PBS and Windfall Films Announce D-Day 360

Posted on April 27, 2014

PBS and Windfall Films have announced D-Day 360. A scene shows two Germans firing an MG 42 machine gun at troops on the beach. The film used cutting edge technology to re-create the historic invasion. The film will premiere Tuesday, May 27, 2014, 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET on PBS.

On June 6, 1944, 3,000 planes dropped 23,000 airborne troops behind German lines. At the same time 7,000 ships delivered around 20,000 military vehicles and 130,000 allied soldiers. The soldiers stormed five heavily defended French beaches in an assault on Nazi occupied Europe. Once on the shore, the troops had to negotiate two million mines buried in the sand and hundreds of miles of barbed wire, while dodging shells and bullets fired by 40,000 German defenders.

The film uses data gathered through forensic laser scanning, 3D computer modeling and eye-witness accounts to give a new view of the battlefield. It also uses LADAR to re-create the landscape.

Director Ian Duncan says in a statement, "D-Day was a logistical effort on a scale never seen before or since and its ambition and scope are reflected in the cutting-edge use of technology pioneered in this films. Conveying the sheer scale of the D-Day operation is at the heart of our radical approach to the graphics."