My Brother's War : Presented by Bjornquist Films
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Production Notes

We initially set out to make a short film set against the Battle of Antietam, a turning point of the Civil War. The film was well received in a few festivals but ‘unprogrammable’ for a line-up of shorts. Many people came to us afterwards saying they wanted more. So we went back to the original cast and asked if they were willing to try and make a feature out of our epic short.  Thankfully they all complied with an exuberant ‘yes’!

The bulk of the short film was shot in mid October 2002 over a three and half day schedule. We had to shoot a scene in which Henry (Grace) Kieler is captured by Union soldiers and shot firing squad style.  The day looked threatening with rain but we were going to shoot rain or shine.  The rain was not hard but cold enough to make the actors miserable and the pain of trudging through fields in wet, cold wool played across their faces beautifully.  Once inside and lounging by the fire we began to look at dailies and realized that raindrops had hit the camera lenses in several shots.  Behind schedule and hating to be the bearer of bad news I woke the cast up bright and early on a Sunday morning and informed them that we had to reshoot and reshoot now while the weather was okay.  Without breakfast and rudely awakened, the actors trudged back out into the fields and we reshot the entire scene. They were all extremely professional and good sports about it. In the end we chose the rain and cut around the shots that had raindrops on the lenses.  It did something to the actors that made them real…
So the first order of business was to pack up our truck and camera and take a trip down through the Blue Ridge Mountains.  We shot in New York State, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.  I decided I needed to know what it was like to actually disguise myself within the ranks of the Confederate army. With the generous help of a few co-conspirators I was able to participate in the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg fighting all five battles in three days without being discovered.  It was truly grueling and I got some lovely shots of the battlefield once I was lying prone and pretending to die of my wounds.  I walked away from the experience with a serious case of blood poison (from the blisters on my feet being force marched 12 miles a day).  I also made some great friends along the way.  The next stop was the battle at Tunnel Hill,Georgia.
We fell in with the 62nd Alabama Volunteer Infantry CSA.  They were a great group of guys and I owe a lot to Captain Roger Brothers who orchestrated our involvement.  I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to Col. Ken Sumner and the Tunnel Hill Historic Foundation who allowed us permission to shoot the event for use in our film.  The BBC was there shooting on Saturday.  There was a wooden cabin built right in the center of the battlefield.  We knew that that was the spot to get to photograph the battle.  Ken gave us exclusive use on Sunday for the closing battle. The footage we got of Henry in the ranks was priceless. A field surgeon at Tunnel Hill, Georgia asked if I would take a hit and agree to have my arm amputated.  He showed me how he was going to perform this illusion.  As agreed I took a hit within the first 30 minutes of the battle and a fellow soldier carried me into the hospital. I cried and shrieked in pain (truly upsetting the other reenactors and spectators).  The surgeon had me slip my arm out of its sleeve where he pushed an oxtail into the sleeve in its place.  Thus began the sawing and the smell of meat wafting thru the air.  After the sawing and a few gulps of whiskey I realized he was cauterizing this severed animal’s tail with a branding iron.  The smell of it in the humid summer sun was enough to make me turn green.  The experience gave me small insight to the otherwise inconceivable horror of war.
The only way we could possibly capture even a small amount of the battle of the Civil War was to go to various reenactments and shoot documentary style.  We were very fortunate to work with some brilliant historians and fantastic Civil War buffs who enabled us to participate in several battles.  At Gettysburg 2003 there were over 18,000 soldiers on the field with 150 big guns and 5,000 cavalry.  At Tunnel Hill, Georgia there were about 5,000 soldiers and 25 big guns with several hundred cavalrymen.  At Selma, Alabama there were about 3,000 soldiers with a dozen big guns and about a 100 cavalrymen.  Most of the battle scenes in the film were shot at Tunnel Hill, Georgia.  However, when Georgianna Walker dons her nurse’s garb looking for Henry on the field we had to shoot that in a field in upstate New York.  It cut together beautifully.
