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James N.
Colonial Militia
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
October 24 2007
Status: offline
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 Posted - May 25 2011 : 3:11:57 PM
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I have previously told how I'd been hired by Dale Fetzer for the production in April of 1991. While looking back among some of my papers from that time, I found several items of interest, beginning with this letter making the offer "official". More importantly, I found a roster of those of us who served as Dale's Military Core Group. There are 27 names, categorized according to whether we were employed by Dale ( 15 reenactors ) or directly by Michael Mann's Forward Pass Productions ( 12 locals ). From other details, it would seem this dates from about the time we were "in training" at the Firefighters' Camp prior to the beginning of filming. I would like to share these names of the men I worked directly with on the production as follows:
Reenactors working for Dale Fetzer included Gary Foreman, Steve Wannall, Dave Jurgella, Paul Rogers, Guy Musgrove, Brian Kempner, Tony Gerard, Dave Bonesteel, Jack Steblinski, James Permaine, Howard Mitchell, Michael Breza, Eric Chung, Jon Igou, and myself. I had worked previously with several of these on productions like Alamo - the Price of Freedom and Glory, notably Foreman, Permaine, and Jurgella. Tony Gerard's girlfriend came along as an "extra" and was hired by the production company as the "food stylist", preparing the several authentic meals seen onscreen! Locals hired as part of our background company were James Quinn, John Crowe, David Duncan, Ben Kinkaid, Eric Hurley, Scott Stephenson, Zachary Bryenton, Derk Alexander, Curtis Gaston, Tommy Cummings, William Boyer, and Charles Thomas. Readers of the forum will of course recognize Gaston and Hurley as Soldier 1 and Soldier 2; Crowe and Duncan were brothers or half-brothers actually from England, complete with British accents! This is how we looked right before any filming when we first donned British uniforms prior to the "Ambush Scene":
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Unfortunately I can only identify a few of these now: front row from the left are Dave Jurgella, James Permaine is the drummer, Curtis Gaston is center - others I've forgotten; Dale Fetzer ( who was never in uniform during actual filming ) is at far left in the 2d row; Charles Thomas is centered on the steps immediately behind Gaston; Tony Gerard is on the landing immediately beside the ubiquitous Dale Dye, posturing in the green beret. Three months ( and a lot of sweat and some blood! ) later, this is how part of the survivors looked at Massacre Valley:
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Reclining at left, Charles Thomas; 2d row kneeling from left, James Neel, Eric Hurley, ?, ?, Curtis Gaston at right; in back row, Guy Musgrove with flag, and James Permaine at far right. Several members of our group eventually recieved memorable scenes or bits themselves: since Jurgella, Gerard, and Hurley were all balding, they were the unfortunates who were made up with wigs and "blood" as scalping victims in the "Ambush" scene; Permaine is drummer in the same scene, and much later it is to him that Hawkeye and Charles Thomas are chained as "prisoners"; and Hurley and Gaston "soldiered on" after the rest of the military were gone, in the "Canoes" and "Cave" sequences. Upon completion of Dye's notorious "Boot Camp", several of us were awarded these "comissions" as NCO's in his little "army":
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Notice that the titles we're supposedly "promoted" to are the lowest possible NCO rank; in fact Gunner and Principal musician are positions rather than ranks! Only Dye himself is accorded officer's "rank" as Captain.
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Fitzhugh Williams
Mohicanland Statesman
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
July 17 2005
Status: offline
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Posted - May 25 2011 : 4:18:14 PM
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| So Tony Gerard was one of the group. I never knew that, or at least it blew right past me if I heard it. I know him well. From Fort Toulouse and Fort Loudoun. |
"Les deux pieds contre la muraille et la tete sous le robinet" |
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James N.
Colonial Militia
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
October 24 2007
Status: offline
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Posted - May 25 2011 : 7:33:14 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Fitzhugh Williams
So Tony Gerard was one of the group. I never knew that, or at least it blew right past me if I heard it. I know him well. From Fort Toulouse and Fort Loudoun.
He seemed a very fine fellow, and was quite handsome after makeup got him properly "wigged-out"! His girlfriend, whose name I've unfortunately forgotten ( but is listed in the film credits as Food Stylist! ), was likewise great and entertaining to work/visit with. They were among the very few reenactors working on the film who actually "belonged" in the period. My only complaint concerning Tony was that, being younger and maybe a bit idealistic, he failed to recognize what a charlatain Dye was! |
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Fitzhugh Williams
Mohicanland Statesman
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
July 17 2005
Status: offline
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Posted - May 26 2011 : 10:19:01 PM
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| A few years ago I watched Tony do a first-person presentation of the Cherokee removal/Trail of Tears from the viewpoint of a common soldier charged with moving them. He did quite a job! I saw Capt. Dale on a History Channel show about the Seminole Wars. He described how to load a musket. I have fired thousands of rounds and seen others fire many more thousands, and never once have I seen anyone load, then prime. But Capt. Dale said that was the way it was done. |
"Les deux pieds contre la muraille et la tete sous le robinet" |
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James N.
Colonial Militia
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
October 24 2007
Status: offline
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Posted - May 27 2011 : 11:26:43 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Fitzhugh Williams
I saw Capt. Dale on a History Channel show about the Seminole Wars. He described how to load a musket. I have fired thousands of rounds and seen others fire many more thousands, and never once have I seen anyone load, then prime. But Capt. Dale said that was the way it was done.
Although I suppose that a longhunter carrying a separate priming flask could do it that way, I see NO way to do it with a conventional paper cartridge. This is a PERFECT example of Dye's SOP: Get someone else to tell and show you how to do it, then go on camera and PRETEND you know what you're talking about and that YOU "know" how to do it! After about a week in his vaunted "training camp" he gave us a little talk on soldiering during the French and Indian War - it was then that Fetzer and I, and probably others as well, began to realize he didn't know any more than WE did. I say that because as mainly Civil War reenactors many of us knew little about this period. We soon deduced he'd studied little or nothing about Humphrey Bland's 1750's "system" of maneuvers Fetzer had previously decided to use or black powder artillery. He depended on others like us to be his "cat's paw" and do that for him, but was ALWAYS ready to take credit for their work!
Unlike most of the reenactors, Dye had little interest in the project at hand ( and none in the period! ) and was mainly interested in using the experience as a stepping stone to promote and further his fledgling "military consultation" company. His "boot camp" approach might've been useful to "whip into shape" Hollywood types with no background in a military setting, as in Platoon or more recently Band of Brothers, but for reenactors used to thinking and working within another period it would be of questionable value. Maybe the Asheville locals in our group were impressed with Dye's approach, but as I've stated before, the main benefit lay in the MONTH of extra work and the pay it generated!
Dale Fetzer was perfectly capable of performing every function that Dye took over after shouldering him out of the picture. He did so previously on Glory and later on Gettysburg, and without Dye's domineering attitude. It appeared to us that Dye had NO friends on set and was mainly a loner type, isolated in his position of authority, whereas Fetzer is a "Hail-fellow-well-met" personality who seeks cooperation instead of domination through which to achieve his goals. However, it's possible Dye did Fetzer one favor though, by becoming the sole conduit between us and the equally insufferable Mann and his toady Waxman! |
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The Movie's Reenactor "Military Core"
