Charlie Victor Romeo

A theater piece shot in 3D with a minimal set, a simple idea, yet yielding high drama and action simply from the transcripts of these aviation disasters.

This is a play where it is all about the words and the fact that those words are what really happened. Highly riveting and the blackouts are used to great effect. Here the adrenaline is genuine, not some CGI roller-coaster and it is made more compelling because if you have ever been a passenger on a airplane, it takes you where you probably wouldn't choose to go.

If you are going on a flight somewhere you probably wouldn't want to watch this movie. I am certain that this will never be an in-flight movie. You may want to consider the train or a bus after watching this.

Not a popcorn, action adventure, or any other kid of movie genre that is commercial - this is theater and an art film, not typical product.

The 3D is simple, effective and done as if that is just the way to shoot films, without the usual gimmicks and in your face rudeness of many 3D movies.

To start, I am not part of the family/friends/crew blitz of reviews and message posts we all have to sort through in our research of movies and docs.

This was really fascinating! I am an aviation nerd and I assure you, it doesn't get more dramatic than in the cockpit of an airplane that is in crisis. I have long been obsessed with cockpit voice recordings and I love the fact that the director(s) used them word for word. The sets are a bit low rent, but the recordings are so intriguing you hardly notice.

If you love shows about airplane accidents or other aviation related media, CVR is well worth a look. 6/10

Stereoscopic production to document live theater is one of the many niche areas for which it's perfectly suited. In Charlie Victor Romeo the 3D is so efficiently used that you'll forget it's a film. It does what 3D does best. Immerse. By using Cockpit Voice Recorder transcripts it takes you into that little room past 1st class where complete boredom suddenly turns into nail biting drama. And special effects you generate in the theater of the mind are more terrifying than any CGI. I think you'll agree it could never reach such an emotional high point without 3D. No slow-mo 3D, dragons or aliens. But real super heroes in action. For some, their last actions. In 3D, you're in that Cockpit with the crew. So part of you is a passenger, part NTSB investigator. The emotional draw is intense. You feel attached to the Crew so when the scene ends and their fate is revealed, you're touched. The slight release of tension comes when the actors reappear in other scenes and you say to yourself, "That's right, it's only a film." These folks nailed it so well that CVR is being used for Pilot training.

Interestingly, the film "Charlie Victor Romeo," evolved from an award-winning play created in 1999 by Daniels, Berger and Gregory. The play captured two Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Unique Theatrical Experience and Outstanding Sound Design and received recognition from Time Magazine in 2004 as Best Theatre Top Ten plays. The 1999 theater version eventually was videotaped and the Smithsonian Aviation Museum reviewed it. Shortly thereafter, the aviation community picked it up and incorporated it into its repertoire of training tools for its pilots' Crew Resource Management. After its 1999 opening at Collective:Unconscious in New York City, the played toured internationally and nationally until 2008.

The film version of "Charlie Victor Romeo," is a collaborative effort between Collective:Unconscious and 3LD Art & Technology Center. The production was filmed at 3LD Art & Technology Center as part of its new 3LD/3D+ program, a cross-platform for distribution and production of experimental work and made its West Coast premiere on Saturday, November 9th, at the AFI Filmfest 2013. Following the second viewing at the Filmfest on November 11th, the cast of Patrick Daniels, Irving Gregory, Noel Dinneen, Sam Zuckerman, Debbie Troche and Nora Wooley hosted a Q & A. Producer Catarina Bartha was also in the house to support her cast.

Berger, when asked what was the motivation behind the project, conveyed that it wasn't anything political that it was simply trying to make something of interest to an audience.

In its most basic sense, "Charlie Victor Romeo," dramatizes the human intensity that surfaces during the distressed descents of six airline crashes culled from dialogs taken from the surviving black box transcripts. In introducing the affected flights overlay schematics display the failed mechanical parts of the air crafts.

The team of screenwriters, Berger, Daniels and Gregory, scoured the typed transcripts of scores of airline emergencies and crashes, finally settling on the six presented. The criteria used in choosing which emergencies to dramatize the team wanted scenarios with enough emotional intensity that they could perform the scenes dramatically. They also wanted situations that illuminated the aviation perspective. And, finally, they wanted material that allowed their performances to create a bridge for the audience between professional aviation and their art in portraying the human aspect of handling an aviation emergency while in in-flight when things go horribly wrong. All the flights selected had issues due to mechanical failures.

"Charlie Victor Romeo," creates a spell-binding, psychological thrilling techs experience within a tension-filled cockpit as the flight crews provide testament to the ability to live life to the very last second while deftly providing insight into who the people are that we entrust our lives to during airline flights and what they do when things go horribly wrong. Furthermore, the conscious decision to use 3D technology enabled the troupe to help bring the reality of being in the cockpit directly to the audience consciousness during the catastrophic experience as the pilots fight to save their passengers and themselves from an impending disaster.

In my opinion, "Charlie Victor Romeo," pushes boundaries proving stereoscopic lensing is no longer the exclusive d0main of the epic major studios productions. But more than that, "Charlie Victor Romeo," takes real-life aviation emergencies and brings them into the mainstream consciousness in a very humanistic way. Recommended.

It is one thing to read aviation accident reports (and I do) even to the transcripts. It is another to listen to them, and in 1999 someone made a purportedly-awesome stage play where actors read, in a mockup cockpit, with annunciators and stuff, actual CVR transcripts (almost word for word, almost in real time).

I had heard great things about it for CRM (crew resource management) training, and there was a low quality video that was distributed for only that purpose (which I never saw). But it turns out in 2013 they secretly made this and it. Is. Awesome. I know some of these accidents well and it adds an entirely other dimension to them. I stopped during the Aeroperu static tube crash to quote the line in the title to some people I know because as much as reading the report makes you go "wow, that must have sucked" this makes it really personal.

Sometimes uncomfortably so. I mean, it's super not for nervous fliers, and if you are flight crew be careful when you watch it, as you may not sleep. It is very, very well done I think. I also totally agree that it provides a nice launching off point for discussions of CRM, team dynamics, sterile cockpit rules, general crisis management, etc. so may have training value for you, and your coworkers.

All in all, one of the best things I have seen on film in years.