After months of post, the time has finally come for the premiere of The Long Road Home. The first two episodes aired on National Geographic Channel last night (November 7th 2017). I shot episodes 3, 4 and 7 with director Mikael Salomon, while DP Yasu Tanida shot the other 5 episodes out of the 8 in total with director Phil Abraham. Mikko Alanne was our fearless showrunner who got us through the challenges. Seth Reed was our production designer who built 1500 feet of Sadr City streets.
The show was extremely challenging in terms of logistics, scope and schedule. We shot entirely in Fort Hood, Texas – with the full support of the US Army. Living and working in a major US military base added to the reality we were working on creating… as our massive sets to recreate Sadr City, Iraq were built within training areas of Fort Hood. We went through something like 200,000 rounds of blank ammunition, along with loads of explosives and det cord.
We are all very proud of the work, especially because of it being a true story, one which is close to the heart of the US army. We had several veterans who were there during the real event (Black Sunday as its referred to in military circles) workig along side us during filming – knowing we were telling their harrowing story gave us the inspiration to get it right on every level.
We shot primarily with the Arri Amira – usually 3 at at time. We also carried an Arri Mini. Panavision Dallas provided all the gear – we used Primo lenses which were detuned (we used the light version for the home front material and heavy for the Iraq scenes).
Below is a link to a behind the scenes documentary on the making of the show.
http://www.military.com/video/off-duty/tv/first-look-the-long-road-home/5632038098001
