"Their dedication and motivation truly impressed me," says the film’s military advisor Jim Deaver. "They came from all walks of life. Some were actors, some shopkeepers, drivers or college students but all of them were eager to learn, to represent their culture and their country and, to a great extent, their ancestors. Their progress was remarkable, considering that they began with very little English and quickly learned to respond to English and Japanese commands, to move from a skirmish back into platoon formation and how to route-step on a dirt road." All this occurred during the summer heat, the sun glaring down on the grounds of the Clifton Rugby Field. A typical day began at 8 AM and in ten hours could include archery rehearsals, firearms instruction, sword training and an explanation of Bushido.
"What I may be most proud of," Zwick continues, "is that no one got hurt," which is always a consideration when filming action sequences of this magnitude, even when every safety precaution is met. "Likewise, none of the horses were injured – not a turned ankle, nothing. These were remarkable animals, so well trained and loved by everyone."
The 50 horses were purchased by the production company in New Zealand and trained by an international team of instructors under Horse Master Peter White for four months prior to filming, under the supervision of a full-time veterinarian and a representative from the local chapter of the American Humane Association, Film & Television Unit. Based on individual ability and temperament, the equine actors were categorized by White as either "actor’s horses, stunt horses or background horses." When the battle scenes wrapped, half the horses returned to their previous owners. Others remained with the local trainers who had served as their wranglers and grown attached to them during production, or were sold to residents of the New Plymouth area that White and his staff felt would provide them good homes.
In the company of their trainers and the actors they would be carrying, the animals, none of which had ever worked on a film before, were conditioned to take sound effects like gunfire and explosions in their stride, and the few that were required to fall in battle learned how to land in a way that would prevent injury. Additionally, Zwick confirms, "pits were dug in the mock battlefield, stuffed with padding, soft mulch and hay and covered over with grass so that when a horse dropped on cue it would have a nice soft bed to fall into."
As the horses practiced, so did their riders. White singles out Tom Cruise and Tony Goldwyn as the only two equestrians of the group and estimates that another 6 or 8 riders had some experience but that none of them had ridden under the kind of busy, noisy and crowded conditions posed by filming. In two months’ time, integrating this intensive training into their already full schedules, these men learned enough about horsemanship to ride into Zwick’s battlefields with confidence.
Movie Database
In Theaters
