Chapter 147: Essential
After staying in Dublin for just two days, Mrs. Leah flew to London. The 1995 annual runway show wasn't just a first in the history of Victoria's Secret; it was their most important event since the Super Bowl halftime show. As the advertising and planning agency, Santa Fe had far too much preliminary work to handle.
After seeing his mother off, Duke buried himself in his work, completely forgetting about his plan to invite Sophie Marceau from the neighboring set out for a drink. Even though his abilities as a director were growing stronger, his focus on the profession had not diminished in the slightest.
In mid-December, the temperature in Ireland plummeted to around fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. Set construction and some preparatory work were still ongoing, but Duke announced the official start of filming anyway, as the beach set was fully ready.
This was the largest-scale shoot Duke had undertaken since entering the film industry, surpassing even some of the battlefield scenes in Independence Day.
Out on the water, across the beach, and behind the coastal fortifications, massive crowds of people swarmed the area. Counting the props, makeup, wardrobe, and other crew members, the total number of people involved in shooting this sequence exceeded 2,000. It was a severe test of Duke's organizational skills.
Fortunately, those 2,000 people would never appear in the same frame. Even for the shots featuring hundreds of soldiers, only a few live actors in the very front were physically present; the rest would have their backgrounds added or replaced using CGI in post-production. Furthermore, this wasn't a single continuous take. Various montage techniques were more than enough to solve many of the filming challenges.
Of course, the shoot wasn't without its difficulties. The waters around the British Isles were far from calm this time of year. The large ships the crew had rented held up fine, but the landing craft rocked violently on the waves, making many people intensely uncomfortable. While the resulting shots of men vomiting looked remarkably authentic, it also wasted a considerable amount of time.
The troops loaned by the Irish government fared a bit better. Despite being an army unit, they were rigorously trained. The actors playing the American GIs, however—led by Tom Hanks—were a different story. Aside from a few with exceptionally strong adaptability, almost all of them threw up violently.
Standing in a tent beneath the German fortifications, Duke stared at the monitor. It played the footage John Schwartzman had compiled from the various camera assistants, capturing the genuine pre-battle reactions of the US Military soldiers packed inside the landing craft.