Red Tails - Production

Production

Interview with Rick McCallum, June 9, 2012:
"When I first started working with George he told me about the story and the initial plan was to make this epic three or four hour movie. We wanted to start in the United States and show the full racism these guys had to go through, then go to the heroic story that we’re telling now and then come back and do the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. But it was just so unwieldy and also at that time, there was no way to have a roadshow three-hour movie in American cinemas. Every epic film had been a financial disaster, and we felt there just wasn’t an audience we could get the film out to. Then we got heavily into Young Indiana Jones, which ran for three or four years, then the Star Wars Special Editions and the prequels, but throughout we did continue talking. However, once we finished Episode III we decided to go and meet people in the black community."

George Lucas began developing Red Tails around 1988, after hearing of the Tuskegee Airmen from his friend George Hall, a photographer. At the time, the film was scheduled for release in 1992, with Kevin Sullivan writing the screenplay and Thomas Carter directing. Lucas originally conceived of the film as a long, detailed narrative similar to Lawrence of Arabia, and as a trilogy, but after multiple script drafts, he decided to focus on the combat portion of the story. He compared it to Tucker: The Man and His Dream as "a story too good to be true". In researching the film, Lucasfilm invited some of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen to Skywalker Ranch, where they were interviewed about their experiences during World War II. Lucasfilm was also given access to the original mission logbooks used by some of the pilots. A number of writers worked on the project until John Ridley was hired in 2007 to write the screenplay. Lucas held discussions with Samuel L. Jackson regarding Jackson possibly directing and acting in the film. Although Jackson praised the script, he did not commit to either role. Anthony Hemingway, a former production assistant for Lucas' The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles TV series, was ultimately chosen to direct in 2008.

Pre-production began in January 2009, with location scouting having taken place in June 2008 in Prague, Czech Republic, Italy and Croatia. Production began in March 2009 with high-definition Sony F35 cameras used for principal photography, which took place in the Czech Republic, Italy, Croatia and England over a period from August to December. While shooting in the Czech Republic, the actors also underwent a "boot camp" program, during which they lived in similar conditions to the actual Tuskegee Airmen.

Harkening back to his early work on Star Wars where he had studied World War II aerial footage to create the space aerobatics performed by Rebel X-wings and TIE fighters, Lucas was familiar with World War II aerial combat. The Lucas template for photographing computer-generated imagery (CGI) dogfighting "involved lots of action, continuous motion, moving camera, streaks, loops and rolls, and all of the things aerial photography allows you to do in live action." Aerial scenes in Red Tails involved actors sitting in a gimbal-mounted cockpits (and mock-up fuselages and wings), in front of a green screen, rocked back and forth by production crew members. In order to achieve a realistic reaction, actors were flown in actual P-51 Mustangs at the Planes of Fame in Chino, California, to experience the forces involved in dogfighting.

Editing began while the production was in Prague. Avid editing systems were used simultaneously in a Prague studio and at Lucasfilm. A vehicle was fitted with a "technical center" so that the production could quickly move between locations.Red Tails was the first film to use Barco’s Auro-3D 11.1 surround sound system.

In March 2010, Lucas took over direction of reshoots, as Hemingway was busy working on episodes of the HBO series, Treme. The Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder was brought in late in production, after Hemingway's principal photography, to provide re-writes for the Lucas-directed reshoots.

In April 2009, Tuskegee Airman Lt. Col. Lee A. Archer Jr. was selected to be an advisor for Red Tails. He died in 2010 while the film was in post-production and the final credits bear a tribute to Archer.

Lucas covered the cost of production with his own money, and provided a further $35 million for distribution. In an interview on The Daily Show on January 9, 2012, Lucas stated that the long delay in the production of the film was because major film studios balked at financing and marketing a film with an "all-black" cast and "no major white roles." He went on to explain that studios receive "60% of their profit" from overseas, and the studios feel there is no market there for films with all-black casts.Red Tails is also the last film Lucasfilm made independently before being bought by The Walt Disney Company on October 30, 2012.