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"  What if all the UFO sightings over the years weren&amp;#039;t weather balloons or top-secret military planes, but alien scout craft doing reconnaissance for a future invasion? That&amp;#039;s the premise of Battle: Los Angeles, an on-the-ground view of a worldwide invasion from the perspective of one Marine battalion. It hits theaters March 11. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like District 9 meets Black Hawk Down meets Modern Warfare,&amp;quot; says Michelle Rodriguez, who plays Air Force tech Santos. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s the best way to explain it.&amp;quot; Director Jonathan Liebesman wanted his actors to bring realism to their portrayal of Marines, so his crew contacted Lt. Colonel Jason Johnston, former artilleryman-turned-director of the Marine Corps Entertainment Office in Los Angeles. The office handles requests from productions that want the support of the Corps, which includes everything from providing reference recordings for video games to scheduling a production&amp;#039;s use of assets like helicopters. &amp;quot;This is a movie that really speaks to the essence of the Marine Corps, the individual Marine and his squad and the brotherhood there,&amp;quot; Johnston says. &amp;quot;I knew I wanted to support this movie. And from the very beginning, the filmmakers were committed to getting it right.&amp;quot; Johnston and his crew were involved in almost all aspects of the production, from looking over the script to advising the prop and costume departments to training the actors. &amp;quot;We made them sleep outside, just like Marines do,&amp;quot; Johnston says. &amp;quot;They had to do physical training, and we taught them tactics and how to use the weapons.&amp;quot; Rodriguez even learned how to take apart an MP4 and reassemble it with a pen\u2014a skill she laments she wasn&amp;#039;t able to use in the film because &amp;quot;when you&amp;#039;re running from aliens, you have to have your gun ready to go,&amp;quot; she says. The actors were very gung-ho. &amp;quot;They were 100 percent committed to understanding the essence of a Marine and playing that role accurately,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;They weren&amp;#039;t just there to dress up and go &amp;#039;bang bang!&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  While Johnston lauds the filmmakers&amp;#039; commitment to getting the military aspects of the film right, that doesn&amp;#039;t mean everything in Battle: Los Angeles hits that high standard of accuracy. Rodriguez, who sat down with real Air Force techs in the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Division to research her role, says some of the technical information her character imparts was simplified for the benefit of the audience. One character, for example, asks if radio frequency transmissions could take out electronics. &amp;quot;I said yeah, because I was supposed to, but that&amp;#039;s not right\u2014electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) are what do that!&amp;quot; Rodriguez says. &amp;quot;Producers think that people don&amp;#039;t get it, but kids who play video games know what EMPs are. But I&amp;#039;m aware that it&amp;#039;s a film, so I have to say, &amp;#039;Let it go, Michelle.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;       Read on for specifics of the Marines&amp;#039; involvement in the production, and check out our full Michelle Rodriguez Q&amp;amp;amp;A here. LINGO One of Johnston&amp;#039;s first tasks was helping to fine-tune the script&amp;#039;s military vernacular, substituting the word &amp;quot;gun&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;rifle&amp;quot; and making sure the word &amp;quot;soldier&amp;quot; was used correctly. &amp;quot;For your average citizen, it can be used interchangeably between the services,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;But for the Marine Corps, it&amp;#039;s an important distinction\u2014soldiers are in the United States Army.&amp;quot; During filming, Johnston took pains to keep the jargon accurate even when the actors went off-script. &amp;quot;Some things they ad-libbed were pretty humorous,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d give them something else afterward that we would actually say. As we got farther along, folks got a little more comfortable with Marine vernacular, especially when talking on the radio.&amp;quot; COSTUME AND PROPS Before filming began, Johnston and his crew helped the costume and prop departments get the actors&amp;#039; costumes just right, tweaking rank insignias and placing equipment in the correct places. &amp;quot;The production did a great job of providing all of the gear that our Marines are currently using in Iraq and Afghanistan,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;without the protective armor plating and the 50 pounds of gear that go in our packs, of course.&amp;quot;  MANEUVERS The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have honed the urban combat skills of the Marine Corps. Johnston showed actors how to cross open spaces and bound down alleyways. &amp;quot;From there, we would negotiate between what the director&amp;#039;s vision was and the reality,&amp;quot; he says. The Marines&amp;#039; expertise was also key in planning shots that involved lots of equipment and extras: &amp;quot;We showed the filmmakers how we would take a battalion of Marines, load them into aircraft, and take off for war so that they understood what was happening during those major muscle movements and where to place the cameras.&amp;quot; ASSETS The Marine Corps allowed Battle: Los Angeles to shoot at two of their military installations: Camp Pendelton, Calif., where the actors also trained, and Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, La., where most of the movie was filmed. But they also provided a tank, light armored vehicles and 15 helicopters\u2014including CH-46 Sea Kings for transport, AH-1 attack Cobras, and MV-22 Ospreys\u2014to the production. But it was the interaction between the actors and the 200 Marines who served as extras that provided some of Johnston&amp;#039;s favorite moments. &amp;quot;To see the actors taking time with our young Marines,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;and letting them explain their vehicles and weapon systems was really awesome.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;gt; Michelle Rodriguez Q&amp;amp;amp;A &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a6677/how-the-marines-made-battle-los-angeles-more-accurate/>