We are on the set of Saints & Soldiers: The Void, and with me here are Ray and Randy, two of the historical consultants.
You two probably know more about the military history side than anybody else here on the set.
Randy, you're the German one, and Ray, I presume you're American.
Correct.
So what are your backgrounds?
My background really is that I've studied this stuff for years and years. I have a company that manufactures vintage military gear and wardrobe.
I provide canvas gear for Band of Brothers, for Windtalkers, for a lot of feature films.
And I've known Ryan for many years, so we've worked together on a lot of projects.
Some of the extras are, as you described,
thy are just young guys from around here that have become aware of the film in some way and have been invited to come up as extras.
Probably the majority of the players in these films, in the Saints films, are people that do have that passion for WWII history.
So, a lot of them are coming with their own uniforms, and their own gear and knowledge base.
And they look forward to these films, an it's generally highly regarded in the history community
as having an authentic texture that you can't really put your finger on why it's different,
but there's a little element of authenticity in the Saints films that people really appreciate.
You gotta have some good stories, I bet.
Good stories? I got some of those. I got some not so good ones as well.
I have personally observed, over the last 15-20 years of interfacing with the public, that the basic knowledge has risen dramatically.
People can walk up to this tank now and know that it's a Panzer III, and they know that because of playing many of the WWII games.
There's this one game in particular called World of Tanks.
I've played it enough to know that it would be way too fun, and it's where I'd probably spend the rest of my days.
I started playing and I just got super addicted.
We've trained actors to shoot who've never had experience with firearms, but they'll play a video game
and I'll say, "you take the M1 Garand and you load it like this."
"Yeah, I've seen this before, I've done it a million times."
So I got in the tank my first day, and I'm just surrounded by all these gears and levers and pulleys.
And all of a sudden we start rolling. We're filming, right?
And I'm like "aw yeah!", just playing with stuff. And all of a sudden the turret just goes *jerrrrr* "Whoa whoa whoa whoa!"
So, I almost knocked out a few gaffers and cameramen doing that, so that was interesting.
Eventually I was like "Hey guys, y'know.. we should probably get a y'know... lesson"
Have either of you two been around armor before?
Nah.
No, not really.
It's very unforgiving, we've found out.
Yeah
Well, especially you as the loader. I presume you get to slam a couple of rounds in.
Yeah, I do get to slam a few.
Show us your hands.
You're still good. Alright.
Just on the down time, have they let you play on the vehicles.
Oh yeah, 100%. We've been riding around on the tanks, sitting on the cannon, y'know. It was cool. It was really, really cool.
How do I look like I'm comfortable in that thing?
Yeah...
And, as we figured out, you don't!
You just deal with it, you know? You get in. You get your bruises. You know where you're going to get your bruises, and what's going to hurt.
And that's kind of part of it, you know?
The secret to working in a tank with a bunch of guys?
Fresh mint.
You gotta chew some of this stuff, so you don't offend anyone with your halitosis.
Every time we go to fire a tank or move a tank, we always have a little contingency plan. Because it might take longer than we'd like it to.
But in the end we always get what we want.
Yeah, it definitely takes longer.
Resetting an actor: fairly simple. "Hey, go back to one." Resetting a tank: a little bit more of an intensive process.
Yeah, and they can be moody, just like any actor.
They can not want to come out and play for a while, they can take a while to get started, to get them out where you need them.
Because we had been around the collectors, we had seen the vehicles run, we had seen them fire, we had been in them, had been taken on drives
and really saw their limitations, we wrote the script based off of what they could and could not do.
So, we actually... I think we've done everything we wanted to do. When you're moving around, you're gonna fire this thing, it's gonna be really loud, it's gonna be frightening.
You just imagine what it would be like, and I think the audiences will get a taste of that for themselves
and at the same time tell a good story that has something to take away for people.
OK, so you play a German woman.
A German woman, yes. A German woman whose husband has escaped from the German military.
Along comes this imposing force. My character's purpose in the overall scheme of things is just to indicate the kind of character
that you've got with Atwood and Sims, and the kind of people they are.
Because here there's this young family in a really desperate situation, and they obviously have control and power.
And so I think it really gives some insight into their characters, about how they treat us.
They could decide to become violent or brutal or they could be like animals, but they decide not to.
And that's what is important to us, is to show that you can still keep your humanity, even in the middle of war.
It's always the same story for the negro.
First your country, then your rights.
So we fight our country's battles
but we never seem to get the rights.
Guys! There's a tank coming!
Hey, we got Germans on the left!
If we want a fighting chance, it's gonna have to be you and I up there.
Sims, you gonna do this or not?