If you find yourself standing on the bank of a rather shallow pond, contemplating how best to film the detonation of a small(ish) explosive just under the surface of the water, a host of thoughts will crowd your mind.

First and most pressing: are we really far enough out? Is there ample eye and ear protection? How closely can we replicate historically-accurate scale (i.e., how much gunpowder) in this experiment?

For Leo Wyard and Stuart Powell, two of the filmmakers behind NOVA’s film, Revolutionary War Weapons, their segment on the world’s first military submersible and the bomb it was meant to deploy was a microcosm of their experience making this unique and compelling film. Blending the science behind the American Revolutionary War’s weapons–the deadly, the innovative, and the frankly harebrained–with the stories of real people whose lives were irrevocably changed by them, Wyard, Powell, and team have struck a new and lasting chord.

We sat down with the filmmakers to discuss the making of the documentary, the voices they wanted to capture, and the surprises that accompany a production like this.

How did you come to make this film?

Leo Wyard (LW):

It started with a conversation between Chris Schmidt (NOVA co-executive producer) and the head of Lion TV, Richard Bradley, saying it would be great to do something about the Revolutionary War, given it’s the 250th anniversary next year. From there, we had to consider how to combine science, technology, and the history of the American Revolution. Then, around spring-summer last year, we came out to film the big reenactments.

Stuart Powell (SP):

Luckily, we came across Joel Bohy, who obviously is a PBS mainstay [as a firearm appraiser on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW], but he’s also Mr. American Revolution. He just knows everything and everyone to do with the American Revolution and does a lot of experiments and archaeology. He pointed us in the direction of experts when it came to sourcing things like 18th century cannons and muskets, and also provided ideas on experiments we could film, like testing the Brown Bess musket with a Phantom [high-speed] camera.

Something the film achieves with particular effect is giving the weapons and their impact a real sense of weight and tactility. Was that a point of focus in the making of the film?

LW: When we first met Joel, he came along with his replica Brown Bess and some real musket balls he’d found at an archaeological dig near Fort Ticonderoga. We were struck by how massive they were for a projectile–they weigh a ton in your hand. Feeling that, you gain a small appreciation for the power of these weapons and how terrifying it must have been in these engagements.

When you read about the American Revolution, you think about these people in a straight line shooting at each other with 99% of the shots missing their mark because the weapons are so ineffective. The reality isn’t quite so straightforward; these were real people with deadly weapons, and that was something we really wanted to get across on screen.

The submarine experiment is absolutely captivating to watch. Can you take me behind the scenes of that shoot?

SP: That was one of the few things we filmed in the U.K. with Mike Loades, as there’s a good replica of the submarine, called the Turtle, in Portsmouth. We only had one shot to do it, of course, so we brought in a load of cameras (8 in total) to film in slow-motion, as well as a specialist to operate the Phantom high-speed camera. We didn’t want to risk missing anything.

LW: The lake was all of 10 feet deep, so we were trying to find a balance between keeping it weighted so the bomb would be sunk down to a safe level but also buoyant enough that we’d get a good explosion that would reflect the reality of what it would have been like. That shoot really highlighted how this is such a rich crossroads of history. The Turtle allows you to see what cutting-edge military technology looked like during the late 18th century.

From Ezra Lee being enlisted last-minute to operate the Turtle to John Robbins surviving a devastating Brown Bess shot and so many other narratives, how were you able to source these stories and archival materials?

SP: Most of them came from Leo’s research and the different experts we consulted. Each story sets you on a journey to discover where that is, who owns it, and before you know it, you’re calling a courtroom in Virginia, trying to access a painting. Who was it you ended up on the phone with, Leo?

LW: Oh yeah, I called George H.W. Bush’s former ambassador to Romania. He’s a 90-year-old man in Roanoke who has a massive personal collection of Revolutionary War materials, including some of these records and a bunch of the original Yorktown battle maps and things like that.

He, like so many of the people we reached out to, was really receptive and helpful. Partly because of the anniversary coming up—but also, working with PBS and NOVA opens a lot of doors—people were eager to direct us to the best archives and sign them over to us.

To that end, it was fascinating how much emphasis you placed on finding and sharing untold stories from this rich vein of history–whether that be Indigenous tribes, enslaved people, or women. Why did that figure prominently in your approach?

LW: Coming to the U.S., it was heartening to see how many people are engaged with their own history and the Revolution–not just commemorating the history they know but also trying to find new things and bring in marginalized voices.

SP: We just wanted to do our best to represent everyone in America at the time, as a lot of those stories have historically been brushed over. Also, they’re really interesting stories that we felt added to the film!

How did you go about intertwining the scientific and historical threads in this film?

LW: We both have backgrounds in history, so it was something we always had to keep in mind—this is a NOVA project; it has to be rooted in science. We were constantly trying to foreground the science but link back to history by putting that technology in the hands of normal people.

SP: Telling the social history of the weapons and their effects, connecting technology with specific people, places, and narratives was our way into the story.

I think that symbiosis works really well in the end. The NOVA team certainly introduced us to subjects and methods I wouldn’t have considered while filming, and perhaps we did the same for them.

Watch NOVA Revolutionary War Weapons here or on the PBS app, and check out our interview and trivia session with historic firearms researcher Joel Bohy!

According to NOVA Co-Executive Producer Chris Schmidt, “Some of the most beloved NOVA films over the decades tell stories centered on experimental archaeology. They combine history and engineering to answer questions, test historical accounts, and bring history off the page and into our modern lives. Often, what starts as a curiosity-driven inquiry into the ingenuity and experiences of people who came before us yields unexpected results that never would have been revealed without taking the time to build and experiment with inventions from the past. In Revolutionary War Weapons, we saw an incredible opportunity to use science and engineering to tell a surprising story about one particular aspect of the origin of the American experiment.”

This film is part of GBH’s America 250 initiative .