“Chicken! Chicken! Kentucky Fried Chicken! Now cluck like a chicken! Buk-BOK! Cluck like a chicken and call him a Kentucky Fried Chicken!” – film director Peter Berg to international music sensation/first time actress Rihanna.

Let me tell you something – when you hear the term “16 inch gun” you may think, “hey, sixteen inches is less than a foot-and-a-half, that’s not so big!” Then when you see one (and realize the 16 inches is in reference to the diameter of a shell) you very quickly shut the heck up. I was so wowed by these mechanical marvels of mass destruction that, for a moment, it barely struck me that a movie was being made.

On the deck of The USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor (“The Mighty Mo,") where the Japanese surrendered and ended World War II, were dozens of sailors in white, representing the navies of the world. This was, no doubt, a “pre-attack” scene, where teams are still preparing for the RIMPAC exercises.

Peter Berg, whose directorial resume ranges from the slick and serious (The Kingdom) to the breezy and highly profitable (Hancock), got his start, of course, as an actor. (I can’t be the only one who remembers The Great White Hype?) Perhaps it is this background that makes his on-set directorial style so playful and interactive.

With three cameras roaming for different reactions, Rihanna is riffing with Jesse Plemons (Landry Clarke on Friday Night Lights) as they stand at attention. Rihanna is clearly goading Plemons into doing something foolish, and Berg is feeding her insults from behind the camera. Without calling cut they try it again and again with different cadences and different disses. Once Berg hits upon the word “chicken,” the sparks start to fly (see above quote.)

As this back and forth continued, Berg also zips requests into his camera operators. Two of 'em have fixed positions and one is scanning for reactions – and receiving the bulk of Berg's requests. When Berg finally calls cut there is one more demand: “Who’s got a score on the Vikings game? Someone get NFL.com on their phone!"

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