Early October 2004 found us in upstate New York on our friend’s farm.  Snow had fallen and we were trying to match late summer in our story before the leaves turned and fell. My heart sank as we neared the ski area where the farm was located.  Snow had dusted everything.  We were short on crew.  Needless to say we were all exhausted after four days of shooting but we got almost a third of the script in the can.  Our hero and Production Designer, Bryce Paul Mama Williams, took it upon himself to try and melt an entire field of snow with a leaf blower.  It took him about an hour and a half to clear the area that would be in frame.  The grass was still green underneath so we were lucky to get away with it.
Late October 2004 found us back in upstate New York.  Oddly enough it was warmer than our previous visit.  Snow was not the issue on this set but the threat of rain.  We knew we could shoot if it was just sprinkling outside, but a true downpour would wreak havoc on the shooting schedule.  Rain barneys and ponchos can only do so much.  We remained on schedule all the way up until the last day, Sunday.  We woke up to thick dark rain clouds hovering at the horizon.  Charlie, the horse wrangler, informed us that the weather channel forecast was for rain…rain from hell.  We had an entire day of shooting outside.  So we watched the sky and shot.  We kept watching the clouds circle us.  It got dark and maybe even spit a little but never actually rained.  It was getting dark and we were racing against minutes to get the last scene where Henry tells Virginia about the Indians up in the mountains.  We did it in one take.  When we were done and I yelled ‘That’s a wrap’ the rain began to fall.  The film spirits were with us.
Our friend, Stacey, a wonderful photographer, came up to take stills during our four day shooting schedule in upstate New York.  She was interested in the film process.  Some of our crew wore several hats including Stacey.  By the end of the fourth day she had become our A.C. marking the scenes with the slate like a pro. Our other friend, Mimi came up to lend a helping hand and became truly indispensable.  We lost our script supervisor on the third day due to a family emergency and since Mimi had been assisting her she stepped right up and took wonderful notes.  Nothing like being thrown into the fire!
During the writing of the feature screenplay I felt like Virginia’s character needed to lose something precious to up the stakes.  My friend and Producer, Tommy suggested we cast his little nephew Nicholas as Virginia’s 5-year old son.  She hides him in a trunk in the house as the Union soldiers descend. She truly thinks she will be able to talk the soldiers out of taking her farm appealing to their compassion for a widow.  Instead they set her house on fire with the boy still hiding in the trunk.  Brutal.  When it came time to shoot the scene the first couple of takes were fun and more like a warm up.  We had to tire the boy out so that he was serious or reluctant.  When he had enough he grew upset saying he didn’t want us to turn on the fog machine (smoke).  His mother who was there on the set told us to make him do it.  So his reluctance and fright was real and worked for our cameras.  We didn’t budget for therapy.
We shot the short film in October of 2002.  When we decided to expand and make it a feature we had to resume shooting while the leaves were still green and turning.  So our window of opportunity for most of the exteriors fell within a 2-3 week period. The scene where Henry gets shot against the tree was part of the original footage but some of the cutaways and footage at the end of the scene where Virginia discovers Henry’s Bible in the grass was shot exactly a year later.  It matched amazingly well.  We got lucky!
In the opening 10 minutes of the film, Virginia Klaising’s house is torched by the Union Army killing her son inside.  Because I had been to a few reenactments for research in writing the script I knew that at the event in Selma, Alabama they burn down a cabin or a flat that looks like a house every year.  I felt it would behoove the production value of the film to spend the money to drive down to Selma and get the footage needed of the house burning.  Virginia’s reaction and the soldiers holding her down was shot seven months earlier in a field in upstate New York.  It cut together quite well.
