Lights, camera, action!

Whether you’re creating a Hollywood blockbuster or a low-budget masterpiece, audiences want war films to be both entertaining and accurate. Rebecca Grant speaks to some of the people who work hard behind and in front of the camera to get the finished product just right

From Legion Summer 2009

The armourer
Jon Baker joined the Army at 16 and now serves as a REME Weapons Artificer in the TA.
He has been working as an armourer on film and television projects for the past 18 years.

“Modern weapons are designed specifically for battle. They have flash eliminators and smokeless powders to stop you giving your position away. My job is to get them to do the total opposite – to make them emit a great big flash, because it gives them that ‘Hollywood’ perception.
We sometimes have to modify the weapons that we use on set quite extensively. I can make guns fire blanks without using a large yellow ‘BFA’ (blank firing attachment) on the end.
My military colleagues are always asking me how I manage
to do it, but that’s one of the secrets of my trade.
My first film job was as a trainee on Tim Burton’s Batman, I was only working there for a few weeks, but I got to see the Batmobile and all its 30-calibre machine guns.
Some of my favourite projects have been the period dramas. I particularly enjoyed working on the Sharpe series, and I did some work on Hornblower too. I also really enjoyed the Bond films and Man in The Iron Mask. Each project is different and has its own merits
Working on a film project can take anything from a few days to a few months. It depends on a lot of things. Hornblower, for example, was shot it in Portugal and Spain, so we had to export all the weapons. You’ve also got to deal with budgets. A production company might say it wants 400 weapons because there will be 400 Marines in a scene, but if I know that they can’t afford that, I have to get hold of all kinds of rubber muskets, then use about 30 or 50 real ones that will be seen on the front line. I also get involved with the military training on set and have to do gun dash drills with the actors.
I worked on a film called Mark of Pain in 2005, when I was fresh out of serving in Iraq, so I was able to help the director get the scenes as accurate as possible. When you depict modern soldiers, everything has to be spot on, because it’s fresh in the memory for a lot of people. The trickiest things to master are headshots, especially when you’re doing a close-up scene. You’re right up close with major actors and if you shoot them in the face accidentally it can be a big problem! So we have to use a special sort of ammunition, and have to rehearse and choreograph all the action so everyone knows precisely what they’re doing.
My military training as an arms instructor helps, but
just because you’re an ex-soldier, it doesn’t mean you can turn up on a film set and start firing guns in actors’ faces.  There’s a lot of responsibility. I try not to put across the Staff Sergeant attitude on set because I’m dealing with civilians. You can’t use a military tone or manner with them, because it doesn’t go down well. But I do have to be firm with them and – if they mess things up on set – I will shout at them. If, for example, we rehearse something where we’ve got guns being fired in all directions, and an actor does something I’ve told them not to, I immediately shout ‘cut’, jump in and take the gun from them. We’re here to make a film and we all want to go away at the end of the day with no one being hurt, which is what my job’s all about.”

The stuntman
Ex-RAF Officer Tony Tomlinson lost his left leg 12 years ago during an incident while returning home from Bosnia. Since leaving
the forces, he has appeared in 22 films.

“When I get a part on a film, I know that I’m there for one reason, and one reason only, and that’s to die. I’ve been in 22 films over the past 10 years, and I’ve died 25 times on screen. But it is an extremely enjoyable experience, and I am proud to have been part of some amazing films.
I’d never really thought of a career in films when I left the forces. It came about when I was recovering in Headley Court after losing my leg. Representatives from Blesma came to see us because they were looking for amputees to appear as extras in Gladiator. We were originally sent there to be dead extras, but then the director, Ridley Scott, came to see us and said he’d like to try using us in battle scenes.
Since then, I’ve done all sorts of stunt work. I was in the series Band of Brothers – I died nine times in that. There was one particular episode when I had to be blown up by a landmine, and thrown on the front of a Willys jeep. It was a night shoot and we had to do that take 12 times. In the morning when I was getting de-rigged, Tom Hanks came up to me and thanked me for coming in at short notice, which was a brilliant experience.
My most challenging work was on Troy. We were over in Mexico shooting for six weeks, and there were two of us amputees on a 50-man stunt crew. I had to do a scene where my leg was taken off by a chariot and another where a burning wire goes into my leg.
It takes a long time to shoot those scenes. Some days I could arrive at 5am, but it’ll be 5.30pm before I’ve even been used. I don’t get bored sitting around though, because I can watch what’s going on and see how all the scenes are put together.
You get treated very well on film sets. You’re not treated as ‘just an extra’. It’s like you’re one of the team. And I’ve had the privilege to work with some amazing actors, such as Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt to name a few.
One of my ambitions is to be killed by Bond. They’ve never used disabled people on Bond films before, so it would be interesting if they used a couple amputees as bad guys.
I’ve loved having the opportunity to work on films,
it’s been a big part of my life since I left the forces and it’s very nice to have done something so positive with a negative situation.”

The costume department
Costume designer Joanna Johnston has worked on some high-profile military films, including Saving Private Ryan and, most
recently, Valkyrie.

