Channel 4 is to stage a battle between Allied and German tanks as part of an ambitious follow-up to

C4 to stage WWII battle in Blitz Street follow-up | News | Broadcast

13 January, 2011 | By Alex Farber
Channel 4 is to stage a battle between Allied and German tanks as part of an ambitious follow-up to war-time doc Blitz Street.


The 6 x 60-minute The Last War Heroes (working title) will show the devastation caused by World War II weaponry and is being made by Impossible Pictures with Canadian indie Entertainment One Television (E1). It is backed by C4 and History Channel Canada.
The show will be on a much grander scale than Impossible’s Blitz Street and will trace the Allied troops’ push from the D-Day landings to the invasion of Berlin and the weapons used. Heavy artillery, mines, sniper rifles, tanks and carpet bombing will all feature.
Tony Robinson, who hosted Blitz Street, is not being used. Instead, interviews with veterans will be cut with archive footage, provided by the Imperial War Museum, before modern technology shows viewers the impact of the weapons in a variety of controlled explosions.
The Last War Heroes will be shot in HD at 1 million frames per second to clearly show effects such as bullets hitting a landing craft and “peeling like a banana”.
Impossible’s executive producer Paul Wooding is currently researching locations to shoot the series in Canada.
He said: “It will be a landmark series told through the eyes of the soldiers. It’s a very emotional story made more powerful by illustrating the terrible weapons used.”
David Glover, specialist factual commissioning editor for C4, said the series was “a radical approach to bringing historical testimony to life”.
The series is also set to be picked up for second-window rights by UKTV history channel Yesterday.
Nick Crowe will executive produce for History TV Canada, with Michael Kot for E1. The series will likely air towards the end of the year.

 

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