Documentary mistakes videogame footage for genuine terrorist footage

September 27, 2011 9:09 AM

Last night, British ITV broadcasted "Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA", a documentary which included this 1988 Provisional IRA footage the filmmakers found on YouTube. Unfortunately, the footage is actually and blatently from videogame ArmA 2. ITV has stopped streaming the documentary.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 (25 comments total)

Oh man, that's hilarious. At 0:56 of the video in the first link, "No one died in this attack."
posted by Edogy at 9:17 AM on September 27, 2011

*facepalm* BTW, the forum link has a clip from the actual documentary. I've never played ArmA but it's bloody obvious it's not real footage.
posted by kmz at 9:18 AM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Something tells me some intern is laughing hysterically.

I love the first comment on the first link:
"No one died in this attack"

No shit.
posted by roquetuen at 9:19 AM on September 27, 2011

They don't even try, do they.
posted by ardgedee at 9:25 AM on September 27, 2011

In their defense, County Armagh is known for its rugged polygonal aliasing
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:29 AM on September 27, 2011 [57 favorites]

Haha, I don't remember seeing the IRA cruising around in trucks with mounted weapons. What were they thinking?!
posted by knapah at 9:32 AM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

I read that title as "Exposure: Gandalf and the IRA." Which, given the contents, could be more or less the same documentary....
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:36 AM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

ArmaA 2 is crazy realistic. Here is hoping all future battles are settled in ArmA 2 like this one was.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:37 AM on September 27, 2011

The funny part to me is the outrage at a Gaddafi/ IRA connection comes at the same time it is announced that BAE's layoffs are a dark day for British manufacturing.

It's perfectly fine for some people to arm some people but not for other people to arm other people. That's evil!
posted by srboisvert at 9:47 AM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm much more concerned about Gaddafi's links to the Brotherhood of Nod.
posted by WPW at 10:23 AM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

HISTORY FACT: In the 1980s, the graphical quality of the British Isles was drastically reduced after the Thatcher-led Conservative government privatised British Anti-Aliasing & Polygon Association. It wasn't until the 90s and New Labour that anti-aliasing and high-resolution texture packs were once again widely distributed (abeit by the NHS for a nominal £7 prescription fee).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:26 AM on September 27, 2011 [14 favorites]

Good god, that is hilarious.

ArmA 2 is the grandchild of Operation Flashpoint (OFP) which was an award winning game. OFP itself was based on the VBS1 engine designed as a training simulator. VBS 2 is now available.

They had trouble with their publisher - Codemasters - who retained the rights to the name "Operation Flashpoint", so when Bohemia Interactive Studios (BIS) parted ways, they had to rename the franchise "Armed Assault" or ArmA. The Codemasters OFP is not the same, and sucks in comparison to the original and ArmA series.

BIS recently released an updated version of the original OFP and the "Cold War Crisis" campaign for free to previous owners on Steam and have announced a new version of ArmA due shortly.

In all cases, the games have been supplemented by an enormous modding community, which the developers have not only embraced, but encouraged throughout. Pretty much every facet of the game is able to be modified - art, models, AI behavior - and what the community has generated has been tremendous.

Parts of the francise go on sale on Steam every once in a while, and I can't recommend the game enough. It's not for the weak of heart - setting up the game and controls is fairly complex, but the rewards are definately there. BIS are what every game company should be.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 10:33 AM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

Nice use of the Picus tag.
posted by aramaic at 10:43 AM on September 27, 2011

The incident will be seen as a huge embarrassment for ITV, which said it did have actual footage of the incident but the wrong footage was included because of "human error".

The programme contained a second error when it described footage of riots in Belfast as being from July this year when in fact the clip was six years old.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:09 AM on September 27, 2011

The programme contained a second error when it described footage of riots in Belfast as being from July this year when in fact the clip was six years old and also actually a clip of The Sims.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 11:21 AM on September 27, 2011 [8 favorites]

Did the shouts of "BOOM! Headshot!" give it away?
posted by PenDevil at 11:25 AM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Provies did not dare dream of such trucks and weapons. Ironically, they would have been too hard to hide on the way to whatever they were doing.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:30 AM on September 27, 2011

Broadcasted?
posted by Tapioca at 12:01 PM on September 27, 2011

Sounds like Fair & Balanced reporting to me (by its current definition).
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:22 PM on September 27, 2011

Broadcasted
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:29 PM on September 27, 2011

I think CNN had used Falcon 4.0 footage years ago, but googling doesn't help. Does anyone remember what I'm talking about?
posted by ersatz at 12:33 PM on September 27, 2011

Huh. Broadcasted. Thanks :-)
posted by Tapioca at 12:43 PM on September 27, 2011

For those not in the know, South Armargh was, for those of us in the British Army, known as 'Bandit Country'. Silverbridge is 10 miles away from Bessbrook Mill which, for a while, was the busiest military air base in the world. Silverbridge is also 4 miles away from Crossmaglen, where the Provos took down a Lynx with a bunker buster. Having helped in the recovery, it's truly surprising that no died in that attack.
posted by veedubya at 12:48 PM on September 27, 2011

That ITV broadcast(ed) video game footage is fucked up, but not as fucked up as Martin McGuinness running for president. I wasn't going to vote, but now I have to.
posted by Elmore at 1:10 PM on September 27, 2011

More footage
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:33 AM on October 4, 2011