The Filming of Titanic and Some "Facts" to Think About
The Filming of Titanic and Some "Facts" to Think About
WARNING THERE MAY BE SPOILERS
WARNING THERE MAY BE SPOILERS
WARNING THERE MAY BE SPOILERS
WARNING THERE MAY BE SPOILERS
Titanic is one of my favorite movies and another masterful creation by James Cameron. Also, one of the most iconic film scores of all time by James Horner. What I love about Titanic, is that it was able to capture the excitement, beauty, and marvel over Titanic that existed. The horror is so obvious that the last third of the film leaves you more stressed out than just about anything.
Everyone knows Titanic, the successful film that left everyone crying for Leonardo DiCaprio in 1997. Under the production of 20th Century Fox, later in association with Paramount Pictures to share the cost of the epic production, with a budget of almost $200,000,000. According to Savings.org $300,000,000 in 1997 equals $304,453,972.26 in 2017. This is an outrageous budget for a film and is still in the top 50 most expensive movies of all time, ranking at 32.
In the beginning, the film director James Cameron sold the idea of the story as "Romeo and Juliet aboard the Titanic," to which Fox executives gave him the "green light." Whether this was entirely a true story doesn't matter because people believe it as true. To see comparisons of people in the film based on real life or demystify the truths, see http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/titanic.php.
Jack and Rose (Romeo and Juliet) were in fact NOT based on real people (sorry for those who didn't know). Rose was based on Beatrice Wood, who was an artist with no relation to Titanic what-so-ever. There was a J. Dawson on the Titanic, but that was Joseph Dawson, not Jack (sorry again). James Cameron was also not aware of Joseph Dawson until after finishing the script for Titanic.
Cameron took the hard work of recording the original ship, organizing several dives over a period of two years where the sinking occurred. All of this is partly or wholly due to Cameron's obsession with being underwater in a submarine. For this, a submarine and a production equipment was used, submerged to a water pressure of 6,000 lb / pg², however, due to some adverse situations, the shots didn’t come out with the quality that Cameron would have liked. Having gone through all of that, the director felt the responsibility of bringing to the big screen the tremendous emotional impact that left the Titanic in real life people.
The Boat
Harland and Wolff, the shipyard that made the Titanic, opened their private files to share them with the production team, and create a replica with the original blueprints. As for the details and furniture of the ship, such as the iconic staircase in which Jack and Rose have several encounters during the film, it was taken as a reference the sister ship of the Titanic, the Olympic, this due to the sinking of the Titanic on it's maiden voyage. Since the Titanic was not photographed as much as the Olympic and therefore there was no physical evidence of the details of the ship (apart from the deteriorated remains that the production team could observe during the dives, but apparently they were not very helpful).
The Special Effects
As in all of his productions, Cameron wanted to bring something new to the table, something that would leave the spectators with their mouth open. In this case, he teamed up with Digital Domain for visual effects to continue the development of the digital film technology. The most memorable impact of the film is the scene of the sinking ship, something that was achieved with a 66 feet scale model. About 150 extras and 100 doubles took place in that scene, as Cameron wanted to represent how chaotic it must have been to be in that position at that precise moment and forget about the typical slow-motion view that everyone would have expected to see.
Interviews
Did the Titanic break apart? The public information from interviews of people that survived is that the ones who did see it sink didn't see it break apart. It's possible they heard some sounds of parts breaking due to pressure. https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/articles/wormstedt.pdf
Hollywood may have conned everyone on this one. Some reports say the ship might have sunk due to a fire. Though, an iceberg does sound more likely. I think, either way, Hollywood Hollywoodified this one.
The Complications
In one of the scenes, when the water starts to rise in the great hall where the stairs were, they could only do one take, because it implied that all furniture and tables would be ruined by the water. This added enormous pressure on the actors to shoot everything in one shot. I'm sure the production, wardrobe, makeup, and set design people have stressed more than ever with this also. Audio guys are always stressed out over valid reasons, so it's a no-brainer that water + microphones = bad idea. Another complication, where the extreme conditions to which the actors were exposed to. Like the scene in which Rose looks for a Jack by the corridors of the ship flooding. This scene caused the actress Kate Winslet to suffer from pneumonia. I would say that no actors wouldn't put themselves through this, but Leo just did The Revenant. I guess that's proof that actors are willing to be beaten up to look like they are beaten up.
Would they do it again in retrospect is another question I would like to have answered.
Steemians, what do you think about the process of shooting Titanic? Does it sound fun yet?
