"There were a great majority of the guys who were..." "... whatyou"djustcallgood soldiers." "You could depend on them." "They were always there." "These kids were from farms." "They weren"t paratrooping guys." "They wanted to be the best, to look and do their job the best." "It hadn"t been done before." "You"re dropped at 1 000 feet..." "... whichmeansif anything goes wrong, you die." "Once you"ve assessed the situation and how dangerous it is..." "... andthenyougoanddosomething, that"s true courage." "These guys were everything to each other." "In a way, they were more than family." "It is a story of courage and comradeship endurance and sacrifiice." "Executive producers, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and HBO re-create the true story of Easy Company an elite WWII parachute infantry regiment in the epic miniseries Band of Brothers..." "...based on the best-selling book by Stephen Ambrose." "They followed one group, from them signing up to the end of the war." "They were in Normandy on D-Day, fought in Holland..." "... andwerein theBattleoftheBulge." "Very well-chronicled all the way." "The massive production spanned three years and cost over $ 1 20 million." "Primarily shooting on an 1 1 00-acre back lot in Hatfiield, England." "A 1 2-acre village set was continually modifiied  to portray 1 1 different European locations." "It"s five times bigger than what we had on Saving Private Ryan." "We"re in Aldbourne and Upottery in England, France, Normandy, Holland." "We"re in Bastogne." "We"re all over the place." "The costume department provided 2000 German and American uniforms including 500 pairs of Corcoran jump boots." "Twelve hundred civilian costumes were authentic vintage clothing." "On our project..." "... everydepartmenthas the best people you can find." "It"s a first-rate production facility for re-creating the past..." "... aswellas thenextgeneration of special effects..." "... andcomputer-generatedeffects." "In some ways, it"s intimidating, but it"s also incredibly fun." "1 0,000 extras worked on the miniseries, which featured 500 speaking roles." "Everybody in this had the role as soon as they walked through the door." "We had this fabulous session where we said:" """Let"s see how they relate to each other in different roles. """ "Steven operated the camera, and Tom staged the action..." "... andwewouldmix and match different roles." "Steven was down with his video camera, filming." "He asked me and another guy:" """When you say that line, can you move this way a little?""" "We said sure, and the scene started." "Before you knew it was over, we were being shuffled out." "And the guy said to me:" """Did I just get directed by Spielberg?"" l says, ""Yeah. """ "Senior military advisor, Capt. Dale Dye, served as a watchdog for military accuracy and trained the cast in a 1 0-day, actor boot camp." "When they portrayed something, when the director said, ""You"re exhausted"" ..." "... or" "You"refrightened,"" they would have something." "Some sort of understanding of what exhaustion and fear mean to a soldier." "I wanted them to know that." "There"s no way to do it but to put them in that position." "You"re in barracks with the guys." "The barracks smell like feet." "I remember going, ""l"m never gonna make these 1 0 days. """ "Boot camp 's exhaustive 1 8-hour days  were fiilled with physical training and military drills." "Hold your fire!" "There!" "Behind the house!" "I want concentrated bursts of fire." "Don"t waste ammo!" "Go, runner, go." "Get them round the side as well." "We have somebody in here on the left-hand side." "See who he is." "He"s in a black coat." "Got him?" "Lipton, come with me." "Private, get a weapon on this guy." "Capt. Dye can tear you down..." "... makeyourealize what you need to do..." "... andthenbringyou rightback up within a sentence." """Now just shut up. "" Then you"d go do your thing and he goes:" """Sgt. Luz." "Earn them stripes. """ "1940s-style jump training included jumping from a 40-foot-high plane fuselage mockup." "So we climb up this tower." "Some little woman walks up to me..." "... andputstwolittlehooks around my waist." "She"s like, ""Okay, you"re safetied in. """ """What do you mean?" "I"m not safetied in. """ "She"s like, ""Go! "" ""l"m not safetied--! """ "I jump off, "" 1 -1 000, 2--"" What the hell is that?" "The worst was sleeping in sleeping bags." "It was colder inside them than being outside." "Guys took off their socks to give others to stay warm." "You"d give your jacket to someone else." "You hit walls in boot camp." "These personal, mental, physical walls you have to go over." "Some guys, the first night, cried themselves to sleep." "We were there for each other." "I came out of the boot-camp experience doing anything for these guys." "We became soldiers." "When I went into boot camp, I thought I was ready." "When I left, I felt like a different person." "It"s like you did something no one could take away." "The same way that no one could take away what Easy Company has done." "To be a paratrooper in WWll, it was experimental and elite." "It was the first time it was being done." "Their job was unique in that they were dropped out of planes." "They had to be, in essence, one-man armies." "They had to bring everything with them." "Just the thought of being dropped in the middle of enemy