The crew's next approach to lighting the Titanic set incorporated one of the largest reflectors ever constructed. Once again, the idea had begun with Buckley's investigations at the 1996 ShowBiz Expo. "I'd found a company there out of Nashville called Tech Incorporated that builds 10K Xenon lamps," he recalls. "They hadn't yet gotten into the motion picture lighting business; they built Xenon fixtures for NASA. Their lamps don't have a 500-pound ballast that you have to roll around. Instead, it's built right inside the head, which still weighs only 35 pounds more than the one on Xenotech's 10K. They're also quieter, put out 15 percent more light, and have a dimming knob that will take them up and down by two stops.
"To light the ship, we bounced three of these 10K Xenons into a huge, sail-like reflector rigged to the arm of the 162' mobile tower crane that sits on tracks installed on the floor of the tank. The sail was a 40' x 60' piece of muslin with a silver reflector behind it, mounted on a furling system that could roll up and down depending on how much of it we needed and the wind conditions. The whole thing was mounted to the movable basket on the arm, so we could literally position the sail anywhere within the crane's range. [Rigging key grip] Phillip Sloan built a collar for the reflector that attached to the crane. The sail was secured in place with lines running to the ground, and could be used to illuminate any part of the ship we wanted with a nice warm key, some fill, or do whatever else we needed."
The tower crane arm's weight limits were a primary concern during the development of the furling system, especially since the effect of the wind upon the 40' x 60' reflector could potentially topple the structure. "No one could come up with a correct figure concerning the wind pressure," Buckley says. "We figured that the crane company had given us a low weight capacity figure for their own safety reasons; by keeping the 10Ks on the tower instead of the arm, we kept most of the weight off the extended portion of the rig. It worked extremely well, but as with the balloons, any kind of wind made the furling system completely non-functional.
"At one point, Jim said, 'There's got to be something else we can use as a reflector that we can keep up there longer.' He'd noticed that the balloons could handle more wind because they were round, and I suggested using big piece of culvert pipe. We took a pipe that was 20' x 16', painted it white, put it up there, and again used the 10K Xenons. The bounce effect was similar, and the pipe lasted a little longer than the muslin reflector, allowing us to work in winds that were about 15 m.p.h. stronger."
"The wind factor was just worse than anybody thought it could be," Carpenter says. "But there was a constant battle against the weather conditions. We were staying at a place called Popotia, and I'm sure that must translate somehow to 'The Place Where Wind and Fog Never Stop.'"
Carpenter and Buckley also had to turn their attention to the 650 portholes that lined the starboard side of the ship set. To convince 20th Century Fox of his thrifty ways, Buckley accepted the studio's offer of some old 2Ks. "I didn't particularly want them, but politically it was the right thing to do because they were giving them away. We found out that the lights didn't have barn doors or diffusion heads with them or even stands. Churubusco Studios in Mexico City offered to sell theirs to us. We bought those for $20,000; it was expensive, but we saved money in the long run because the shoot lasted for so many days."
The portholes were covered with milk glass and the 2Ks supplied by Fox which ran through 400 20-amp GFIs were placed behind them within the ship's steel skeleton of scaffolding. As Buckley reports, "The ship looked beautiful all lit up like that, and the lamps created illumination for scenes in which the lifeboats were lowered down the side of the ship."
In his quest for detail, Cameron believed that TransLights depicting cabin rooms should be placed behind the portholes for tighter shots of the ship set. "Beyond others, he wanted to have semi-sets built so we could see people inside the ship," Buckley says. "Because of the way it was designed, the set's steel scaffolding only allowed a 3'-deep area behind the portholes. The scaffolding crew popped up the railing [we had previously rigged our 2Ks on] and pushed it back, but they didn't build anything for us to light from. That screwed up my plan to put the 2Ks back on that level. To solve the problem, we bought about 4,000 300-watt household globes. Four porcelain sockets were put around each of the portholes to light the rooms. It was the easiest and cheapest way to do it. Because most of the shots were made with wide lenses, it didn't have to be overly artistic; Jim just wanted to see the impression of a room and the movement of people inside. The globes worked out well, and ended up saving us $500,000 by the time it was all done. From that point, Jim wisely shot the sinking of the ship sequentially, so we could move progressively toward the bow. I had a strict policy that we would then only use the waterproof Pars."
