How would you recreate the massive Normandy D-Day assault on Omaha Beach with three actors, a green screen, some old military gear and sophisticated editing software?
Note how the green screen is used to be able to key it out with a transparent layer (or three) underneath. Also note how they used one clip and overlaid it on itself again and again in different positions to make a huge source.
Background music helps although I don't necessarily like the one they used here, Try the final scenes without and then with the sound. Makes a big difference.
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Climbing the real cliff at Point de Hoc, Normandy
I was stationed about 2 hours drive from the Normandy beaches from Nov 65 to Oct 66.
Four young Air Force Lieutenants drove to Point de Hoc on June 6, 1966 and were astounded by the difficulties that the Rangers had in climbing its overhanging cliff, with German soldiers shooting down at them and dropping grenades while the rangers climbed up ropes to assault the hill.The Rangers were scheduled to arrive while it was dark, but the Navy boat-driver misjudged the current and they landed an hour late.When they got to the top, they discovered that the big guns - that could blow up the transport ships up before the landing craft could be deployed - had never arrived. They were stalled 100 miles away by bomb-damaged railroad tracks.
The locals were nice to us during our tour in France, but I sensed resentment from many, who somehow felt that their honor had been hurt by having been invaded by the Germans, then being occupied by the Allies. Not long after our Normandy visit, DeGaulle decided to withdraw from NATO, and kicked us out of France.
I worked in San Jose with a soldier who jumped into Normandy at age 17. He said that the Band of Brothers was a good story,but Saving Private Ryan showed a lot more of the reality & insanity of the invasion. He got wounded three times, and credits his third wound for saving his life, since he got sent back to England, missing the Battle of the Bulge, where most of his unit was killed.