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 - Fort William Henry

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James N.
Colonial Militia

USA

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

Status: offline

Posted - July 22 2011 : 5:03:29 PM

Most of this month twenty years ago is little more than a blur, mainly because the balance of it, from July, 17 through the end of the month was spent in all-night filming. On my first weekend off, Saturday I got "off" at 7AM, and slept soundly until 3PM! I still managed to visit a few historical sites in the area, mainly on Sundays, including in northern South Carolina the Waxhaws, where Tarleton's Green Dragoons slaughtered the 3d Va. Rgt., plus birthplaces of "Frontier" presidents Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk.

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Photo taken shortly before dusk and the beginning of a night of filming by Mickey Gilbert, head of Stunts.

As I've said before, night shooting is horrible because of the havoc it plays with your system and consciousness. Because of the many nighttime scenes taking place in and around the fort, we spent 14 full nights spread out over a period of over three weeks and into August. We began with Hawkeye and company entering the fort under siege by the French, and proceeded with the mainly British scenes inside the walls. On some nights virtually the entire group would be instead the French besieging the fort. The night of the "Sortie/Heyward's Diversion", we split, some as French and others British Grenadiers.

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Despite the poor, blurry quality of this photo, it was taken from atop the wall of the fort by someone now unknown and actually shows the Sortie being filmed! Looking down toward the moat, it shows the British Grenadiers in the foreground, firing away from the camera at the French, who appear as the indistinct gray shapes near the top of the picture. ( I'm a French officer SOMEWHERE behind them. ) The large silvery rectangular object surrounded by members of the camera and lighting crew at the far right is a reflector, amplifying the light of the muzzle flashes.

A word about the fort set itself, to correct something I've read here in the forum: It was NOT complete on all four sides! ONLY the two on the lake side were fully faced with logs - if you walked around the side with the main gate it resembled nothing so much as a modern construction site: all commercial milled-lumber support beams and braces; that explains how easy it was to knock it all down afterward! It was sturdy for what it was: a temporary structure. ( The ORIGINAL was made of entire solid logs, not planed-down facings; and was filled between them with a LOT of packed-earth left from digging the moat, not HOLLOW! ) Many of the building interiors were the same unfinished lumber; only those used as sets had completed interiors.

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This photo of the fort interior shows just how "temporary" it all looked, the impression increased by the roofless state of the barracks. ( That reflected that during the actual siege, the shingles had been removed as being highly combustable. ) One set piece that actually appears in the French siege lines is a replica hot shot furnace, a large "iron" box ( probably made of fibreglass ) on wheels, an "oven" in which solid iron cannonballs were heated red-hot before being fired into wooden roofs, walls, etc. The lack of roofs on the set posed a problem, due to the frequent RAIN - that's what the HUGE green tarp visible in the background was for!

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Fitzhugh Williams
Mohicanland Statesman