The Mohican Board! [Bumppo's Redux!] - Twenty Years Ago, July 1991

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LAST OF THE MOHICANS

The Last of the Mohicans ...

Twenty Years Ago, July 1991 - "Albany"

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James N.
Colonial Militia

USA

Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
October 24 2007

Status: offline

Posted - July 07 2011 : 12:34:34 PM

Feeling recovered from my bout with what was probably a touch of food poisioning, I returned on July 1 with Dale Fetzer to the Ashville Firefighters Camp to meet our new bunch of reenactors. We organized them into companies and put them through the rudiments of Humphrey Bland's exercises in preparation for the next day or so filming the Albany sequences at the old Manor House Inn and the Biltmore Estate. I was more interested than previously because I was finally going to be in uniform! The first day filming these scenes, July 2, we were at both locations, being bussed to Biltmore after our lunch break.

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My first day filming as a British private.

It had been decided that our so-called Ambush Core Group of 28 were the only British soldiers trained well enough to dependably MOVE on-camera for the shot they wanted. The final action consisted, as I've briefly described elsewhere, of what's called a tracking shot, whereby the camera is positioned on a little cart pulled along miniature rails. This "track" was laid parallel to the front of the hundred-plus Redcoats, who stood at attention as the camera passed left-to-right; arriving on the right end of the formation, it filmed our company as it marched forward onto the line. Once in position, the entire formation on command "Made Ready", "Presented", "Fired" a volley, and returned to the position of "Ready". Meanwhile, Major Heyward's coach trotted across the background. Stephen Waddington was NOT inside for any of this, which was all filmed by the Second Unit and directed by stunt coordinator Mickey Gilbert in a large meadow at some distance from any of Biltmore's structures. Unfortunately, this complete scene, designed to show the massed firepower of a typical European regiment, was consigned to the proverbial "cutting room floor".

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I later spen an entire off day touring Biltmore Estate.

Following a two-day pause ( for US at least ) we were again at the Manor House Albany set. This time I actually got to wear a serjeant's uniform and be the color bearer for the company of the 60th Foot! Most of our time was spent standing around in formation, since at this point in filming they didn't want any of us getting the brand-new uniforms DIRTY, but there was also a lot of marching to and fro in the background of various scenes, mainly of Heyward's carriage as it pulled up in front of Webb's headquarters. The only part of me visible in the finished film is my fluttering flag, seen as we march AWAY from the camera!

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As Color Serjeant on the Albany set; the heavily-laced wool tunic was pretty warm for a sunny July day!

The "Albany" set was one of the more clever I saw while working on Mohicans. Built I think in the 1920's or 30's the Manor House Inn was a "tourist court" designed to resemble a little European-style villiage. It had fallen out-of-fashion with tourists and was conveniently standing vacant in a pleasant older mostly residential neighborhood and was in danger of being torn down. The set designers had done a wonderful job of adding various "Dutch"-looking false-fronts onto some of the buildings while the set decorators dressed it out convincingly as a REAL villiage. ( On one of the designs displayed in the production office there was even included a WINDMILL - unfortunately, that never made it to the finished set! ) There were also appropriate "villiagers" and livestock scattered throughout. I remember Albany as a pleasant oasis prior to beginning the ordeal of nighttime filming at the Ft. William Henry set which began July 17 and continued for the remainder of the month.

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