By Chris Saunders (Space_Cowboy) (195.92.168.172) on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 04:31 pm:

This is a general shout out to see if anyone who lives in the UK managed to get work experience on Band of Brothers like I did, or if anyone was an extra. It would be good to trade experiences.

Chris

By leanne clarke (Lan) (195.93.48.177) on Monday, February 17, 2003 - 05:00 pm:

i didnt but i was interested in what you did whilst you were there?
i would of loved to have been there with them, it must of been such an honour. did you meet n e of the men?
how did you get to go there for your work experience?

lan

By Chris Saunders (Space_Cowboy) (195.92.194.18) on Monday, February 17, 2003 - 07:07 pm:

It took a lot of pestering and letter writing to get on, but I managed to get a position working in the special effects department for two weeks as it was part of my college course. At first I didn't recognise the actors so familiarly as I do now. I had no idea who people like Ron Livingston or Donnie Wahlberg were. I recognised David Schwimmer & Dexter Fletcher from their past work, but the rest were a mystery to me.

When I first arrived at the filming complex, I had no idea on what the series was about, except that it was being produced by Steven Speilberg & Tom Hanks and was something similar to Saving Private Ryan. I met Joss Williams (the SFX co-ordiantor, his name is on the opening credits) and the rest of the SFX crew. Some had worked on Saving Private Ryan and had presumably been re-hired for the previous experience. Others had worked on James Bond & other action movies.

During the first week, I was mainly a gopher. I mainly assisted different members with their tasks, like preparing blood bags for bullet hits, helping to wire up the clothing for the hits & other minor duties (e.g. clearing up, getting the teas in). The best SFX project I asisted on was used in a stunt for Episode 3 - Carentan (which was being shot on the external sets while I was there). In the battle scene near the end, their is a bit where a soldier gets crushed by a tank. Our job was to make it look like the soldier was getting crushed without actually killing him. The idea we came upon was that a box could be constructed that would safely press the soldier into the box when the tank rolled over. Apparently the idea had been succesfully used before on a previous film, so we knew it was technically sound. The problem was what to put in the box. We settled on a mixture of foam padding & flexible wooden decking. It was my job to help do this and cut & sanded the wooden decking segments meant to support the stuntman. I never got to see the stunt being performed live as it was outside of my working slot time, but I know from what I heard (& evntually saw) that it was a success.

On the second week, I was allowed to visit the sets. The first thing I saw was a brief scene from 'Carentan' where Compton waves men across a road. The second was where Lipton runs up the outside stairs of the building (where my SFX collegues were firing dust pellets to simulate missed bullet hits striking the building). Later that day, came the big scene where More & another soldier set up their machine gun out of a window & fire on fleeing Germans running across a lake. We were tasked with setting up small pyrotechnic charges to explode in the lake to look like bullet hits. The scene took three takes & each time the SFX team was tasked with wading out into the lake & re-planting the charges. I was given the task of this on one of the takes & learnt how to wire them up correctly. It's always interesting to see something you've just delicately handled being blown up!

Then came the big one. I was hoping to see Tom Hanks or Steven Speilberg sometime during my work experience, but had so far not seen them. Then one day, I was told that they needed a couple of extra hands on the set used for interior scenes & I was drafted in. As we drove up to the set (it was a big set & got around by trucks & buggys) I was told that although Steven was not in the UK (doh!), Tom Hanks was and was directing the episode being filmed on the interior set (Episode 5 - Crossroads). Before going in, I was told not to gawp at him (he doesn't like that apparently). We went in & there he was. He was talking through a scene with Damien Lewis & Ron Livingston (although I didn't know who they were at the time). A lot of the time I was waiting around as they shot some of the scenes. The scenes they were shooting were the bits where Winters is in his cabin writing his report. In fact if you'd have taken the wall away where Winters foot locker is, that's where I was standing. While they were filming, I was given the chance to look at the script. Therefore I managed to get a sneak peek at the whole episode. The best moment came when I was called onto the set to assist the SFX guy connect up a small stove used within the scenes. As it was a real stove it had to be connected up right, so I had to go into the enclosed room of the cabin and hold it steadily while the SFX guy connected it up. While he was doing this, Tom Hanks, Damien Lewis & Ron Livingston walked onto the set and began discussing the Nix/Winters footlocker scene. I couldn't believe it! There I was standing like an idiot trying to help with this stove while 5 metres behind me Tom Hanks, Damien Lewis & Ron Livingston where chatting away about the scene. It was the best thing I have ever experieneced! Another cool thing that happened that day was when I was getting a cup of tea (all the crew where well looked after & catered for) & Ron Livingston came up to me and asked if we had any ice, thinking I was from the kitchen or something. Luckily one of the floor managers saw me in distress (I was mumbling away like an idiot 'Um...I don't know...maybe the kitchen has some?') and got on the case. Phew!

