SOUDAN — You never know what can happen when you are out shooting an event for the Timberjay. For Tasha Trucano, who is a part-time photographer at the paper, the opportunity to get some photos of a movie being filmed at the Soudan Underground Mine State Park turned into a full day on the movie set as an extra, or more specifically “sniper number one.”
Trucano heard about the filming when Good Ol’ Days, where she is a part-time cook, got busy with a large take-out order for the crew and cast. The crew also got to sample some great food from the Tower Café for another meal.
Writer/producer/director Steven Luke was using the historic park building and surrounding woods to shoot some background footage for his movie, titled “Battle Kursk,” a historical look at the World War II battle between a group of Soviet soldiers defending a bridge against a German attack. This battle, fought over several months in 1943, is considered a pivotal moment in the war, one of Germany’s last major offensive battles on the eastern front, which depleted its arsenal of tanks.
Luke told Trucano that he has been working on this film for over three years, and these scenes were some of the final needed before post-production work begins. He teased that the film will feature some cameos by big name actors but wasn’t able to name them.
“Minnesota has a great film community,” he said, noting he had shot three feature films in the Twin Cities metro area but was always eager to shoot in northern Minnesota.
“The mine location was gracious enough to allow us to shoot here,” he said. The mine’s surface buildings, which are actually historic, have served as a backdrop for a few movies over the years.
Trucano was intrigued by the work being done on Friday. On Saturday, she was invited back to be an extra.
Most of the extras, Trucano said, were history buffs, and most had come from at least five hours away to be part of the filming. There were about 35 working on the film at the park, she said.
“We were shooting a battle scene,” she said. “We were costumed in authentic Soviet-era uniforms. I got to play a sniper because they were impressed that I knew how to use a gun.”
Trucano said the day was long, and the extras were hungry and tired, which apparently is how the film wanted them portrayed. Most of their scenes were shot in the wooded area of the park.
Trucano said at the beginning of the day, the crew lined up the extras and decided who would be Nazi and Soviet soldiers. They then went through costuming and makeup.
“No makeup and no nail polish,” she said. “And they made our faces dirty using coffee.”
The weather was cold and windy, and she said the extras felt the cold. With no meal breaks during the day, they did have some natural sympathy for the characters they were playing.
The sniper scenes were intense, she said, and there were at least seven takes of each one, often from different angles and distances, including some closeup shots with her rifle.
“It was such a cool experience,” she said. They were not using real bullets, she said. They also were filmed throwing grenades, walking through the woods, and on the old railroad tracks at the park.
Trucano said they weren’t given any details about the movie plot, but they were told it does follow the actual history of the battle.
“This is going to be a big war movie,” she said.
Assistant Park Manager Jim DeVries said the park does allow filming, though not all requests are granted.
“This one was easy,” he said. “They were just filming above ground.”
The crew was at the park for two days.
Getting permission to use a drone to film, or filming underground, required permission from higher ups.
DeVries said the park wasn’t too busy during the filming but that the crew was happy to answer questions from park visitors.
This weekend will be the last weekend the park is open for above ground tours. Underground tours are expected to begin again next Memorial Day weekend, DeVries said. These tours have not been available for most of the last four years. First because of some major, planned upgrades to the underground mine shaft and tunnels, and then on account of major flooding from the June 2024 storm.