“I have learned so much from every production that I’ve worked on, particularly the military films. I think that any time you’re dealing with military subjects – especially when they deal with events that actually happened – you feel honour bound to do the absolute best job you can to get it accurate because families of those people are still around. You owe it to them to get it right.
 My father, Lt Col Sir John Johnston, served in the 4th Battalion Grenadier Guards during World War II, and was in Normandy just after D-Day, so my work on Saving Private Ryan was in honour of him.
There’s a huge excitement factor working on a big project like that too. When we were in Ireland shooting the D-Day scene, director Steven Spielberg got some Irish Pipers to come down to the beach at the beginning of filming to help set the scene. It was terribly moving to be there. It made you realise the bravery of the veterans who did it for real.
It’s hard work doing a big scene like that, as you’ve got to get hundreds of people looking the way you want them to look. But when you see the end result, and all the different pieces of the puzzle gel together, you just think ‘wow’.
Designing a costume takes a lot of preparation because you’re creating something from top to toe, including shoes and jewellery and underwear. So if you’re working with hundreds of extras, it’s a lot of work. 
One of the challenges I had when I was working on the film Valkyrie was that I found out all the real-life officers had their uniforms made by their own tailors, so they were all slightly different; using slightly different cloth, with slightly different pocket configurations. It was a very interesting thing to research, but of course it creates a huge amount of work to track down the different materials. We had to have some woven in the end.
You can actually find a lot of original items too nowadays,  by looking around the internet and buying direct from special dealers. We used some original tunics on a couple of Valkyrie’s principle characters. It’s fascinating to find these items, but it’s also distressing, especially so with German uniforms, because there’s so much negativity associated with them. When you handle an original item you can’t help thinking, ‘Who has worn this? What have they seen? What have they done?’
One of my best finds was the boots used on Saving Private Ryan. I found a company in America that had made the American military boots during World War II, and they still had the pattern, so they made all the boots for the main actors, like Tom Hanks, to wear. They all loved the fact that their boots were exactly the same as those that were made for the men who took part in the actual D-Day landings. Those ‘reproduction’ boots have now become collectors’ items, which is rather amusing.
Every film you work on is a new experience. I’ve worked on so many different types of films, and although I don’t want to work on military films all the time – I usually do one every 10 years – I do feel very strongly about the subject, so I’ll look forward to the next one in a few years’ time!”

Dave Crossman is a freelance costume supervisor who specialises in military films. His credits include Saving Private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates.

“When I was about 16, I started working at a company called Bermans, which at the time was the world’s largest costume company. I worked in their military department for about 10 years before I went freelance, so as the years passed I acquired a rounded knowledge of the subject.
When you’re working on a major film where you need a lot of military costumes you’ve got to be more specific with your knowledge. Films tend to focus on significant historical events, so by working on them you end up knowing all sorts of things about the British, German, American and Russian armed forces. I’m particularly interested in Russia’s WWI history, mostly because the costumes are so interesting.
When it comes to accuracy, you soon find out there’s a big difference between the costumes you hire and the ones you have to make. My first huge military project was working on Saving Private Ryan with Joanna. It was so important to get all the details right, but none of the rental places had the correct costumes, so we ended up making a majority of them ourselves.
One of the toughest jobs I’ve had was on a film called Enemy at the Gates with Jude Law. It was shot in Berlin during the winter, but because we had a much smaller budget to work with, it was really stressful. You’ve got these huge deadlines you have to meet, yet you’ve got to get it all looking good in order to make the director happy.
It is a lot easier to get things accurate and looking good nowadays. Thanks to technology, anything’s possible.
For example, if I have to make a costume for a man who served in the SS in 1944, and he wore a certain type of camouflage that’s no longer available, I can now recreate it on a computer. The internet’s great too, because you can share photos and information with people from all
over the world.
I always try and make things accurate. No one’s ever going to be 100% accurate, because you’re recreating something, but you just have to work hard and keep your fingers crossed.”

The independent filmmakers
The Barmy Army Film Club started up in 1987 as a tribute to the TV series Dad’s Army. Since then they have made five independent films and built up an impressive fan base – including some
of the original Dad’s Army cast members

“It all started out as a bit of fun. A bunch of us old Dad’s Army fans were chatting in a pub in Maidstone about how it would be fun to carry on making up stories of the Home Guard’s adventures now the show had gone off air. Over two decades and five films later, we’re still going.
We’ve tried to keep the films quite lighthearted over the years because that seems to be what the public wants. Our scripts are pretty much in the spirit of Perry and Croft’s originals.
We’ve never really worked with a budget, so a good deal of scrounging goes on. For our first film we borrowed a Betacam camera from someone we knew who worked for a production company
up in Soho.
These days, we’re pulling in all sorts of specialist help from people who work in the movie industry. I’ve also learned a bit about pyrotechnics so we can start including a few bangs and crashes. We also rely on friends who know people who own period vehicles, which we like to use in the films.
We’ve also been lucky enough to get some of the original Dad’s Army cast members to star in our films. Pamela Cundell and Frank Williams were in our last film, and Colin Bean, who played Private Sponge, is our Patron. We’re hoping to focus the next film around Colin, because he’s such a great actor. It’s going to be based at an observation post overlooking Dover Harbour. We’re getting quite ambitious with this next production, because we’re hoping to feature an air raid in it too.
Things don’t always go according to plan when we’re filming. We had a problem once when we were shooting in a pub called the Dog and Gun in Maidstone. We’d taken our rifles along, and about 10 minutes after we’d gone in, the Kent firearms unit turned up. An elderly lady had phoned the police to say there was load of men with guns going in the pub. But when the police saw what we were doing, they just had a little giggle and went away again. 
We’re building up quite a fan-base now, and we’re selling
about 150 DVDs a year – not bad for a small group. Plus our diary’s already filled up until October with military and promotional events.
All our profits go to charity. We also help collect for the Poppy Appeal every year. Last year we dressed up in our WWII uniforms and took to the streets of Maidstone. We collected more than £8,000 in total. It’s going out in our costumes that helps us raise so much, because it makes us stand out.
It’s surprising, but we also appeal to the younger generations, who weren’t around when Dad’s Army was first on air. We’re always getting comments from them, like: ‘Don’t tell him your name Pike’ and ‘Stupid boy’. They seem to enjoy what we do, but that’s because, at the end of the day, it’s adults just being silly and having fun.”