territory..." "... surroundedonallfoursides..." "... knowingthatthere"sgonnabe no help, it"s just you." "There"s a grit and a resolve they had to just never quit." "It was beat into them at boot camp, and they wouldn"t quit then." "It prepared them." "They didn"t quit under the most dire conditions..." "... that,really, any soldiers could"ve faced." "There was a scene at a crossroad, where we surprise Germans." "And it"s just about a hundred Germans running away." "Then they start firing at us." "We"re popping off clips, having to reload." "Another German platoon storms down this hill and attacks." "All of a sudden, this riverbed just explodes." "All the way down." "The ground"s shaking." "I remember when I was reloading..." "... that"swhenyou"remostvulnerable, because you can"t defend yourself." "And I was having trouble because my hands were shaking." "I was thinking, ""l"m gonna get shot in the head when I"m not looking. """ "Then you come out of it, and you go, ""That"s what it"s like. """ "When you go through years of war with guys next to you..." "... you"redependenton thisperson." "Their small mistake..." "... ortheironeheroicevent can save or destroy your life." "You have to bond." "If you"re not one unit..." "... you"renotgonna necessarily survive, you know." "One of the most ambitious re-creations occurred in the fiirst week of shooting." "From a physical production standpoint..." "... themostchallengingscene was taking off for D-Day." "Hundreds of extras had to be accurately equipped..." "... anduniformedandwebbed and geared up." "As a paratrooper, everything you survive on, you must carry." "The amount of equipment they"re carrying... ." "Getting on those planes with 1 00 pounds of excess equipment." "They had to be shoved onto these planes." "It was a tremendous feat of coordination." "We had four C-47 aircraft from the period that actually could work." "We had seven cameras shooting planes take off, all in different positions." "Cameras had assignments." "As soon as the plane passes you, you run here..." "... soyoucanget the takeoff." "Then get this aerial shot." "Then the planes will return so you can get a flyby." "Everybody had multiple assignments." "It was pretty thrilling to watch those old planes roaring around." "You knew that some of you wouldn"t be coming back and some would." "I can only guess how those guys must have felt." "To get to the point that you can understand:" """Okay, this is the routine." "I jump out of a moving plane..." "... andI fallto theearth, and hopefully a chute opens." "And then the easy part is to grab my weapon and go kill people. """ "It"s a totally different world." "They flew pretty much into mayhem." "They lost 1 000 paratroopers before they hit the ground." "Planes shot down or being shot, just in their parachutes." "Guys were dropping at 500 feet." "The ground is very close at 500 feet." "The pilots didn"t know what to expect or weren"t trained..." "... forthatamountoffire  and flew too low, flew too fast." "Some of them flew too high and got scattered all just to hell and gone." "A-camera." "The special-effects department constructed a gimble." "It"s a very large, hydraulic-driven apparatus that sits under the plane." "They can control..." "... everypossibleaxisofmovement in varying degrees of intensity." "That thing is rocking, as if you were in a real plane." "We went onboard, and we said, ""Show us how it works. """ "And he, very gently, did the controls." "Fool that I am, I said to him jokingly, ""Come on, show me what you got. """ "It was an E-ticket ride." "My episode starts with the aircraft, the C-47s, full of paratroopers." "It starts with the guys jumping." "We decided we"d predominately keep with Winters..." "... oneofourmaincharacters in the episode." "Eight seconds." "That"s all it took." "Plane to the ground." "I"m gonna do it in about four." "Very dangerous, highly-skilled stunt I"m about to do." "We decided to follow him to the ground in one go." "From the time he jumps to when he hits the ground is one shot." "We do that by hanging him against blue with a lot of air being blown at him..." "... sowecanswivelandpivot him." "Then a camera crane is moving, representing a floating camera." "He"s not falling at all." "The aircraft is moving away..." "... soitlookslikehe"s falling.it"s done in an optical process afterwards." "If you shoot someone against blue, the computer can remove the blue..." "... andputwhateverbackgroundyou want: aircraft, sky, paratroopers." "We have our actor falling." "The camera moves in, goes up to his face..." "... looksdownto theground,looksback up to him again, all in one shot." "Let"s go!" "That looked real." "Very good." "Cut." "The look and feel of Band of Brothers was enhanced at Cinesite, London using a revolutionary, all-digital fiilm-fiinishing process." "The technologies we pioneered..." "... werereallyabout electronic color timing." "It was about the ability to electronically control..." "... alloftheaspectsofhueandcolor and to match them shot for shot." "There were instructions..." "... aboutwhatthelookofthings had to be. lt"s desaturated." "It"s as though you were back in the 1 940s..." "... witha 1 940"scamera, shooting stuff for real." "With postproduction and digital effects, we keep a consistent theme throughout." "Cinesite also provided many of the 7 00 visual-effects shots  that re-create Easy