The War Room

experimentNo. 0054categoryFilm & mediarecordingpendingdataCC BY 4.0

The fly sits at the War Room's round table as an aide, then becomes the B-52 commander who rides the released bomb toward a snowfield, in a procedural model of the sets of Dr. Strangelove (1964) populated entirely by flies.

Setup

• Procedural sets based on Ken Adam's designs: a triangular concrete War Room with round baize table, suspended ring light, Big Board and buffet; a B-52 flight deck and bomb bay.
• Fourteen supporting flies: a president, Air Force general, ambassador, scientist, four Joint Chiefs and two aides at the table, plus a four-fly bomber crew.
• Ten cues over 130 seconds: assembly, the Big Board, recall, cockpit, low-level run, jammed bomb-bay doors, release, the bomb ride, a white flash and clouds on the horizon.
• Eight cameras, including flight-deck, chase, bomb-bay and bomb-ride tracking views.
• A Film monochrome toggle (on by default) applies a display-only black-and-white grade.

Measurement

• During playback the connectome model receives retinal input only, through the shared live-retina path.
• Bomber tracks, flight path, bomb motion, movement of the other flies and the ending clouds are pre-programmed.
• The monochrome grade does not alter the canonical eye image.

Limitations

• No footage, dialogue or soundtrack from the film is included.
• The flash shows light only, not destruction; the ending clouds are simplified approximations.

Sources

• BFI Sight and Sound: Ken Adam's finest sets