Virginia, her son and her sister are digging up their potato patch to prepare for the Fall/Winter.  The scene is set in the mountains of West Virginia/Maryland, both border states.  The lines of loyalty were very blurred in those areas during the Civil War.  One’s neighbor might be a Union sympathizer and his cousin would be devoutly Confederate.  Bryce constructed our lovely potato patch and between each take would re-bury our idaho potatos.  During the course of the scene, Maureen who plays Virginia’s sister would do a dance and sing, “You betta not cut me from this film or I’m gonna break ya legs!”  A little levity goes a long way.
The last scenes of the feature film were shot in April 2004.  We had a rough assembly by mid July running at 2 hours 45 minutes.  We decided to screen a rough cut to select cast and crew to get some feedback.  We also asked a few friends that were filmmakers to come and take a peek.  Afterward we had very interesting discussions as to the direction the film would go.  After spending August and September whittling the film down to a slim 115 minutes we noticed that the scene where Grace’s brother gets shot was sub-par to the rest of the film.  Mid-October, once again we had to match the leaves and took a skeleton cast and crew back up to the farm in upstate New York to re-shoot the scene this time with no dialogue.  The result was much more poignant.
The last few scenes in the story happen as winter approaches.  It was not necessary to have snow on the ground but as I was scheduling the shoot for those scenes I decided that snow would definitely enhance the story and the visual aspects of the film.  So we went back up to the farm in January.  The weekend we decided to sojourn was the coldest two weeks in 25 years in New York.  When we arrived there was just the right amount of snow on the ground---8 inches or so.  Any more and it would have been almost impossible for the crew to move with the equipment. A snow storm blew in that afternoon and we needed to get shots of Henry and Virginia braving the weather walking to Baltimore.  It was 8 degrees outside.  No telling what the wind chill was.  The actors wore silk under their costumes but it was not enough to keep the frigid temperatures at bay.   'Virginia’ was suffering from asthma in the cold weather and when her fingers went numb we had to call it a day hoping she didn’t get frostbite.
We ventured out into the woods to shoot a scene between Henry and Virginia in which Henry has a long monologue.  We had to cover it in several different shots and so I had to do the monologue 5-6 times.  It was about 11:00AM and zero degrees outside.  Our producer, Tommy, was sound mixing.  It was so cold that his shivering traveled through the boom pole.  On one take we heard a distinct ‘klink’.  Tommy’s glasses had snapped right off his face due to the temperature.  The soles on my boots were leather and even though I had stuffed them with ‘hot toes’ packs, I found my toes getting numb about a half hour into the covering the scene.  The cold was eating camera batteries and sound batteries and so we were stopping and starting never getting a full take on the scene, but having to cobble together various bits and pieces.  I thought I could go one more take even though I had lost feeling in my toes and my feet felt like they were burning.  I got through the monologue and then walked briskly back to the house.  When I got there I realized something was really wrong with my feet because they weren’t warming up and feeling wasn’t returning.  The DP came in and picked me up placed me in the shower and ran warm water over my poor feet.  My co-star was there too and she helped massage feeling back in to my toes…a close call.
Our shooting schedule was effected by the temperature.  When we woke up the next morning the thermometer read -25 below zero.  The cameras and sound equipment would not work in those temperatures and it was very dangerous for anyone to be outside.  So we had to wait until about 10:30AM when the temperature got to zero.  The holding area for the last scene was a small pup tent.  The previous day we had shot in the woods and I was wearing the leather cavalry boots consistent with my costume.  I almost lost my toes to frostbite that day and so we called it quits.  On this day the crew was busy setting up the jib arm with its extension. But because of the wait out in the cold temperatures we had to scrap it as my toes started to go numb again.  I felt terrible that the guys lugged all that stuff to the top of the hill only to have to lug it back down again.  I am proud to say I still have all ten toes.
The last scene was shot on the last day while we were in up state New York in January.  The temperature actually rose to about 18 degrees which made a huge difference in how fast we could get the shots done.  Also there was no wind which helped preserve our ability to concentrate and focus on the scene.  The light was amazing on the snow and the blue sky made the frame look like a painting.  I wanted Georgianna’s character to wear red.  Not only would it be lovely against the white snow and blue sky, but it also represented Georgianna as constant, home, roots, lineage…all those things that make one feel secure.
