something truly amazing with today's wealth of knowledge, skill and resources on the team.

The length of any future video depends on how much time can be set aside for the project (and real life of course), but I've long since '07 sworn off making any more full length movies... ever again!!! Any upcoming release (by me) would most likely be in the neighborhood of 10-15 minutes at the most, but the production value would also be much higher as more time can be set aside for working each individual shot and effect. Another idea of mine is to put out a mini-series of smaller videos featuring the latest and greatest of our flying and really push the production value up, but I don't want to flood the community either. Less is more, and quality always rules over quantity in my book. Rest assured that whenever a new video eventually sees the light of day, it will rock and be able to stand on its own two feet.

As already mentioned, we'll see what the future holds...