Planet X FX

We were excited to have worked on the many historical airplanes and locations this unique production required. With the aid of external advisors, our team focussed on the creation of countless complex airplane assets that Fokker designed and created between 1924 and 1939.

Turbulent Skies ('Vliegende Hollanders') is an epic Dutch tv-series about the early days of Dutch civil aviation. Idealist Albert Plesman and opportunist Anthony Fokker are inextricably bound together. During the interwar period and despite their differences, they pull off setting up civil aviation in the Netherlands, when the world is heading for a new war.

The series combines real archive footage with newly shot footage. It is like old pictures come to life and make you feel you were there…

For this leader, we worked together with the editor of Vliegende Hollanders Peter Alderliesten NCE. Peter selected and edited all the footage. Planet X Title Design added the look and feel and created the typography and main title for the show.

For international broadcasting, the title “Turbulent Skies” is used. We translated the original main title design to this international version. (FYI The literal translation of “Vliegende Hollanders” is “Flying Dutchmen”)

One of the key challenges for Turbulent Skies (Vliegende Hollanders) was the animation of the planes. Since this was a tv-series that included loads of planes we calculated that we simply didn’t have the man hours to animate each plane separately by hand (including all of the details). This resulted in an extensive R&D period where we were looking for the fastest ways of animating the planes. Automated rigs was the answer.

Instead of having to change all of the animation curves when for example needing to make a slight adjustment to the flightpath, we now would only have to adjust the flightpath itself and everything else (banking, tilting, ailerons, elevator, rudders, etc.) would automatically follow, including the planes’ suspension.