New Dambusters film – Attack on Sorpe Dam Premiere May 13 2023

MyWorld is proud to sponsor ‘Attack on Sorpe Dam’, a production like no other based on a true story set within the context of the RAF bomber offensive on Germany during the Second World War. The story features a first-hand account from the perspective of George “Johnny” Johnson, a young 21-year-old RAF 617 Squadron bomb aimer.

Johnny describes the attack on the Sorpe Dam and the devastating aftermath of the Dambusters operation. The story twists and turns as Johnny and his crew are given what seems to be an almost impossible task, to fly at one hundred feet in a four engine Lancaster bomber at night, over many miles of occupied enemy territory. On reaching the target, they must drop a new weapon that has never been tried operationally, with pin-point accuracy and in a way they had not practiced. Nothing like this had ever been attempted.

With historical accuracy and authenticity being a key objective of this film, Andrew Panton (Director, Producer, Writer, Editor) reached out to MyWorld partner, CAMERA (Centre for the Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications) to bring Johnny’s story to life through the use of visual effects and digital characters. CAMERA worked Piotr Forkasiewicz (Visual Effects Producer) to create the digital characters for a number of scenes in the film using their 84-camera photogrammetry setup to scan actors in original World War 2 RAF uniforms. As well as CAMERA’s Vicon and Qualisys optical motion capture systems to capture the characters motion and performance to provide movement.

Andrew Panton commented. “There were many scenes we simply could not film in the real world and I am very grateful for the support of the CAMERA team at the University of Bath. Martin Parsons and his team helped create the digital aircrew, WAAFs, ground crew and German anti-aircraft gunners that are featured in various scenes of the film.”

The film will have a worldwide premiere at Bristol Aquarium’s Auditorium on Saturday 13 May, with CAMERA’s Creative Lead Martin Parsons present to answer any questions about CAMERA’s input to the film production. See the website for full details on the film and book your tickets via Eventbrite.

See film trailer below.