By using the underwater Pars, says Carpenter, "we could create this glow just below the waterline. But we also used deeper sources in the 40' section of Tank One to suggest that there were lights shining three of four decks below, even though our set didn't go that far down. We built a framework and measured the spaces out so these deep sources appeared to be where the portholes would."
"We had well over 500 of [the porthole lights]," Buckley recounts, "but we again had problems with the lights getting hot and then being dunked in the cold water. We sank different parts of the ship over and over again, such as the hallways and dining room in Tank Two, and the main part of the ship in Tank One."
Carpenter adds, "Testing lights for taking this kind of abuse was absolutely paramount. One solution was to leave the lights off until just before we sank anything. If they were on any longer than 15 minutes, they'd get so hot that they'd just blow out. So we'd light the fixtures, turn them off to allow them to cool, turn them back on, and then go for it."
Lighting the six-acre sea in Tank One after the ship went down was another matter that was hampered by the lack of a "moonlight" source. Compounding the difficulty was Cameron's request that the reflections on the waves not have a specular quality, which might link the illumination to an obvious source. During a nocturnal visit to the Titanic set in March, AC's editors observed Buckley and Carpenter's novel solution to this conundrum: a 65' wall, painted flat black, had previously been constructed on the north end of Tank One to block out offending lights from nearby dwellings. Buckley explains, "To create the reflections, we started with some Kino Flo tubes running along the top of the wall, but the effect was too specular. Then we talked about using a balloon, but that was also too specular. Jim just wanted to see an even hint of light out there."
In the final solution, fog machines were situated behind the structure, billowing forth a drifting white canopy approximately 40' above the top of the wall. The fog bank was lit from behind with four 18Ks, which resulted in whirling, decidedly non-specular reflections on the water. "It was a pretty smart idea," Buckley admits. "But I didn't get to see the dailies, so I don't know how well it actually showed up."
For James Muro, filming on the decks of the Titanic set offered both opportunities and unique difficulties, especially since the first level loomed a full 45' from the surface of the tank. "Our big question was, how do we get the lens up 30 to 60 feet above the ship?'" the operator reports. "That was really high. Shooting on decks, we did a lot of Steadicam, but we also had two Akela cranes going. When you see an Akela at a trade show, it's like, 'Man, is this thing big!' But two weeks into shooting on the ship, we were looking around for something even bigger!
"Jim then came with up the idea of mounting a Wescam to the bottom of a big camera basket hanging from the tower crane arm. That really clinched our ability to get new perspectives of the ship. Doing coverage from the deck was great, but getting a flying angle from above that height was incredible. At first I thought it was going to be like a helicopter shot, but the basket could really get in there tight on the action.
"One of the biggest shots we did with the basket was also a Steadicam shot. We put gyros on my rig, went up, and did this shot of the poop deck just as it was going down. We flew over people's heads, looking straight down, revealing the entire thing, while still pulling away. With the gyros going, it was almost like handholding a Wescam."
Muro mainly uses the George Paddock Inc. Pro Sled, but also has a lightweight rig that was built for Strange Days by Cinema Products. The operator details, "It's called the SK, which I use with this little five-pound camera that SL Cine makes. We did a lot of the POVs in Strange Days with that combination [see AC Nov. 1995] and now I use it for any shots where I have to run with actors or up and down stairs. The SL camera takes 200' loads, and the whole things weighs just 16 pounds. The Pro rig with the Panavision Lightweight was 55 to 75 pounds depending on the lens we were using. Fortunately, Jim has such prowess in postproduction that he knows when he needs sound and when he doesn't. That gave me the freedom to use this little SL camera. It may have had some running noise, but it really let me get some fantastic shots."
The decision of whether to shoot handheld or use the Steadicam was "usually an aesthetic choice, but sometimes there is technically only one way to make a move," Muro says. "This is usually decided while Jim is lining up the shot with the Vid Stick. He's examining the frame, and if he's doing a straight push in he might say, 'I want an eye on the eyepiece for this.' But if he buttonhooks around something and makes certain kinds of moves, I know he's going to say, 'Schlamma,' which is his code word for Steadicam." Muro laughs, adding, "I believe that's derived from a German word, because on T2 Arnold Schwarzenegger would call it the 'Steadi-schlamma.' Now it's just the Schlamma."
