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The smell of a soldier's lit pipe drifted down the cobblestone streets of Harpers Ferry as I arrived on a rainy Saturday evening. This street, located in the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, with its buildings that remain virtually unchanged since the 1800's, was a director's dream. The town was like one giant movie set with every single detail historically accurate. "We get to play here tonight," said Meredith.
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John King, Park Ranger and Supervisor of Period Exhibits and Living History, met us in full Union Captain's uniform at the Provost Marshall's office. John's great grandfather was actually a Provost Guard in the Civil War and his father was a Provost Marshal in WWII. John is carrying on a family tradition, now in its third generation, by acting the living history part of the Provost Marshal for Harpers Ferry.
Before arriving at Harpers Ferry, everyone met at Meredith's house to put on costumes and rehearse the scenes. We also celebrated Craig Snyder's birthday. After dragging him away from his ten-pound tome on anatomy, we surprised him with a cake (Craig came up from pharmacy school at VCU in Richmond to film this weekend).
For the purposes of Waterford's War, Harpers Ferry represents Point of Rocks, Maryland - a town a quarter a mile up river whose Civil War-era buildings are long gone due to flooding. Tonight, three scenes were to be shot - all of which involve Provost Marshal Lieut. Luther Slater, played by Tim Jon. First scene up: receiving a "confiscated copy" of the Dutton girls' pro-Union newspaper from an over-zealous Sergeant who mistakes their newspaper for a "rebel communication." Also filmed was the recruiting scene where Billy, played by Luke LeSourd, signed up to serve as a Drummer at the ripe age of 15.
After an initial take of the first Provost Marshal scene, Nancy (Assistant Director), noticed that Craig Snyder (Union Sergeant Orvil Thomas) was wearing his wedding ring, and, to ensure film continuity, she asked him whether he had been wearing the ring during his last shoot. Craig pointed to all the fingers on his left hand and said, "Actually, I was wearing a lot of bling."
On the filming end of things, Peter, trying to set up the scene to avoid having the modern ceiling vents in the shot, said, "We're okay as long as everyone stays down."
To that, Meredith responded, "Okay! No flying, people!"
Keegan Donovan, who plays the Provost Marshal's Clerk, was an invaluable resource as he's currently an intern with the Living History program at Harpers Ferry. He knew all the protocol for swearing in recruits and ad-libbed perfectly; for example: getting Billy to remove his hat while being sworn in - an oversight that would have been completely inappropriate.
Shortly before being sworn in as another recruit, Palmer McMath (Meredith's son making his cameo), was asked to state his date of birth. Not being warned of the question, he blurted: "1854!" which broke everyone up. Now that would have been the youngest recruit!
After filming the final scene of the evening, Meredith called a wrap at 8:45pm, 15 minutes before our deadline to vacate the premises. A round of applause erupted for another successful scene on one of our last filming nights. Driving back to Hillsboro that rainy night with a carload of actors, I realized just how acute our friendships had grown during this intense summer of filming Waterford's War.