Company's experiences." "We"re dropping into occupied Holland." "Our job is to liberate Eindhoven." "We"re re-creating the drop of thousands of troops." "This is the first shot of the parachute sequence." "We"re looking at low-resolution models so we can very quickly and easily..." "... layoutthelookoftheshots,  speeds, animation and timing." "This is an individual soldier with a parachute." "There"s animation on the soldier as he comes down, just to give life to it." "Then from this, we can render our resolution models." "In this case, we"re taking Mike"s CG, and I then layer those CG elements..." "... overthelive-actionbackground which, in this case, is this shot." "What we needed to do is separate the background from the foreground." "So we create a matte, which would look like this." "And anything in the black area will allow the parachutes to be visible." "When they hit this white area, they"ll disappear from view." "You give the impression of them falling behind the foreground elements." "All those details need to be achieved so you believe it really is happening." "Re-creating the battles required up to 1 4,000 rounds of ammunition a day utilizing about 7 00 authentic WWII weapons and 400 rubber prop guns." "Over here on the right..." "... wehavetheM-1 Garandrifles." "On the opposite side, we have the Germans with the K-98 rifles." "This is a paratrooper version of the M-1 carbine." "That means it has a folding stock, which makes it easier to jump with." "This is one of our MG42s." "Roll, please!" "That"s an 88 flat-ground high explosive." "This is what would"ve been fired from the planes..." "... whentheywentinonD-Day ." "This is one of the rubber pistols that we"ll be using." "Wherever possible, we"ll use a rubber gun." "When it"s in its holster..." "... itshouldlookliketherealthing." "This is one of our rubber 5-0s..." "... thatwe"vejustfinished painting up." "We highlighted the rubber here to make it look a bit like metal." "Isn"t that amazing?" "Isn"t that amazing?" "I thought for sure that thing was made of total metal." "This is a Tiger tank." "We actually built this on a chassis of a T-34." "We"ve actually put wheel spats and hubcaps and things on..." "... tomakeit lookmoreauthentic, like a Tiger tank." "All this sheeting is covered in this zimmerit finish..." "... whichtheGermansuse likeapaste ..." "... whichactuallystopsmagnetic mines from being put on the side." "The turret works, and we will be having the gun firing..." "... withthespecialeffects, with the full ricochet." "These are some British army armored personnel carriers..." "... whichhavethesmallerwheels, which work very good..." "... forthePanzerkampfwagenlll ." "The big problem with these is that..." "... wehaveto extendthe length with one more wheel." "We got six wheels there and only five here." "The engine on these comes right at the front." "Obviously, it"s in the wrong position." "We will be cutting it off..." "... rightthroughthereand  moving the engine further back." "We are building, all together, six tanks and renting in four." "The scene we"ve just finished shooting is a major assault..." "... ontheAmericanline in the forest in the Ardennes." "The battle was planned by Capt. Dale Dye, and we only shot it once." "This"ll be a close-in, hole-to-hole fight..." "... betweenEasyin theseholeshere  and that infantry." "We have five cameras running, and because we had explosions..." "... wehadto makesurethestuntmen, the extras, the drivers..." "... knowexactlywheretheyare and where their vehicles should be." "Action!" "Here they come!" "This is a big shot. lt"s one of the biggest ones so far." "By the time they completed shooting the third episode  the special-effects department had used more pyrotechnics than  SavingPrivateRyan." "What we"ve developed here is an air hit." "There"s a system..." "... thatactivatesthisvalvehere , that allows the blood..." "... andtheair..." "... that"spressurizedin here to come straight out." "And it blasts through the little cloth cloak that we put on here..." "... andpushestheblood out at high velocity." "The great thing with this is, the actor can wear this, run around..." "... andfireit himselffroma button that we conceal up his arm." "You press this button, and off we go." "Action!" "Cut it!" "These things here, as you can see, are air mortars." "We bury these in the ground..." "... andweusecompressedair in the yellow tank there." "The air comes through the tank and out through this cone." "The cone, we fill with debris." "We can put people right on top..." "... andhavethemlooklike  they"re blown up..." "... andthere"sno dangeratall." "And it"s an 88mm shell or a hand grenade..." "... whateverwewantittobe ." "In addition to executive producing the fillm with Spielberg  World War II buff, Tom Hanks, also directs part fiive." "I go home and I tell my parents:" """Yeah" " Tom Hanks, you know, he"s giving direction or whatever. """ "They"re like, ""Son, that"s great! "" ""How was your work today, Mom?""" """Who cares?" "Tom Hanks is telling you to knock it off." "That"s awesome. """ "Cut." "Sweet." "Thing of beauty." "He knows all the characters." "He knows who we should care about..." "... andwhowe wannasee ..." "... andwho"sgotsomethinggoingon four episodes later." "What he absolutely is sure of is how he wants to tell the story." "We"re gonna start with just your firing