SHH have posted a set report from the Omaha beach scenes, simulating the 1944 D-day landings. This is a great read that shows the true effort and grit (or sand?) that goes into shooting a realistic war scene.

I was a part of the WWII, Omaha Beach scenes. From what I can gather, Logan (aka Wolverine) is pretty much the Eternal Soldier archetype. By this I mean he is by nature a warrior and is drawn to wars and conflict. The D-Day landings at Omaha Beach are iconic in American military history. It makes perfect sense from the character story to have this landing as a setting for some of his history.

About 70 extras were hired on for the shooting of the beach landing scenes (plus stunt guys plus stars). These extras were a mix of normal extras and trained army personnel. I fall into the latter category being a member of the Australian Army Reserve. The casting directors wanted to leaven the bread of actors with some real-life soldiers in order to give the scenes a little bit of added realism. I think it worked well.

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Looks like IESB’s report that filming had wrapped was a little premature, just yesterday the X-men Origins production team were simulating war scenes at Blacksmiths Beach. A group of Flickr photographers in the area gathered to take their shots and meet Hugh Jackman. From the pictures it looks like WWII will feature, though it’s unclear how much the movie shall focus on this aspect of Wolverine’s past.

Panoramic by Father McKenzie

More pictures by Naomi Frost

Picture by subgirljess099

From Wikipedia - Wolverine’s brief history, to fill some people in:

During World War II, Logan teams with Captain America versus HYDRA [Captain America cameo!?], and continues a career as a soldier-of-fortune/adventurer. Logan works for the First Canadian Parachute Battalion and the CIA before being recruited for Team X.

As a member of Team X, Logan is given false memory implants. He continues on the team, until he is able to break free of the mental control and joins the Canadian Defense Ministry. Logan is subsequently kidnapped by Weapon X, where he remains captive and experimented on, until his rescue by the Winter Soldier, after which he returns to the Canadian wilderness.

Aint it Cool have the scoop on this one, via The Man Who Japed. The tip-off came via the Sydney Herald that an overnight shoot would be taking place in Federal Park on Friday 29th of February.

The set was pretty cool. They had sealed off a fairly large section of the park and done it up as a carnival with lots of bright lights, some rides and a Ferris Wheel and various attractions. There were a lot of extras milling around in typical carnival attire such as mimes, clowns etc.

[…]

We saw someone who looked like Will.i.am from the Black Eyes Peas wearing a purple jacket and sporting an afro walking around the carnival set and conferring with the director, but what I found most interesting was the set dressing of the sideshow attraction. There was one that had a picture of a man with a beard in a top hat called Dr Freak advertising his freak show with a woman called ‘Elastina’ who I assume is going to be a mutant. There was also a three headed baby. It’ll be interesting to see how this ties in to the film.

In this first image you can see the references to Dr Freak and the three headed baby on the posters to the left, and the Elastina poster can be spotted in the third picture just sticking out from behind the ticket booth.

The Press have revealed that the Wolverine movie, via Woz Productions, has recently applied for consent to film at a number of specific locations down under, these include “Arcadia Station, near Glenorchy, […] Deer Park Heights, on the Frankton Arm […] Kingston Beach, Milford Sound, Rees Valley, Skippers Canyon and Naseby Forest.” For the dates between November 5 and February 28, time enough for both construction and filming.

Spoilers ahead:

It appears that in this application permission has been asked for “a barn and farmhouse [to] be built […] with the final scene involving the destruction of the barn using explosives.”

Further investigative work has proven fruitful, an environmental effects assessment has revealed further details concerning this purported scene;

“The premise is that a military sniper shoots a rocket launcher at the barn, narrowly missing Wolverine but exploding the building. […] This will be a one-off event, with four cameras located around the set to capture the action.”