Writer and director of Fighting the Red Baron, Christopher Spencer, answers a few questions about his film.
What attracted you to this subject matter?
I've always had a fascination with the First World War - an extraordinary conflict of terrifying brutality and startling
technological innovation. But I knew very little about how it was this conflict that saw the start of aerial warfare. Remember, it
was only five years earlier that Bleriot had just managed to cross the English Channel... and then in just four years these young
pioneering aviators went on to develop every aspect of modern air warfare. From aerial reconnaissance, to guiding shells on to their
target by radio, to carpet bombing, they devised and wrote the rule book for future generations.
How did you come to make this film?
Initially, I was approached by executive Julian Ware and producer Charlotte Surtees at Darlow Smithson to make the 90-minute film.
Our starting point was a remarkable book by Joshua Levine, Fighter Heroes of WW1 (opens in a new window) . It wove
first-hand accounts of the airmen and ground crews with the history. I was impressed by how his approach made the story not only
immediate and contemporary but also immensely moving.
What do you think it brings to the film having the pilots - Mark and Andy - flying the period planes?
Our commissioning editor at Channel Four, Julia Harrington, was extremely keen that we didn't make a predictable worthy
overly-sentimental film. She pushed hard - and rightly so - for us to find a way to bring the story alive for a modern audience. And
so it was that we hit upon the idea of giving the challenge of flying First World War missions to contemporary fighter pilots, Andy
Offer and Mark Cutmore. Seeing exactly how they get on gave us a compelling way to explain and explore, in much greater depth than
otherwise might have been possible, the real duties of the Royal Flying Corp. That is, supporting the troops on the ground with
aerial reconnaissance, artillery ranging, strafing and bombing.
But, clearly, one of the major benefits of having Mark and Andy was that their hands-on experience brought home some of the jeopardy their pioneering forefathers would have gone through.
Do you have a particular interest in flying - would you describe yourself as a thrill seeker?
I don't have a pilot's licence - and I'm certainly not a thrill seeker, unlike many of the young pilots of the Royal Flying Corp;
some, such as Cecil Lewis, were no more than seventeen years old when they joined up.
I should add - do read Lewis' moving first-hand experiences of the war in his autobiography Sagittarius Rising. (opens in new window)
Did you go up in any of the planes yourself... for research purposes... ?
Most of our WW1 aircraft were single-seaters, so there wasn't a chance for me to fly. This fact, incidentally, made it especially
hard for our top guns Andy and Mark. There was no way they could train with another pilot; they just had to get in and take off. Just
like it was for their WW1 counterparts, it was nerve-wracking for both of them.
But anyway, for the flying sequences I was in a helicopter supplied by Flying TV fitted with the latest state-of-the-art aerial camera, capable of absolutely rock-steady close-ups a mile away. Not that this didn't have its hair-raising moments, such as when we were trying to film a shot from the pilot's viewpoint of crashing into the ground. The helicopter pilot achieved the result by simple cutting the engine at a thousand feet. We plummeted downwards - judge for yourselves when watching the film how realistic the shot is.
Which aspects of Fighting the Red Baron are of most satisfaction to you as a film-maker?
Trying to re-stage convincingly on a modest budget the aerial warfare sequences was certainly a challenge and, hopefully, achieving
that was satisfying.
But, for me, the most important aspect of the story was not so much the aircraft but the young WW1 pilots themselves. It's almost impossible to imagine what their schizophrenic life was like; most of the day spent relaxing in splendid French chateaux punctuated by twice-daily sorties from which it was quite likely they would not return. It's no wonder many of them went mad. And you wonder how you would have coped. On this topic, I think our interviewees Josh Levine and Alex Churchill were excellent in their exploration of the world and psychology of the pilots.
Did working on this film spark an interest to find out more about other pioneering fliers?
Definitely so. I have covered the early US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts in a BBC drama series a few years back - Space Race. But
I would like to make another film on WW1 pilots and, in particular, the legendary British ace 56 Squadron. We featured them in
Fighting the Red Baron - there's a bigger story still to tell...
What are you working on at the moment?
I'm just finishing another 90-minute flying epic for Channel Four. Quite a leap from the world of linen-covered biplanes - the story
of the world's first and last supersonic airliner, the amazing Concorde.
Concorde's Last Flight will be showing on Channel 4 over the summer.
