The Kurtz Dossier has been my holy grail for a very long time. Its one of a very few number of props
that almost have a character of their own and nearly five years ago I was going to try and put together
as best a replica as possible that only would have comprised a fraction of the screen seen stuff.
Then I came upon Adam`s WIP, and was absolutely blown away by the amount of high end work he had already
put in to his project and I was compelled to contact him and after proving my bona fides began tossing
things back and forward with the help of Stuart Morrow
stromo who has helped me on countless projects,
to the point where Adam, who is the busiest person like, ever, honoured me by sending me everything he
had with the aim of putting it all together to make some fully complete Dossiers.
Adam had access to the original prop and had already created many documents and pictures that just needed
some finishing touches and many custom made items. I then set about expanding on all that where possible
and with Stu helping out reworking pictures and framing a lot of the documents it came down to making all
the jigsaw parts and make them come together without knowing what the finished picture is.
After nearly five years,lots of down time, we now have a screen accurate replica complete with every screen
seen document in their entirety on and contaianed in appropriate stationary and every screen seen picture
complete except two that have been substituted.
This dossier also contains special pictures not used on screen and custom pictures as well as dozens of
directly releated pictures and bespoke documents. Adam had custom photo wallets made that have the same
gold embossing on the back identicle to the originals,each Dossier has 8 of these as well as custom
Vietnamese ID cards with embossing on the finished laminate on both sides and wax seals with accurate
Eagle design, just perfect. The pictures here reveal just a fraction of the documents and pictures contained
in the completed dossier.
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The Break Down.....
"I`m still in Saigon". It all begins with Capt Willards initial orders letter. Finished on onion skin paper
with screen accurate envelope.
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The Dossier breaks down in to four elements. The initial orders letter, the IVORY 1 BLACK file and master
envelope, IVORY one through four files in master envelope and the Colby file in master wallet.
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IVORY 1 BLACK
This is the folder that Harrison Ford works off when informing Willard of his mission. It is placed in a cover
folder and secured in a large envelope and with the rest of the dossier for Willards river journey. This folder
is basically the quick reference file for Willard. It is made up of its own unique content including newspaper
clippings and special four page orders letter but is based on copies of documents and pictures from the other
files.
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IVORY 1 2 3 and 4 RED
These four files document Kurtz`s family background through to his Terminate with extreme predjiduce status.
All files are in screen accurate official folders and placed in screen accurate cover folders with correct
Dymo tape labels.
The four files contain every item seen on screen in a complete state as well as dozens of extra documents and
dozens of extra photographs. Newsweek magazine is a genuine issue with Kurtz double page story added and although
not included in the final edit, a Time magazine as dated with a complete replica cover made. No movie releated
content though.
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]
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The Colby File.
Given to Willard near the end of his journey this replica had to be made all from scratch. I`m assuming from all
the original content in Willards Dossier, poor Colby was not afforded the same preperation time. The only
compromise that had to be made on this was the document wallet, to get a screen accurate one was to order a
huge amount custom made. Only needed five at most so eventually found a very reasonable substitute. For some
reason I always thought the words HELL USA were written on the letter home envelope but could never get
it confirmed.
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It was incredibly generous of Adam to let me in to this project and contribute some new elements, a literal
dream come true for me. I met up with him a couple of years ago at a Mythbusters Live gig here and he is a
what we call in Australia, a Champion. It was an equal pleasure working with Stuart Morrow, his input, creative
talent and patience were and are much appreciated. A shout out to The Chief
saskafarian for his assistance on
the special orders letter as well.
There are still a couple of elements I want to add down the track such as a double page spread in the Time
magazine but need to keep my head out of the jungle for a while. Wars Hell.
