Chapter 151 Important Preparatory Tasks
After leaving the renovation task of the filming location to Sofia, little Gilbert made a special trip to Germany and Eastern Europe to see if there were any Tiger tanks here.
But unfortunately, the few remaining Tiger tanks have become museum collections and cannot be loaned to the crew for filming.
Unable to obtain a Tiger tank, Gilbert Jr. used a backup plan and obtained five old T-34 tanks, which the crew modified themselves.
There are a lot of other American armored vehicles, Sherman tanks, etc. in North America, and they can be used for shooting with simple repairs.
Not only that, because the landing craft used during World War II were basically scrapped, the crew had to entrust a local British shipbuilding company to build more than a dozen landing craft as required to participate in the filming.
Of course, there are a few close-ups of warships on the sea in the film, and Industrial Light and Magic needed to be commissioned to create special effects for this part.
However, there are very few special effects in the film. Gilbert Jr. insisted on the texture of war and used real-life shooting as much as possible to complete the production of the entire film.
Therefore, not many scenes in the film were shot in the studio, and almost all scenes were shot on location.
In order to present these textures, the crew made a lot of efforts.
At Little Gilbert's request, art director Serena Hafey and the crew's costume designers redesigned and produced 3,000 sets of U.S. and German military uniforms.
Serena Hafey also learned that the company that made military boots for the US military during World War II still existed, so she communicated with this company and specially made two thousand pairs of military boots.
Then these military boots and military uniforms are specially treated to make them appear to have been baptized by countless battles.
Because there are a lot of gunfights and blasting scenes, military-grade high-performance explosives are used, which requires the crew to ensure the safety of the actors.
During the beach renovation, Little Gilbert worked with pyrotechnician Tony Ridley and action director Luca Farias to determine where the explosives would be buried and what route the actors needed to follow.
During this period, a very interesting thing happened.
After Tom Hanks heard that Gilbert Jr. planned to use a body double for the filming, he expressed his opposition.
He said: “We trained hard with Captain Carter for a month just to be able to use him during filming.
But if a stuntman is used, the original meaning of training is lost. "
Little Gilbert explained: "Most of the scenes are performed by you yourself. Only for those dangerous scenes, substitutes will be used."
However, Tom Hanks obviously disagreed: "Danger also requires the character to experience it personally. If these dangerous scenes are performed by a substitute, how can I feel the cruelty of war?"
Having said that, movie fans go to the cinema to see me, not to see a stunt double. If a stand-in can take my place, why not let the stand-in be the protagonist? "
Tom Hanks makes a point, but the use of a double is a requirement of a third-party insurance company. The insurance company obviously doesn't want to see any actor injured, especially Tom Hanks.
But Tom Hanks persisted, and in the end his sincerity moved Gilbert Jr. and he agreed to let Tom Hanks play in person without using a stand-in.
As the biggest actor in the movie, Tom Hanks went into battle himself.
Other actors, whether for the sake of face or for other reasons, were too embarrassed to use stand-ins, and all expressed their intention to perform in person.
This puts forward higher requirements for the crew's safety and security work. With so many leading actors performing many dangerous scenes in person, it is not a trivial matter if something goes wrong.
This is not to say that the safety of stuntmen is not important, but it is less important compared to the main actors.
For example, the crew prepared six stand-ins for Tom Hanks, but these six stand-ins could only shoot some difficult action scenes and dangerous scenes before.
For other shoots, these stuntmen couldn't do it for Tom Hanks.
This is the irreplaceability of Tom Hanks. The appeal of his face, his acting skills, and his charm cannot be replaced by any actor, let alone a stuntman with no reputation.
This is obviously different from the brothers in the previous life. In the previous life, the brothers not only had stunt doubles for martial arts, but also for literary dramas.
Little Gilbert, who had just entered the film and television industry at that time, was dumbfounded when he heard for the first time that there were stand-ins in dramas and dramas.
Perhaps it is also because of this, because apart from face and fame, the brothers have no other irreplaceable value, so the replacement is so fast.
However, the sad thing is that no matter how he changes, the new brother is still the same, almost the same as the previous brother.
Most of the actors who are truly capable, have acting skills and are irreplaceable have been buried.
However, amidst this weird phenomenon in the film and television industry, there are still a group of film and television creators who insist that content is king. This is the luck of the Chinese film and television industry.
It can even be said that these people who insist on creating have reserved a spark of fire for the Chinese film and television industry in the hope that chaos can be brought back to order in the future.
Of course, all this has nothing to do with little Gilbert. He is now a Hollywood director, a pure white man, and an outsider.
Besides, Hollywood a few decades later doesn’t seem to be any better.
Little Gilbert thought that maybe in the future he could open a Weibo or something and become a friendly friend of the Chinese people.
