Seeing The Elephant (Trailer) An American Civil War Movie
- 9 years ago
Seeing The Elephant, the new centerpiece of the Fiery Trial, is a high-tech, 360 degree, digital movie, that takes the audience through what is best described as an experience. The technology required to achieve this unique event is offered only by a handful of venues throughout the nation. Seeing the Elephant is a powerful, multi-sensory film with a ‘moving cyclorama’ referring in part to huge in-the-round paintings that caused a popular sensation more than one hundred years ago.
The film offers an authentic, and historically accurate, glimpse of a soldier’s first encounter with combat; what the soldiers referred to as Seeing The Elephant. (a phrase used in the Civil War to describe the experience of combat)
Experience the Civil War in the 21st Century
While watching the 11-foot screen that completely encircles them, viewers are thrust into the middle of a Civil War battle. Visual and sound effects and ground motion enhance viewers’ sensations – so much so that handrails may be needed.
The movie, narrated by nationally recognized, award-winning broadcast journalist Bill Kurtis, is the long-anticipated centerpiece of the Museum’s permanent Fiery Trial gallery. Seeing the Elephant uses historical letters, journals, and diaries to tell the stories of soldiers as they leave home, endure training camps, face battle, and ultimately deal with the consequences of war.
More than two hundred actors, reenactors, film crew, technical and historical advisers, and Museum staff gathered at Old World Wisconsin (near Eagle, Wisconsin) in June 2013 to create Seeing the Elephant.
During the five days of filming, Civil War reenactors immersed themselves in the Civil War. Doug Dammann, Civil War Museum curator, said the reenactors “put forth a great deal of effort from sunrise to long after sunset. BPI [the production company] asked a lot of them.” Some reenactors had three or four wardrobe changes in one day, Dammann explained, because they portrayed soldiers of the Union and of the Confederacy and civilians.
The movie runs every hour on the hour beginning at 11 am. The movie’s Trailer and photographs of the filming of the movie can be viewed at http://thecivilwarmuseum.org
The film offers an authentic, and historically accurate, glimpse of a soldier’s first encounter with combat; what the soldiers referred to as Seeing The Elephant. (a phrase used in the Civil War to describe the experience of combat)
Experience the Civil War in the 21st Century
While watching the 11-foot screen that completely encircles them, viewers are thrust into the middle of a Civil War battle. Visual and sound effects and ground motion enhance viewers’ sensations – so much so that handrails may be needed.
The movie, narrated by nationally recognized, award-winning broadcast journalist Bill Kurtis, is the long-anticipated centerpiece of the Museum’s permanent Fiery Trial gallery. Seeing the Elephant uses historical letters, journals, and diaries to tell the stories of soldiers as they leave home, endure training camps, face battle, and ultimately deal with the consequences of war.
More than two hundred actors, reenactors, film crew, technical and historical advisers, and Museum staff gathered at Old World Wisconsin (near Eagle, Wisconsin) in June 2013 to create Seeing the Elephant.
During the five days of filming, Civil War reenactors immersed themselves in the Civil War. Doug Dammann, Civil War Museum curator, said the reenactors “put forth a great deal of effort from sunrise to long after sunset. BPI [the production company] asked a lot of them.” Some reenactors had three or four wardrobe changes in one day, Dammann explained, because they portrayed soldiers of the Union and of the Confederacy and civilians.
The movie runs every hour on the hour beginning at 11 am. The movie’s Trailer and photographs of the filming of the movie can be viewed at http://thecivilwarmuseum.org