Filming Begins at the Isle of Hope
As I already noted, filming was as usual out-of-sequence: the very first scenes for the soldiery were those marching through "Beaufort, S.C." and on the flat-bottomed barges that brought them there. These scenes were shot in a Savannah suburb called the
Isle of Hope. Savannah was established in 1730 by British Gov. Gen. James Oglethorpe and is perched on a bluff above the river of the same name which separated his new colony, named for King George II, from that named for King Charles,
Carolina. To the south lay the hostile Spanish in their "land of Flowers",
la Florida. For protection from the notoriously sea-faring Spanish raiders, the colony was placed inland, surrounded by swamps and marshland and numerous small "islands" which aren't really
islands at all, but marshy lowlands cut up by numerous creeks. Sometime in the mid-nineteenth century one of them,
Isle of Hope, became a ritzy suburb featuring fine homes built along a lazy canal-like stream, perfect for our setting. This will also be a perfect opportunity to talk about the uniforms and equipment our new "soldiers" were slowly becoming accustomed to.
For reasons of "economy", there were at least two levels of equipment manufactured for the film: one for close-ups; the other for what's known as the
deep background. Look carefully at the knapsacks and other equipment worn by our men in these photos above and below. For this and many other of our sequences more than merely our nominal "background company" was required: we had either two or three approximately thirty-man "companies". ( On paper at least a Civil War company was around 100 officers, NCO's, and privates. ) For this only members of the background company of Matt's and mine were fully equipped with correct accouterments; the others had the sub-standard "deep background" equipment. This consisted of things like "dummy" WOODEN cartridge boxes with non-functioning flaps; tarred canvas "leather" belts and cartridge box straps, plainly evident in these photos; and the strange-looking black cloth - not tarred canvas - "knapsacks" seen here. The "rolled blankets" atop them were nothing but grey fabric "tubes" or
pillows stuffed with something to make them resemble blanket rolls!
Naturally this is one of the ways that evident "mistakes" can find their way into a finished film; this can easily happen when more than one camera is used to capture different angles of a scene. Up by the
first unit where the actors usually are things may look fine; but a
second unit shooting from a different location or camera angle may include all that "deep background" junk. Second unit directors are concentrating on "getting the shot" and often either don't notice or know the difference in
what it is they're shooting!
The sub-standard equipment even found it's way into our background company in the form of "budget" canteens that wouldn't hold water! It seems that most of our "better" reenactment-grade uniforms and accouterments had come from the firm of
C. & D. Jarnagin who had offered the production company a "deal" on their canteens: if they would accept canteens whose metal halves had only been tacked in place rather than fully-soldered all the way around they could have them at a discount. This made good sense to the usual "bean-counter" who ordered them ( and let me stress that the Jarnagins were doing nothing to deceive anyone ), but the result was predictable. This was for February a hot day standing and marching endlessly in the sun, and our men began to feel and to show it. I went to get water for them, but the
P.A. or "production assistant" pointed me to the
craft services table; when I informed her it was not for myself but our hundred or so men, she looked puzzled and said
"But they have canteens." Happily, once I replied "
Yes, but they don't hold water!", the craft services crew soon appeared carrying large water coolers and paper cups.
Joe Covais and members of our drum corps going
"back to one" which means to return to your original position to film another "take" of the same scene .
After marching all morning, following lunch we boarded the 3 barges briefly to get the scene of their arrival in
The South; the vessel used for this was an ordinary tug or barge boat of some kind ( I forget! ), so remains unseen on screen. Afterwards, only enough of our background company members to fill the frame were used in the scene where Morgan receives his sword and chevrons as Sergeant Major, so the rest of us were left "cooling our heels" ( all that by then was
cool ) while that was filmed; thus ended this first sequence. In many ways this had been a foretaste of some of the problems that were to "rear their ugly heads" later!
Next time, we go into our first battle!