Page 40 - flipmag03

SILV E R SCRE E N F R O M T H E S I L V E R S C

SILVER SCREEN

TO THE SKIRMISH SCENE!

WE ALL HAVE A FAVOURITE WAR MOVIE – IN FACT, WANTING TO RELIVE OUR FAVOURITE SCENES
FROM THOSE MOVIES IS LARGELY THE REASONING BEHIND MANY AIRSOFTERS GETTING
INVOLVED IN THE SPORT. FILMS SUCH AS BLACK HAWK DOWN, ZERO DARK THIRTY, PLATOON
AND SAVING PRIVATE RYAN HAVE ALL RESULTED IN A MYRIAD OF ATTEMPTS TO REPLICATE
THE LOADOUTS PRESENTED WITHIN THE FILMS, ALL TO VARYING DEGREES OF SUCCESS. SOME
ATTEMPTS SIMPLY LOOK TO GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO BE RECOGNISABLE, WHILE OTHERS GO AS
FAR AS COLLECTING A WIDE RANGE OF REFERENCE PHOTOS; SOURCING A RANGE OF EQUIPMENT
THAT IS HARD TO FIND, AND CREATING EQUIPMENT THEMSELVES WHEN SAID EQUIPMENT IS
PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND. IN SHORT, THE LENGTHS SOME ARE WILLING TO GO TO PAY
HOMAGE TO THEIR FAVOURITE WAR FILMS IS ADMIRABLE TO SAY THE LEAST.

Our ‘Kit Up’, and more-so its predecessor, ‘So You Wannabe…’ features, were built on the idea of bringing you, the reader,
a range of loadouts that attempt to mimic some of these films. The very first issue of Airsoft International included our
take on USAF PJs, and Issue three saw a great example of Colonial Marines from Ridley Scott’s Aliens. In fact, some of the
features within this section have been so well received that we’ve had numerous photos sent into AIHQ of our readers
replicating them – which is as big a compliment as the continued support we receive from you. Furthermore, we’ve even
seen other reputable magazines making use of our imagery to publicise new releases!
So where exactly are we going with this? Well, things have been a little on the odd side over the last few months, and a
lot of us have been spending more time than ever re-watching our favourite war films. It's now a Friday night tradition,
with one member of the AI team choosing a film to put on, and us all watching it remotely through a number of streaming
services (a great way of doing this is via Discord - if it sounds like something you want to start doing). In doing this, a lot of
us have been reminded of some of our favourite film load outs, reminiscing on what got us into airsoft in the first place, and
thinking about new load outs that we want to put together once our purse strings aren’t drawn quite so tight.
In an ideal world, we would have looked at putting these load outs together ourselves, but with the office shut down,
we have no access to a range of equipment we already have, along with access to the photo studio! So with that in
mind, this month we have been looking at a number of loadouts in detail, studying stills from a number of movies
to work out exactly what is being used by some of our favourite fictional operators. We’ve done our best to find
affordable replicas of a lot of the equipment – well aware that everyone will be working on a budget when we’re all
able to return to our favourite past-time.
To stay in line with our weekly tradition of watching war movies, we’ve decided to go back to the beginning of
the lockdown, taking the favourite films of Ben, our Art Director, and James, a budding freelance writer, with our
load-outs being none other than SEAL Sniper Chris Kyle, portrayed by Bradley Cooper in American Sniper, and the
ever elusive Navy SEALs in Zero Dark Thirty.

040 W W W . A I - M A G . C O M