The last thing I saw being filmed was on the last day and was the scene in which Father Maloney was walking down the street giving the last rights while Malarkey & Muck run by him (Malarkey says something about the luck of the Irish). This scene was not shown in the original BBC airing (which was annoying as I spent the whole episode trying to find it), but is included in the full feature length version on video/DVD. In the background a telegraph pole is blown up & knocked down, which was the main SFX contribution. We could only do the shot right once, as it would have meant re-building the telephone pole again, so after a practice run (where we didn't blow it up), we shot it and blew up the pole. Everything worked out fine, the days filming was wrapped and so ended the best two weeks of my life.

It was a great joy to watch it all again on TV and recognise the scenes that I had been involved in. I had also read the book before the series was aired and enjoyed reading the crossroads part of the book, as I had already read the story in the script I had looked at.

Hope this gives you some idea of the fun I had.

Chris

By leanne clarke (Lan) (195.93.33.12) on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 04:03 pm:

did you get to bring any goodies back with you to keep.

i would have loved to have gone there, worship everything about bob!!!!

did you talk to any other of the actors.

i cant believe you saw donnie wahlberg, i would do anythng fr that man, i worship him so so so so so much.

you were so lucky

lan

By Chris Saunders (Space_Cowboy) (194.80.208.72) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 04:26 am:

I didn't get to take any props back as a lot of stuff had to be accounted for at the end of the day.

Apart from Ron Livingston & the ice incident, I didn't get to speak to the actors as most of the time they were busy filming or practicing the scene and I was doing random SFX jobs.

Oh well, never mind.

Chris

By Melissa Clay (Melissa2800) (66.166.47.71) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 01:24 pm:

WOW!!!
Chris, you are a lucky bloke!!(I assume you are British)
What a great experience, first to learn new things plus be a part of making a movie about an important part of history.
I was an extra in one of the "Major League" movies which were filmed in our city a couple of years ago. I didn't have any lines, I was in the stadium just sitting there.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Melissa

By Chris Saunders (Space_Cowboy) (195.92.168.171) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 03:19 pm:

Indeed I am British, Melissa (the lucky bloke thing is dead right). I live in St Albans, which is a few miles south of Hatfield where Band of Brothers was filmed, so it was easy to get there each day. However, I still had to get up early as I was doing 8am-6pm shifts (very tiring!), but in the end it was worth it.

Chris

By keith suvara (Keith) (194.128.29.93) on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 12:50 pm:

Just thought I'd revive this thread, as I found out an interesting little bit of information the other day. Apparently another person doing work experience on Band of Brothers was one Euan Blair. Son of Tony. Useless info really, but interesting I thought.

By Gareth Bennett-Ryan (Garethgazz) (213.107.184.123) on Monday, September 29, 2003 - 07:43 am:

Yeah i heard that it was part of the deal for letting them film here? Can't remember where i heard it though.

By Chris Saunders (Space_Cowboy) (195.92.194.14) on Sunday, December 14, 2003 - 07:11 pm:

Sorry Guys. I haven't checked up on this category for months. As for Euan Blair working on set, i'm pretty sure he wasn't there when I was. More info in this news article: -

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/content_objectid=13274906_method=full_siteid=106694_headline=-HARRY-IT-UP--EUAN--name_page.html

Chris
UK

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