V2 - ESCAPE FROM HELL - the first blockbuster movie to be shot entirely in a vertical format.

Timur Bekmambetov - russian director - has never been one to shy away from a technical challenge. The „Unfriended“ and „Searching“ ($75m U.S. box office) filmmaker is now working on his latest feature in his home country, „V2. Escape from Hell“.  

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Would you watch a full movie shot entirely in vertical format? Russian director Timur Bekmambetov is probably hoping you would, because he's currently working on one. Snap already offers vertical short-form originals on its platform, but Deadline says this project is the "world's first vertical format blockbuster." The movie, entitled V2. Escape From Hell, is based on the real life story of a Soviet pilot who hijacks an aircraft to lead an escape from a German concentration camp.

 

This isn't the first time Bekmambetov worked on a project shot in vertical format: he produced the Snap original Dead Of Night. He also produced experimental and tech-driven projects in the past, including the John Cho thriller Searching and Hardcore Henry, which was shot in first-person perspective.

 

Accorded to Deadline, to This Friday at Lenfilm studio in St. Petersburg, the production plans to film a full air battle scene. To achieve this with minimal social contact, they will place lead actor Pavel Priluchny in a cockpit, with LED screens around him simulating the conflict. The screens will be displaying footage from the video game War Thunder, with Priluchny piloting a virtual plane in the game, dogfighting against real gamers. After shooting, the footage will be brought up to scratch using VFX.

 

Bekmambetov will direct the sequence remotely using the Microsoft Teams collaboration platform. There will also be a live cast of the shoot which will be broadcast online on social networks by the production.

 

“The shooting inside a computer game will add entertainment to the project and fully immerse the viewer in what is happening on the screen – an experience that today’s gamers get from Russian-made computer games with their high realism and attention to detail.”

 

Bekmambetov said, he is making a war film here, and what is broadcast in the news resembles a ‘military communiqué’ related to coronavirus – there is a curfew, food supply interruptions, panicking population, etc.

 

V2. Escape From Hell is planning to release in 2021 in two formats – a horizontal version for cinemas and a vertical one for mobile phones. It stars Priluchny as Mikhail Devyatayev, a captured Soviet pilot who leads an escape from a German concentration camp by hijacking an aircraft. The story is based on real events, the 75th anniversary of which was marked in February. The movie is co-produced by Bazelevs studio, Voenfilm and MTS mobile operator. The film will be the first project of the new MTS Media platform to show content in a vertical format.