Aerial footage was all shot outdoors, enabling us to use real sky as backdrops.
The natural light gave some nice spin offs such as lens flaring around the aircraft. We were able to use the natural sky on cloudless days as a giant blue screen, enabling us to chroma key the aircraft into various terrain backgrounds. We used the same technique with our actors in the live action scenes. In post the shots go through a process of shot selection, wire and rig removal, compositing and color correcting. The final touches are the ones that make the biggest impact by adding in vapour & missile trails using particles in 3D-Max. These are then motion tracked into master shots using After Effects. After many viewings they are still impossible to distinguish from actual aircraft. This was very important, as the initial intent was to solely use the models for all the aerial shots. But later in the production we were able to source some real F-14 footage. So both had to intercut seamlessly.

Costuming was another area that had to live up to a high level of realism. The decision was made to have the uniforms, accessories and weapons, to be held as stock items rather than renting or having to borrow for the duration of the shooting schedule which due to erratic weather has been over many months, shooting only on fine days over weekends. Most gear was sourced locally from Army surplus with the exception of the pilot's flight and survival equipment. Being more specialized it was brought in from the States. Authenticity prevailed right down to the flight patches, parachute and harness fittings. The firearms or as we like to say 'Fireless arms' were all replicas. The handguns being off the shelf items with modified magazines holding inert rounds. The Script also specified a Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher, so that was another prop that had to be totally scratch built. It has to be one of my favourites as it really looks like it would work when you’re cradling it in your hands. With all this nasty looking weaponry it was necessary to get Local Council permission. Special big thanks to Marilyn Nicholls (Event Manager) At the ‘North Shore City Council’ for all her work and unflinching patience. We also had to clear it with the Local police. The last thing we needed after getting great weather was a run in with the Armed Offenders Unit. Leave that for the next film.

To maximize the small windows of time allocated, we shot some of the early rehearsals on location. Which was a hidden blessing, enabling us to pre-visualise the digital matte work that would be needed in advance, so these plates could be worked on during any free time. Shooting mainly on the local beaches had its fare share of problems to address. Tides were the biggest headaches, as we needed low tides to even access the area. Once we had that we were after blue cloudless skies, not normally a huge problem in Auckland unless you hit one of the worst summers in recorded history. At this point I was really wondering what I had let myself in for. Natural light only gave a limited amount of time to show the cliffs off to their best advantage. It would have been impossible to control with a lighting crew, especially with the budget we have been working with. So we opted with bounced light off reflectors, the upside we didn't have to slow the pace, waiting for lighting set-ups. Just a case of hard shadow, bounce some light in there.

For sound recording we sometimes shot with a two-camera set up, pairing the Canon XL1s off with a Canon XM2. Sound capture was handled with a Sennheiser ME66/K6 shotgun Microphone. We fed through a Beach-Tek audio adapter, jostling between the two cameras depending on the set-up. Most of the time we found the standard microphone on the XL1s to be pretty good as long as the levels were set high. There are a few cases were you just couldn't get a Microphone in to work so those shots obviously will be handled in post dubbing.