2011 short film
Find Makarov: Operation Kingfish Title logo Directed by Jeff Chan
Screenplay by Patrick Lo
Peter Huang
Chris Pare Produced by Evan Stasyshyn
David
Fradkin Starring Jon Morgan
David Kinsman
David Brandon George Edited by Skinner Music
by Adam Damelin Distributed by Activision Release date September 2, 2011 ( ) (Call of
Duty XP) Running time 6 minutes
Find Makarov: Operation Kingfish is a 2011 short film
and a prequel to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, first shown at Call of Duty XP
convention. The video was produced by We Can Pretend, with visual effects by The
Junction, and was endorsed by Activision.
The first film, Find Makarov, was a
non-canonical fan-made film. The video was well received by fans as well as Activision
themselves. Activision contacted We Can Pretend about the video and helped produce Find
Makarov: Operation Kingfish.[1]
The video follows closely with the antagonist General
Shepherd's speech in the mission "Endgame". It shows the protagonists, Task Force 141
and Delta Force, participating in an assault on a Ukrainian compound, with the
objective of finding an unidentified "High-Value Target" code-named Kingfish, who is
later revealed to be Vladimir Makarov. It also shows the team leaving Captain Price
behind, leading to his future incarceration in a Siberian gulag.
Plot [ edit ]
The film
begins with John "Soap" MacTavish sitting at a table, loading a STANAG magazine; in the
corner stands General Shepherd, asking him to "start from the beginning." It then cuts
to the Karkonosze Mountains, Ukraine (in reality, the mountains are located in the
Czech Republic and Poland), where Soap, Captain Price, Ghost, Roach, and other Task
Force 141 operatives are seen walking through a forest. Delta Force operatives Sandman
and Frost are atop a hill aiming with a Barrett M82 at several Russian soldiers
guarding a safehouse. After requesting permission to engage, Overlord commences the
operation and Sandman and Frost start to eliminate the enemy soldiers. A friendly
AC-130, callsign Spectre 6-4, fires at the incoming waves of Russian troops in a large
field outside.
After Spectre clears the way for the Task Force, Soap's team advances
into the safehouse and kills all remaining hostiles. Roach plants a breaching charge on
a wall, with Ghost entering the room first and killing the soldiers inside. The team
enters the room after clearing it of the enemy, where there are pictures of an airport
(hinting at the eventual massacre at Zakhaev International Airport) and a Bravo Six
team that had been sent in earlier. Soap and Price discover that the picture of Bravo
Six has several faces crossed out, implying each of the members have been executed.
They then hear a C4 detonator beeping and escape before the blast can kill them.
The
Task Force runs for a V-22 Osprey for exfil, while Spectre 6-4 provides covering fire
for their escape. However, enemy RPG fire destroys Spectre 6-4, leaving the Task Force
to fend for themselves. Another RPG is fired and explodes near Soap, knocking him
semi-conscious and spitting blood. Sandman and Roach drag Soap to the Osprey while
Frost rushes to cover them. Price then orders the rest of the Task Force to leave
without him while he provides covering fire; Soap, however, refuses to leave him
behind. Overlord orders the Osprey pilot to take off immediately, but Sandman argues
with him, demanding that Price not be left behind. As Price shouts for the Osprey to
evacuate, he is then shot and falls backward, struggling to get back up. He pulls out
his SIG Sauer P226 sidearm and kills more soldiers before being shot again and
overwhelmed by enemy forces.
The screen then fades to black and cuts to the present
day, revealing the scars that Soap had suffered from the explosion. After demanding
that Shepherd tell him Kingfish's true identity, Shepherd throws him a dossier with a
picture of Vladimir Makarov, declaring "We'll get him." Soap then draws his combat
knife and stabs the picture of Makarov, ending the video.
Cast [ edit ]
Jon Morgan as
Captain John "Soap" MacTavish
David Kinsman as Captain John Price
David Brandon George
as Lt. Gen. Shepherd
Keeghan Wilson as Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley
Ray Davids as MSgt.
"Sandman"
Dennis Allcock as Sgt. Gary "Roach" Sanderson
Justin Major as SSgt. Derek
"Frost" Westbrook
Production and release [ edit ]
The site was discovered after the
website received bloody dog tags in the mail, with one supposedly being those of
General Shepherd and the containing the URL address and the message, "End the war"
above.
Upon discovery of the website, a timer was ticking down until the March 2nd,
2011, a date which would coincide with the Game Developers Conference.[2] Due to the
viral nature of the website, the date's significance, the site's IP being registered in
Los Angeles, and a similar marketing approach for Call of Duty: Black Ops, many
believed the timer to show the date for a possible Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
reveal trailer, causing the site to gain large amounts of traffic.
However, on February
26, Activision, publishers of the Call of Duty series, denied that they were linked to
it in any way and declared it to be a hoax.[3] This was proven to be true; on March 2,
2011, a video entitled "Find Makarov" was uploaded onto YouTube, with the findmakarov
website having the video embedded on the page. The official video currently has over
8,700,000 views.
The original short started out as a personal project for staff Jeff
Chan. "I was playing through Modern Warfare 2," he says, "and I'm a filmmaker and I
really liked the game. I was like I've never really seen a film from a first person
perspective. I was like, what if you made a film from a first-person perspective, and
it wasn't as crappy as Doom?" He came up with a story and a script, and took it to his
co-workers at We Can Pretend, a digital media agency in Toronto. They all happened to
be Call of Duty fans as well, and agreed to work on the movie together. "We all decided
to kind of make this project," says Chan. "We were like screw it, we'll invest into it,
and we'll see what happens".[1]
After the first film did so well, the filmmakers had an
idea for a second project based on the Call of Duty series, and We Can Pretend called
up Activision to propose it. "The first thing they said," says Fradkin, "is the script
that we sent them, the original script, was way too close to the game. We can't do it,
we're stepping on their toes. Then we kind of started about, 'Ok, these are the
elements we can use, these are the elements we can't,' talking about it and making the
script that you saw".[1]