When we began the project I spoke with Bryce Paul MamaWilliams, our production designer, and talked at length about my ideas for color.  I felt that each room of Grace Kieler’s home should represent a chakra. (The word chakra is Sanskrit for wheel or disk and signifies one of seven basic energy centers in the body. Each of these centers correlates to major nerve ganglia branching forth from the spinal column. In addition the chakras also correlate to levels of consciousness, archetypal elements, developmental stages of life, colors, sounds, body functions, and much, much more.)  I also spoke with our Costume Designer, Ashley Brady, about using this same philosophy about color for the main character’s costumes.  I wanted the parlor, which is the first room we see, to be within the yellow realm of the third chakra---Fire, Ego identity, oriented to self-definition.  This chakra is known as the power chakra, located in the solar plexus. It rules our personal power, will, and autonomy, as well as our metabolism. I wanted to balance out the mustard with a sense of home so we chose the cranberry to reflect the essence of the root chakra which is red. It represents the element earth, and is therefore related to our survival instincts, and to our sense of grounding and connection to our bodies and the physical plane.  Both Georgianna and Grace’s characters are dressed in violet. This is the crown chakra that relates to consciousness as pure awareness. It is our connection to the greater world beyond, to a timeless, spaceless place of all-knowing. When developed, this chakra brings us knowledge, wisdom, understanding, spiritual connection, and bliss.  Everything is harmonious in the scene as a proposal is presented and accepted happily and two families will merge for the bliss of all.  This is the only time we see Grace when she is dressed in her best clothes and truly feminine.
A lot happens in Grace’s room once she is brought back home and nursed back to health.  When the film shifts from epic to intimate between Henry(Grace) and Virginia, this room becomes a haven for their understanding.  I wanted it to be an apple green color. This is the heart chakra and is the middle chakra in a system of seven. Of the element of air, social identity, oriented to self-acceptance, it is related to love and is the integrator of opposites in the psyche: mind and body, male and female, persona and shadow, ego and unity. A healthy fourth chakra allows us to love deeply, feel compassion, have a deep sense of peace and centeredness.  Virginia’s costume never changes throughout the film until the last scene.  From the moment we first see her she is wearing a dress that is primarily a melon color or orange. The second chakra, located in the abdomen, lower back, and sexual organs, is related to the element water, and to emotions and sexuality. Water, Emotional identity, oriented to self-gratification it connects us to others through feeling, desire, sensation, and movement. Ideally this chakra brings us fluidity and grace, depth of feeling, sexual fulfillment, and the ability to accept change. Once Grace takes on Henry’s identity her/his costume does not change until the last scene.  Ashley and I chose butternut over grey for the confederate clothing because butternut is an earthy medium between yellow and orange and the color of earth.  I wanted Grace to have clarity about her actions but I also wanted her clothing to reflect the ideas of the second chakra as she initiates her journey through her emotions. 
Bryce and I chose a salmon color for the dining room relating to the second chakra.  In the scene as opinions about the growing conflict rise so do emotions. The family is strained by the sides each member takes:  Union or Confederate.  We also had to construct a false wall to hide the sink, stove and refrigerator. All of the interiors of the film were shot in our apartment in Brooklyn.  We had to get creative sometimes using a single room three times for three different locations in the film. 
I wanted the walls of the headquarters of the Union Army to be a sky blue tying in with the light blue trousers that the Union Army wore.  The ruddy faces of the commanding officers played nicely against the blue.  Bryce said it would be nice to have a rust or red colored tapestry rug on the floor to counterbalance the red and foreshadow the spilling of blood.
Contact:

Thom@MyBrothersWar.com
Whit@MyBrothersWar.com
Patrick@MyBrothersWar.com

for General Inquiries: Info@MyBrothersWar.com
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