
Only the Brave is a departure for Kosinski, known for effects-heavy sci-fi films TRON: Legacy and Oblivion. And I knew it was the most important aspect to get right in making this film.” (The cast member who was most hardcore about the training? “Definitely Josh Brolin,” Kosinski says with a laugh.) When the actors returned, says the director, “Not only could I tell them to dig a line or set a back burn and they knew exactly what to do, but more importantly, there was a bond that was built, a comradery that is such an essential part of a hotshot team. In order to re-create the level of teamwork and expertise that these men achieved, Kosinski sent his cast into the wild for a two-week firefighter training course, taught by former Granite Mountain hotshots. the most elite level of wildland firefighting - but the Granite Mountain hotshots are unique, in that they started as a local fire department, rather than a Forest Service team. “They try to control wildfires by digging fire breaks and cutting down trees, or even setting fires themselves to back burn against wildfires.

“Basically wildland firefighters fight fires without water,” Konsinski explains. Instead, the film focuses on the brotherhood between the men, and the daunting heroics of the hotshots. But Only the Brave doesn’t dwell on tragedy. The true story that inspired the film is a sad one: In 2013, 19 members of the Granite Mountain hotshots lost their lives battling the Yarnell Hill Fire, the deadliest incident for U.S. And you quickly appreciate the extreme conditions that they work in every day.” “And then you start thinking about the fires that real Hotshots deal with: you know, 30, 40, 50-foot flames. “We were all amazed by how even flames that are 4-6 feet high, the incredible amount of heat that they put off,” says the director. Thankfully, no one was hurt on the set of the film (which also features Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Connelly, and Andie MacDowell), though they quickly learned to respect the awesome power of fire. “We built our own forest that was lined with propane lines, so that we had a forest fire that we could basically turn on or off,” Kosinski tells Yahoo Movies, adding, “It was still hot as hell.

And for close-up shots of stars Josh Brolin, Taylor Kitsch, Miles Teller, and James Badge Dale, who play the real-life hotshot heroes, he commissioned trees that could burn on command. His crew set a few fires - small burns in wildland areas, under the supervision of local firefighters. He took footage of actual, raging wildfires near the shooting location in southern New Mexico. For his action-drama about the Granite Mountain hotshots, the elite firefighters who protected their Arizona community from a historically deadly fire in 2013, director Joseph Kosinski wanted as much in-camera authenticity as possible. If some of the wildfires in the new trailer for Only the Brave (in theaters Oct.
