Red Tails, the latest action-adventure film from producer George Lucas, shot largely in the Czech Republic, sees its world premiere January 20.
Lucas, producer Rick McCallum and director Anthony Hemingway began shooting the film, about the World War II African-American aviators known as the Tuskegee Airmen, in Prague in 2009.
“We have been consistently impressed with [the Czech Republic’s] talented film professionals, the high quality of the local craftsmanship and the beauty of the Czech Republic’s widely varied locations,” McCallum said in May 2009.
Principal photography began in the Czech Republic in April 2009 and continued until mid-summer. Red Tails continued production into 2010, when it was one of the first projects to benefit from the Czech Republic’s 20% production rebate.
Czech film professionals contributed not only to the pre-production and production phases but also spent months in post-production. Prague-based post-house UPP worked in cooperation with Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic on the film’s aerial dogfight scenes. “They are doing a substantial number of the shots for Red Tails and they doing a fantastic, incredible job,” McCallum told Prague news server Czech Position.
“I love dogfights and I know how to do them,” Lucas told U.S. daily USA Today. “I told Anthony, ‘You worry about the actors and the story on the ground, and I’ll worry about the one hour we’re in the air.”
The film’s score was also recorded in Prague, with composer and trumpeter Terence Blanchard working with local musicians.
The production of Red Tails was serviced by Prague-based Partnership Pictures and a predominantly local crew, including Czech stuntmen and Oscar-nominated sound engineer Petr Forejt (Wanted).
Red Tails shot at Prague Studios and on location at Prague’s Bohnice Hospital, Karlovy Vary, and in Milovice and Krupá in Central Bohemia.