Then he turned into a review expert on Weibo, criticizing those little traffic fans, and acted as the disciplinary committee of the entertainment industry or something like that. It's just that the status is different. At that time, little Gilbert may not have this interest.
Preparations for the movie are still going on, and the crew has made a lot of efforts in terms of props. They have found a lot of tanks, armored vehicles and personnel carriers, and if they can't find them, they have to modify them themselves.
From the beginning of the film project, the prop team began to collect and produce weapons from the World War II era, including M1 Garand rifles, Thompson submachine guns, and blasting tubes.
Tens of thousands of small equipment such as water bottles, ammunition bags, and grenades were prepared and provided to the crew for use.
Not only that, because the film also features armies from other countries, the prop team also found many weapons used by the armies of other countries, including MG-42 machine guns, Mauser 98 rifles and other weapons.
For this type of film, preparatory work is very important and cannot be careless.
What surprised little Gilbert the most was that the prop team actually found three SdKfz.2 crawler motorcycles.
This motorcycle is 3.00 meters long, 1.00 meters wide, 1.20 meters high and weighs 1.28 tons.
This size was calculated to fit into the Ju-52, the standard three-engine transport aircraft of the Luftwaffe at the time. The driver is located at the front of the vehicle, and two people can sit in the rear boat-shaped vehicle facing backward.
This motorcycle is equipped with an Olympia four-cylinder liquid-cooled gasoline engine and can reach a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour on flat ground. However, due to the limited fuel tank capacity, the maximum range is 260 kilometers.
Even so, this motorcycle is still a good infantry carrier that can adapt to a variety of terrains. The disadvantage is that it is expensive and the maintenance cost is relatively high, so the output is relatively small.
So it was not easy for the prop team to get these three motorcycles. When they found these three motorcycles, they were gathering dust in the warehouse!
The owner of the warehouse said it was left behind by his grandfather's generation, and he planned to sell the scrap metal.
When the prop team saw that the repairs were still usable, they immediately bought the three motorcycles.
It is worth mentioning that Tom Hanks likes to collect items such as old military vehicles and motorcycles. He requested that these three motorcycles be sold to him first after the filming.
Little Gilbert waved his hand and said: "Don't say it's sold, there is no need to pay, the crew will give it to you directly."
This made Tom Hanks smile.
At the beginning of preparations, little Gilbert knew that the scale of this film was quite large.
Unlike "The Island", which can be rated PG-13, this film has an R rating at the minimum.
In his previous life, Spielberg once said that even if the film was rated NG-17, he would not accept the deletion of the film.
Fortunately, little Gilbert doesn't have such troubles. After all, the three giants behind this film are powerful enough, so it is not a problem to set it as R-rated.
Of course, R-rated films have a certain impact on the film's box office performance.
But little Gilbert felt that this film could even replicate the glory of its previous life.
Considering that there should be no "Shakespeare in Love" to compete with this film, and no Harvey Weinstein to do public relations, making a difference at the Oscars is not a problem.
During the preparation of "Saving Private Ryan", "The Island" also passed its final days in North American theaters. The film took in a box office of 223 million US dollars in North America, setting a new North American box office record for Gilbert Jr.'s personal director career.
The most important thing is that the new summer movies "Batman: The Undefeated", "Apollo 13", "Pocahontas" and other works have no hope of surpassing the box office of "The Island".
The most promising "Toy Story" was released in October, but animated films have not been very strong at the box office. There are very few animated films with a box office of more than 200 million US dollars in North America.
Animated movies like "The Lion King" are accidents within accidents.
The profit focus of animated movies has always been peripherals, so it can be said that "The Island" is the North American annual box office champion.
In addition, the film performed very well overseas, and together with the North American box office, it accumulated US$571 million.
Although it has also come to the end of the screening and there is no hope of breaking through the 600 million box office, this result is enough to satisfy everyone.
In this way, little Gilbert is very likely to win his first North American box office champion and global box office champion. In the remaining time period, it will be very difficult to come up with a challenger.
It's a pity to say that although little Gilbert has produced five movies in five years, he has never won the annual box office championship.
Only by dominating the box office charts in a certain year can Little Gilbert be qualified to be compared with the top directors in Hollywood.
The crew of "Saving Private Ryan" held a simple opening ceremony in Los Angeles. The crew members congratulated Gilbert Jr. in advance on winning his first box office championship.
However, little Gilbert himself has a very peaceful mentality. For him, no matter what achievements he has made, they are all in the past tense. He will always focus on what he is doing and what he will do in the future.
Just lying on the credit book and recalling the glory of the past will make people stop moving forward. Little Gilbert does not want this.
I wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day. Those who have a lover will have a happy day, and those who don't have a lover will find their special someone soon. Come on...
(End of this chapter)