on the Germans." "But then on a cue, you"re gonna see those 1 00 other guys coming." "Episode five lands squarely in the middle of our 1 0-part series." "Now we"re dealing with a lot of combat veterans for whom... ." "All they want to do is get home." "The only haven they have..." "... isthecompanyitself and friendships they"ve made..." "... becausetherestoftheworld  really is not a pleasant place." "Part six and seven re-create a time when Easy Company  was pushed beyond human limits." "It is the moment that they became a band of brothers..." "... becausewhattheyexperienced..." "... theycouldnotrelatetoanybody who wasn"t there." "The conditions in Bastogne were horrendous." "Freezing cold..." "... nolongjohns,justapair of socks and no mittens." "About 200 yards away, there"s enemy fire coming right at you..." "... andyouhavetostay  your position for the next month..." "... andtrynottogetkilled and try to take more ground." "And most of the guys didn"t make it." "These guys were losing limbs, dying for their best friends." "You"ve got no food, you"re eating snow, and you"re hallucinating..." "... andeverything"sfallingoff  because of frostbite." "That doesn"t come close to what it really was." "The art department constructed the forest in a airplane hangar using hundreds of real trees and 250 trees created by the special-effects department." "We created our own trees..." "... whichareamixtureoffiberglass, like this one, hemp and latex..." "... togiveashattered-treelook ." "And hard-foam trees..." "... witha cardboardtubecore that keeps the weight down." "The Germans set their timers on their mortar rounds..." "... sotheyexplodedinthetreetops." "The soldiers got shrapnel..." "... fromthemortarrounds and from trees being hit." "When we"ve got to do a tree being hit by mortars..." "... likethisone..." "... we"vegotthetreesection,and there"s a hole in the middle here." "We put our narrow, full-size foam section of the tree..." "... ontothestump, and we can blow the whole tree." "Do a big hit in the bottom, and the tree falls over." "Incoming!" "Incoming!" "Find a foxhole!" "Come on!" "Take cover!" "We can have people as close as 5 feet." "Looks like the real tree has taken a major hit..." "... andit"ssafe." "It took four weeks to dress the Bastogne sets with man-made snow." "What we use mainly is cellulose-base snow. lt"s like pure paper." "We mix that with polymers and certain plastics so we can have slush." "We"re using more of that outside on the bombed-out towns." "The forest set is a composite of three different parts." "We"re actually using a third of a million pounds of paper." "It"s the biggest amount ever used on one set for anything." "It should be in the Guinness Book of Records." "Most of the machines are huge things." "This is a lovely device." "We saw Ghostbusters and fell in love with the look." "I felt the snow wasn"t glamorous enough, so we made these." "They"re really great." "You just switch them on..." "... andthat"ssnow." "You can turn the snowflakes so they"re bigger or smaller." "You can dissolve it faster or slower." "This backpack contains... ." "Almostlike a children"s bubble-bath solution." "Everything"s rigged to make this thing give realistic-looking snowflakes." "In part nine, the production re-creates the reason for the incredible sacrifiices Easy Company made fiighting World War II." "The episode deals with liberating a concentration camp." "That has a lot of personal meaning to me. I had family..." "... whodiedin campsand also family who escaped Nazi Germany." "The most challenging scenes..." "... arethescenesat Landsberg, the concentration camp." "Trying to capture what it must have been like to find..." "... aconcentrationcamp." "Mostof them didn"t even know they existed." "But to see it in the flesh and to see so much dead flesh..." "... wastraumaticforalotofsoldiers." "The first time you come here..." "... andthere"snobodyhere, it seems like a monument..." "... topeoplewhodiedincamps  rather than a movie set." "I have a lot of personal emotion tied up in this episode..." "... soit"sverysatisfyingtobe  able to bring it to life." "The men in Easy Company were unquestionably heroes..." "... becauseoftheirstrength in adversity..." "... theirabilityto comethrough..." "... whatmusthavebeen..." "... Babylontothem." "They did a job that frightened them..." "... thatwasbiggerthanthem , that was overwhelming." "And they did it courageously and took care of each other..." "... underextraordinarycircumstances." "There"s nobody like them." "Or ever will be like them." "Elite." "The real Easy Company guys, they will never call themselves heroes." "But now that we"re getting to play them, and people are calling us..." "... EasyCompany,we cansay  it for them." "They are heroes." "These guys lived hell for years..." "... forthebettermentoftheworld ." "Doing a movie like this, hopefully..." "... isa smallshred..." "... ofa sliverof athankyou..." "... anda littlepieceof..." "... informationthatwe canpass along to others." "Don"t forget." "Don"t forget. lt was really hard, and they did it so you don"t have to." "It"s an amazing program. I think this is really gonna be special TV." "All of us will watch this next year and be like, ""Wow." "I miss those guys. I can"t believe I was part of that. """ "We"ll never be part of something like this ever again." "Pretty amazing."