Development of a historical seafaring documentary with animation

ended

A nearly 400-year-old ship wreck resting on the seabed in the Gulf of Finland paints a reflective picture of maritime trade on the Baltic Sea and its impact on our shared heritage, highlighting how this type of a ship became the internet-like phenomena of its era. Fluit is a feature film documentary utilizing expert interviews and in action segments with maritime and archaeological scientists, historians and divers combined with animation, archival footage and artwork to tell the history of the Baltic Sea region, and how a new ship type called fluit changed everything in Europe. Central to this story is a fluit ship wreck from 1636 called “Swan,” forever entombed in the Gulf of Finland — and recently discovered. This story is a team effort of Handle Productions, Windmill Film and Pictak Cie. Fluit will be developed with 15 animation and filmmaking experts in France, 15 production crew members and 3D modeling experts in the Netherlands, and a screenwriter, director and production crew in Finland. We will develop the screenplay, animation and overall concept. We have prepared materials and read dissertations, and spent countless hours interviewing international teams of maritime archaeologists, historians and scientists. Our goal is to research and develop a concept so that we achieve a wide international distribution, and are ready to film. Our main outputs will be a screenplay, and lists of locations, artworks and archival materials that we will use in the film. We will have a list of experts who will be interviewed, preliminary tests of animated characters and backgrounds, and tests of the transition between animation and the live-action material. A one-minute animated test pilot will be completed. Our extended outputs will also include published outreach, a crowdsourcing community, and a preliminary 3D game to introduce the fluit in a more interactive setting. We will be ready to start filming.