All special ability extras and the cast playing infantry officers and soldiers attended a five day training camp prior to shooting. During this training, they learned to put on and wear the WW1 uniforms and webbing; hold, load and fire the No1 Mark III SMLE rifle; bayonet fighting; WW1 infantry tactics; words of command; some basic drill and lessons on military organization. They were also given excepts from George Mansfield's 'Junior Leadership on the Battlefield' to get an understanding of combat and the effects it has on soldiers.
The hand signals, whistle blasts and words of command used by Captain Taylor were from the 1914 Infantry Training Manual used by British and Dominion infantry at the time.
The character of Captain Eric Taylor is based on two real life Australian officers, Tulloch and Lalor, who fought on the left flank of the ANZAC position on 25 April 1915.
Approximately, a quarter of the soldiers in the 1st Australian Division were born in the UK, so a number of officers and soldiers are portrayed in Australian uniforms with British accents. For example the commander of the 1st Australian Division, Major General W.T Bridges, was Scots-born and is shown with a Scottish accent.
In order to place the main cast of characters at key locations and events in the Gallipoli Campaign, the decision was made to create a fictional battalion, with its own fictional color patch. The fictional color patch is light blue over green, which has sometimes been mistaken for white over green (4th Battalion) due to the sepia-like filtering of the final film.