Is the viral claim that an ‘Air Show’ was conducted before the Euro 2020 finals true?

July 16, 2021 Rupesh Kumar

Spread the truth:

A video of an alleged air show with several airplanes flying in the “ITS COMING HOME” formation is going viral on different social media platforms.

Claim:

Many social media users across different platforms are tweeting about the viral video and also posting it with the claim that the air show happened in England, just before the Euro 2020 Finals between England and Italy.

Facebook

‘Haryana News Watch,’ a media/news company as per its ‘About’ section on Facebook and with more than 11 thousand followers posted the viral video on its profile. The caption shared along with the viral video reads –

“Air Show in #England before #EuroCup Final. So much excitement !!

“

Twitter

A Twitter user named ‘Bidnurmath Shivakumar‘ with the Twitter handle ‘@Bidnurmath1‘ tweeted the viral video with the caption –

“Air Show in England before tomorrow’s Euro Cup Final That’s the Spirit”

Air Show in England before tomorrow's Euro Cup Final
That's the Spirit 🤩#EURO2020 #ENG #EnglandvsItaly pic.twitter.com/jNt5km6LL0

— Bidnurmath Shivakumar (@Bidnurmath1) July 11, 2021

Truth

No, the viral video is not of any air show. The viral claim is false.

Using InVid, we broke the viral video into keyframes and did a quick reverse image search on Google and stumbled upon a news article titled ‘England fans prepare to welcome football home with Three Lions clip…’ on the Daily Mail, a British tabloid. After going through the article we found the viral video. The video on the Daily Mail’s article is titled “England expects! Spitfire flypast spells out Its Coming Home.” While watching the video, we noticed a text flash on the top right corner of the screen named ‘Potion Pictures.’

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Potion Pictures (@potionpictures)

Taking cues from the video, we searched on Google using the keywords ‘Potion Pictures’ and found the viral video on Potion Pictures’ official Instagram page. Potion Pictures is an award-winning motion graphics and animation studio. The caption of the video explicitly states that the video is created by using VFX technology and it is not real at all. The caption reads –

“Last time we posted this clip, it was viewed over 30 million times, got a retweet by David Beckham and was written about in several National newspapers. There was a lot of debate about whether it was real or not, it is of course VFX. Good luck to the England Men’s Football team in tonight’s final! #itscominghome #itscominghomememes #spitfires #rafflypast“.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Potion Pictures (@potionpictures)

Since a line in the caption read “Last time we posted this clip, it was viewed over 30 million times, got a retweet by David Beckham and was written about in several National newspapers,” so we decided to explore their Instagram page more and managed to discover another video. This other video was posted on 12 July 2018, and it contained a breakdown of the original video in a fast-forwarded format. Again the caption made it absolutely clear that the video is not real.

We found the same video titled ‘Its Coming Home’ on their Facebook Page with a caption clearly stating that the video is not real and it is a specimen of VFX technology. The video was posted on 11 July 2021 (on the day of the Euro 2020 finals).

Again after exploring their Facebook page a bit, we came across another video titled ‘RAF100 Flypast – It’s Coming Home Viral Video Breakdown,’ the video also contained a breakdown of the original video in a fast-forwarded format. The caption of the video reads –

“Here’s a breakdown of our RAF100 fly over video. We manipulated the historical aircraft’s formation to spell ‘It’s Coming Home’ which led some to believe it was in fact real.

We captured the ‘fly past’ (really just empty sky) on a smartphone. After camera tracking in Cinema 4D, we used Illustrator to create splines for the text arrangement and a cloned 3D model of a Spitfire. The aircraft models were key-framed and exported, then composited into After Effects. A brief session of rotoscoping in After Effects ensured the planes appeared to fly above and behind nearby buildings.”

Last time we posted this clip, it was viewed over 30 million times, got shared by David Beckham and was written about in several national newspapers. There was a lot of debate about whether it was real or not. Come on England! #itscominghome pic.twitter.com/z6UKx5MDWH

— Potion Pictures (@PotionPictures) July 11, 2021

Many were fooled by our manipulated RAF100 flyby video, here's our breakdown showing exactly how we manipulated the aircrafts formation to spell 'It's Coming Home' ahead of yesterdays match. #itscomimghome #RAF100 #BehindtheScenes pic.twitter.com/RmvskgJ5T0

— Potion Pictures (@PotionPictures) July 12, 2018

During our investigation, we also found the viral video and its explainer on Potion Pictures’ official Twitter handle too.

Hence, after a thorough investigation, we conclude that the viral video claiming that an air show was conducted in England before the Euro 2020 Cup finals is not real, the viral video is an artwork created with the use of VFX technology. The video was created initially during the 2018 football world cup when the English football fans were highly optimistic about England winning the world cup and bringing it back home. The title of the video is based on the hashtag (#Itscominghome) which first peaked during England’s dream run in the 2018 Football World Cup.

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Rupesh Kumar

A Journalism student at Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication, who writes out of sheer avidity and has a nose for news, seeking to leverage skills to contribute to high-quality journalism.