“The Blue Angels information documentary movie depicting the naval aerial demonstration team was brought to the level of IMAX film in two meanings.”
Firstly, in a technical way: “The Blue Angels was filmed using Venice 2 cameras that had titles of IMAX Certified Cameras and employs the exclusive Everton aspect ratios ear.”
Secondly: it is a spectacle–if largely–new technology and those who can use it are part of the show and so are the Blue Angels.
There are many low angle and high angle plastic of all the ‘heroic’ of the pilots as well as moving shots from behind and handheld shoulder level as they walk passes long corridors, enact mundane routine of taking off and putting on sunglasses, slow walks and quick bursts of motions of the pilots getting into fresh air and every lass who walks off the aircraft, and shots of them engaging in the bull going up on diaphragm that US Marines finds familiar in many Hollywood action movies.
The movie is an advertisement for The Blue Angels, the Navy, combat jets, the armed forces in general, and an iconography-based love for the nation, pretty much like the “Top Gun” movies, the first part of which was best termed as ‘a recruiting poster not for recruits, but for the poster’ by Emmeline Bank of New York. (The Blue Angels were responsible for the precision of formation flying seen in the “Top Gun” movies and Oh, what a surprise, one of this film’s producers is Glen Powell who is also a co-star of “Top Gun: Maverick.”)
As for the flying itself? And also the process of it being filmed? It’s impressive from a technical perspective. No wonder it is in the wrong context, less of the elegiac. (I mean, almost no one wanted that.) But still “impressive.” When I was about ten years old, I saw The Blue Angels practice a couple of times and thought it would be physically impossible for such large metal bodies to be flying in such close proximity to each other and at great speeds. So I thought any ways. But they did it. They are doing it here once more, for the IMAX cameras that appear to have been mounted at various angles on the outside of the airplanes and inside of the cockpit.
(How is it that we never come across those distinctive cameras in the pictures? Did they get deleted in post production? Or would it be that the cameras were miniaturized, and the camera crew were more clever?)
Also involved in the editing work is Paul Crowder, the director of this documentary who attempts to create a story arc by outlining the characters of the Blue Angels team. He zeroes in (but not limited to) the Commanding Officer and the Flight Leader or the “Boss”, Captain Brian Kesselring, who quit the Angels and is now the Deputy Commander, Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5. “My feeling is, you should never feel too comfortable in the suit,” he says.
Other pilots of the squadron emerge and disappear from the forefront. A little material is devoted to the arguments of 500 days of flying away from the home because of work on families, but no looting the kin, divorces and other events of this type are discussed (the Navy would not allow that anyway). At the end of the film, due to a mischance of the timing of production, we also get the opportunity to meet the first ever Blue Angels female pilot Amanda Lee and watch her introduction to the team.
But do not be confused: this is not a secret that the audience has come to see the planes and complex juxtaposition of narratives despite the film maker’s attempts to steer the attention, ‘ yes there are great human’s stories too ‘ over complicate the visuals. Despite all the talk about the manned stories, the film was about angle flying and the endless preparation for angle flying: that is what the ticket was for and the film did not deny that fact.
The shots are cut without dragging them on display. It may sound strange if someone says that. A good question is: if you are going to film and show in IMAX with earthquakes as surround sound, why not make the viewer watch a “cross scissors”, a “delta breakout” or a “loop break cross” from the view of one of the pilots for the duration of several cuts in which it feels as if the g forces are heavy?
But thanks to perfect pictures (Mao’s of Jessica Young, Lance Benson and Michael Fitzmaurice) and diving-climbing-rolling aircrafts the wholeness of sensations does leave a mark. These touching moments are not only about the flying, but also the feelings of the pilots who admire the unique opportunity to be part of an exclusive group that has its 260th member inducted only in 1946.
For more movies visit like The Blue Angels on 123Movies.