Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

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Van der Waal
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Re: Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

#31

Post by Van der Waal » 30 Oct 2008, 15:55

I was perusing the 'Warriors, Inc' website last night, and came upon this quote:
"Don't get all forklempt over the size of the buttons on someone's fly that won't be seen on camera...we got too much to do to worry about stuff no one will notice. You wanna worry about that, go make documentaries or write reference books. We are storytellers, people! You gotta make it emotionally true, and that's our trade! And you'd better be certain that everything the audience does see will be accurate to the sixth decimal place, 'cause without that, we'll get cognitive dissonance. And I will not have any cognitive disconnect in my unit; have I made myself clear?"
Now, I don't think its completely verbatim, and I think its supposed to be humorous, but I think this pretty much sums it up.

From: http://www.warriorsinc.com/CadreDetail.cfm?CadreID=3
Attributed to Dale Dye.

Michael Dorosh
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Re: Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

#32

Post by Michael Dorosh » 31 Oct 2008, 01:04

Penn44 wrote:Why expend the money to hire "uniform advisors" or obtain accurate uniforms with all the awards when less expensive routes are available. If you are going to go hire "uniform advisors," why not hire "place setting advisors" for the dinner scenes, or "scrubbery advisors" for the landscape scenes. The vast majority of film viewer won't know the difference. It may upset the more obsessive among the viewers, but they've already paid the admission price so screw them. Directors are always getting some critcism from somebody so what makes the uniform fanatics any different? Remember the SNL sketch in which William Shatner tell the Trekkies to "get a life." That sentiment is often echoed by directors towards this particular type of movie goers.
You haven't addressed the question at all; in fact, you've talked around my question on profitability and I think you've really only reinforced what I was saying. I'm not getting a sense of your practical experience in dealing with costuming or historical research issues and I find your comments to be quite non-specific in nature.

You're right about one thing; perhaps no one hires "uniform advisors" per se, but you can bet your boots there is a wardrobe person on the set. They do absolutely go out and research these things; either by buying books or contacting authors/museums or online sources. Movie produtions do, however, hire "military advisors" who do the same things re: uniforms in addition to their general overall duties of training the extras to "look military." That encompasses everything from how to stand, walk and talk to how to fight to how to wear their clothing and equipment. That also covers what to wear.

No one is taking issue with your comments on how important directors feel such details are - in fact, I've echoed them myself (the Dale Dye quote above is a good one too, and reinforces my thoughts on films like The Bridge at Remagen which I posted a page or two back now). But I'm still not seeing what your very general comments have to do with profitability. You still haven't explained what that has to do with accuracy. From my own limited experience, it has nothing to do with it. From what I can tell, you haven't been hands on with the process.

Perhaps you can give a detailed example from your own experience of a situation in which you had to forgo a "historically correct" uniform detail in the name of "profitability" because I'm still not seeing a connection.

As one example of my own experience, I was very loosely involved with the production "Heroes of the Victoria Cross" by Partners in Motion, which was shown on Canadian television for Remembrance Day a few years back; it still gets shown occasionally - my name is in the credits if anyone wants to verify it. I was never on set, my participation involved sending German repro uniforms and Canadian battledress and equipment via courier to the film set in addition to answering many questions via email. They were a small production but spared no expense in - what I thought at the time - was a genuine desire to get the details right.

I was not all that surprised nor disappointed to see minor errors of uniform detail creep into the final product. It did strike me funny, though, that they had gone to some expense of both time and money to alter uniform parts to look completely wrong, when what I had sent them was correct for the impression they wanted to make. Apparently their research was working at cross purposes - German collar badges were being altered from one type to another with fabric paint, etc. Someone took the time and effort to make the correct patterns wrong - it was a conscious effort. People don't make conscious efforts to do something like that in an effort to save money. That's not economizing - and given your comments on "getting a life", I doubt it was to reel in extra viewers...


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Penn44
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Re: Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

#33

Post by Penn44 » 31 Oct 2008, 04:51

Michael Dorosh wrote:Perhaps you can give a detailed example from your own experience of a situation in which you had to forgo a "historically correct" uniform detail in the name of "profitability" because I'm still not seeing a connection.
There is more to a film than uniforms.

The choice of paying a smaller sum of money to use and film a post-war era train (engine and boxcars) versus spending the time and more money to locate a WWII-era train (engine and boxcars) and film it in a less-developed part of European that still has the looks of the WWII-era.

Spending $2,500 to $3,000 to interview a key witness which the director balked at first because of the cost.

When you go for the less expensive option you save money and increase profitability.

I quit the company because of the director's gross liberties with the storyline.

Penn44

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Re: Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

#34

Post by Ingsoc75 » 31 Oct 2008, 18:28

I will say that WW2 films have come a long way in terms of vehicles at least. You don't see many Patton tanks being used as German tanks anymore. Perhaps it's the surplus of Eastern Bloc tanks being used but at least they try and mock them up to look like panzers.

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Re: Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

#35

Post by kradman » 11 Dec 2008, 20:30

I agree things are getting better in these Films better looking uniforms and Tanks etc .
Here are a few mistakes i saw in films, in the film The Night of the Generals Peter o Toole early in the film has his Iron Cross First class missing even that he is wearing the Knights cross but later in the film he is wearing it again also in the Film U-571 Some of the German uniforms have the breast eagles being worn on the wrong side

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Dare Furor
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Re: Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

#36

Post by Dare Furor » 16 Dec 2008, 18:26

kradman wrote:... in the Film U-571 Some of the German uniforms have the breast eagles being worn on the wrong side
Yes...NO excuse for that....

Then there is the inverted HJ Sport Badge in Swing kids

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von thoma
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Re: Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

#37

Post by von thoma » 19 Sep 2020, 03:36

B Hellqvist ; So, when guys like Andrew Mollo are involved, the uniforms usually looks just right.....
Andrew Mollo was military consultant, military advisor in several war films.
His father was an expert on Russian uniforms, and his brother John Mollo won an Academy Award for Costume Design for 'Star Wars',
being specialized in British uniforms ( Zulu Dawn, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Barry Lyndon, etc )
In 1965 Mollo worked as the technical advisor on ' Doctor Zhivago '.
He has written several books on the subject, and besides film producer, he was a great collector of German military stuff...

Here a list of his major films ;

It Happened Here ( 1964 )
The Night of the Generals ( 1967 )
The Keep ( 1983 )
The Eagle Has Landed ( 1976 )
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold ( 1965 )
Where Eagles Dare ( 1968 )
Conspiracy ( 2001 )
The Pianist ( 2002 )
Downfall ( 2004 )
The Red Baron ( 2008 )

I personally consider that he did a great job in the TV movie 'Conspiracy '

Another great expert Brian Leigh Davis, author of numerous military books, works as advisor of military uniforms in 'The Bunker' ( 1981 )
but this was his only cinematographic intervention.
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VanillaNuns
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Re: Who are the Uniform advisors in these films?

#38

Post by VanillaNuns » 22 Sep 2020, 04:44

One of the members here on this forum was historical adviser to "Anthropoid" (2016)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-37320149

His name is John Martin, although I can't recall his username.

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