Movie Memphis Belle to portray Swamp Ghost?

[TAdan]

Fantasy of Flight just posted this on their Facebook page:

The Talichet "Memphis Belle" B-17E flew in today to get dolled up for an upcoming documentary on “The Swamp Ghost.” This plane stood in for the real Memphis Belle in the movie as her namesake is under restoration at the USAF museum in Ohio. While she's here she'll get a movie paint job as The Swamp Ghost to film some scenes for a special on that aircraft.

Anyone have any more information on this?

[mustangdriver]

Thus creating "The Movie Swamp Ghost"

[Jesse C.]

They do know that the name "Swamp Ghost" is just what the bird was called after it was found, right? Kinda like a certain P-38 being called "Glacier Girl", right?

[bmoran]

There are some pics of the arrival posted over here:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=9334920

[B-17 guy]

Pretty cool! I wanna see how she looks in that scheme, link says for shooting this week so should be very soon.

Also, what's the story with the B-17G in the link? Post #181, bottom of the post. The one that's missing engine #2.

[rcaf_100]

Also, what's the story with the B-17G in the link? Post #181, bottom of the post. The one that's missing engine #2.

'Piccadilly Princess'
http://www.warbirdregistry.org/b17regis ... 83542.html

[rcaf_100]

She looks pretty good as '12446' I sure hope someone gets air to air shots before they remove the paint.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 368&type=1
(you shouldn't need a FB account to view these)

[lmritger]

She looks pretty good as '12446' I sure hope someone gets air to air shots before they remove the paint.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 368&type=1
(you shouldn't need a FB account to view these)

Boy, that looks amazing... now, if Kermit could get inspired to get his early B-26 airborne again and pair up with the Belle in her "Ghost" scheme and an early P-40E... sorry, need to go lay down for a bit, LOL.

Thanks for the link!

Lynn

[bdk]

If only Tallichet had been alive to see one B-17 he owned portraying another.

[Warbird Kid]

Pics posted here for your consideration:

[Warbird Kid]

You'd think Kermit would have one "in the back".

And another thing… boy wouldn't "Swamp Ghost" look good with a certain squadron of Japanese replicas flying around her…

[Chris Brame]

Nice job except it should have red and white stripes on the rudder (from that brief time in early '42 when they were used; they're still visible on the earliest photo of the SG).

[Warbird Kid]

Nice job except it should have red and white stripes on the rudder (from that brief time in early '42 when they were used; they're still visible on the earliest photo of the SG).

D.AMN Chris! You beat me too it!

I was going to say, wouldn't she look more like this?

http://www.theswampghost.com/history/index.html
(Without the framed plexiglas nose and Bendix Turret of course)

Also, I was reading the mission report and it mentions Zeros. If this production company had enough money to contract MARC, and get the 17 repainted, I bet we'll see some sort of Zero soon.

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/b-17/41-2446.html

[kidjim25]

anyone else notice the most glaring error of all though.....

[CAPFlyer]

Nice job except it should have red and white stripes on the rudder (from that brief time in early '42 when they were used; they're still visible on the earliest photo of the SG).

Not surprised. The rest of the paint is temporary. You can't "temporarily" paint a balanced, fabric surface. They may add the stripes in post using CGI, but they also may just leave it. Painting the rudder alone probably would've doubled or more the prep time and thus the cost. For a 1 or 2-day shoot, it's not worth it. Same reason they didn't fully paint Jim Travolta's 707 for its scenes in the now cancelled PanAm TV series.

BTW, those talking about having enough "money" to hire MARC and repainting the plane, understand that the cost of having MARC take the plane down to FoF, doing a watercolor repaint, and filming it then returning it to it's original paint is MUCH less expensive than doing the whole thing CGI. It's a misnomer in the media world that CGI is cheaper than doing it for real. It's not. For what they paid to do it for real, they might have been able to get an off-the-shelf CGI model of a B-17, but then they'd have needed to double or more that cost to then animate it and put it into their production. Peter Jackson has been one of the biggest names in the push, but there have been several major producers starting to push back against CGI and are using more and more practical effects and real sets/vehicles whenever possible because they're finding more and more that not only is it cheaper, but there are plenty of people out there hungry for the work with the proper equipment (i.e. vehicles, airplanes, boats, etc) to do it right. It also takes a lot less time since you can repaint an airplane and even do some pretty extensive modifications to it in less than 1/4 the time it'd take to build an HD/theatrical-quality model in a computer.