...Last November, David Ayer’s Fury had set up camp in the farmland near Watlington, recreating— with mud and tanks and the occasional burning building— the ravaged landscape of Germany in April of 1945. Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Bernthal, Michael Pena and Logan Lerman play the five crew members inside the titular tank, charged with liberating Germany but exhausted by war itself. It’s a war movie unlike any other that’s been made about the second World War— and making that required a lot of attention to detail, as we learned by watching the crew at work last November. Here are the highlights of the ways they’re making Fury as realistic as possible:

• It’s the grotesque, demoralizing part of World War II you never see...
• It’s a single day in the life...
• The characters are going through hell… and the actors went through their fair share of it, too...
• The actors were able to meet with veterans who had driven these tanks, as well...
• The tanks rolling through the mud looked so real because they *were* real— lovingly restored by collectors from all over the world...
• Even the interior of the tank, recreated on a gimbal inside a nearby barn, has real pieces...
• Everyone gets involved in the effort to keep things authentic, up to the very last minute...
• And if things aren’t looking real enough in real life… try putting it in black and white...
• The set was a time machine...