This was a personal project that I tried to get Ark interested in. The idea was to create a documentary telling the relatively unknown story of a precision raid on a French prison. Elements of these true events were used in the shockingly bad film Mosquito Squadron.

Most of the time was spent on research and the hardware. I’d seen the mission mentioned in a few places but couldn’t find that much about it until I discovered a small book telling the story from the sides of the airmen, the French prisoners, the local inhabitants and some Germans from interviews and records. Why they wasted money and aircraft making 633 Squadron and its follow up I’ll never know as the true story has all the ingredients of the classic.

What’s more, I thought a well thought out and executed documentary would give some respect and recognition to all the people involved. Something that is sorely lacking.

There’s not many Mosquitoes left in the world. While one happens to be rather close to us in Yorkshire I wasn’t granted access,  so the most useful was one in New Zealand that is still being rebuilt. They sent us some invaluable photos of the cockpit construction as there’s very little detailed contemporary written or photographic information available. I was responsible for all the research, the modelling, animation, matte paintings, rendering and compositing. Abandoned when we got a load of work in.

Here’s an HD video that you can view full screen and scale up. I must point out that the snow was just something I pinched from another project and overlaid . . hence the incorrect motion blur. Sorry. These were a seies of example shots used to experiment with camera motion and animation.