Because of the set's sturdy construction, the decking could even support the Technocrane, "but it could take hours to get it into position, because the grips had to hoist it up with a construction crane," Muro says. "Of course, the ship was sinking, and the set was soon pitched at a six-degree angle. You couldn't just wheel the Technocrane around anymore it was sliding. But in that situation, we really needed the telescopic function of its arm, since we could no longer lay track and use a dolly. Leveling the tracks and screwing everything down was a major pain."
In addition to capturing the dramatic action, Muro's work included helping to create the illusion that the Titanic set was in motion. "There were a lot of techniques that Jim had in mind before we started shooting," the operator attests. "We often did camera moves on the deck moving from bow to stern, which gave a sense of forward momentum. That was our set language, and we couldn't necessarily move from stern to bow. We had to be careful, because if there were clouds in the background and we tracked left to right past someone, it would seem as if the ship were turning. We used that effect for the scene in which the iceberg is sighted and a crewman calls out, 'Hard to port!' We did the dolly to make the ship feel as if it was changing course."
He concludes, "With the camera basket, Steadicam, and cranes, we could cover the entire ship at any moment, which made it hard on Russell and John Buckley. They could be rigging up their lighting for the shot, and suddenly it might change and all of those lights would be in frame. It was almost too easy for Jim to move around, so we had to pin him down lighting-wise to at least one half of the ship at a time, knowing that it would take a half-hour for Russell and John to prepare the other side."
Filming the interior sets in Tank Two was equally daunting, even though weather was less of a concern. Built as true to the actual Titanic blueprints as possible, the sets were designed to be repeatedly flooded, so they had to be able to withstand terrific force. "There were no wild walls, so if we had to move even one, it would take a lot of time," Carpenter attests. "For that reason, the dining room [in Tank Two] was built inside a steel frame structure, much like what you'd find inside a skyscraper. Everything had to be bolted onto that steel frame so the set could withstand the pressure of the set being raised and lowered, with tons of water dumping into it. A normally built set would just have collapsed. Because of the flooding, we also had to take a lot of safety precautions in regard to the lighting, just as we had in Tank One.
"The sets were built in Mexico City and brought to our location at Rosarito Beach, where they were reconstructed. Often, they really weren't ready to look at until we were ready to shoot. I would have given my eyeteeth to have one day to test things and really look at how the light worked in these sets, but it rarely happened."
The architecture of the Titanic suggested that different lighting be used in the third-class areas, as opposed to the open-air, first-class decks above. "The treatment of the sets down below was very plain and the walls were often just white," Carpenter describes. "There's a major scene that takes place in the steerage common room in which Rose and Jack go dancing at a party down there. If we had just continued with the practical-lighting approach in combination with the white walls, we would have had an almost hospital-like atmosphere. Once I had seen a rehearsal of what the dancers were going to do in that scene, and the kind of energy they were going to add with their performance, I knew I wanted the impact of the lighting to match what they were doing. Toward that end, we made a real deviation from the general lighting plan we were using everywhere else on the ship. Basically, we cut holes in the ceiling and started aiming 5Ks straight down to make these really hot white patches of light that the dancers would pass through. The pools were three to five stops over the key, so for brief moments in a shot we'd get these explosions of energy as they danced and whirled about. We ended up not lighting the walls at all; we just let them fall off naturally to take the curse off this fairly sterile space.
"I would normally figure out a logical source for this kind of lighting, but in this case I just decided that the energy of the scene superseded those considerations. I wanted to take that scene as far as I could before the audience would say, 'Hey, this doesn't make any sense at all.' To do that, you have to know where your boundaries are. Look at what Bob Richardson [ASC] does in his films, such as Heaven & Earth. Where are these incredibly hot top lights coming from? It's never explained, but it works beautifully."
As the "Atlantic" began flooding the ship's lower decks in Tank Two, the water played chaos with the sets' elaborate dressings and decorations. Carpenter recalls: "The shooting process was like this: first we'd film the scenes in which everything looks as elegant as possible, representing all the hope and innocence of the time; then, after some modifications to the set, we'd sink it and watch everything go belly up. Take two in the sinking of the dining room set was horrendous, because there were hundreds and hundreds of props: chairs, tables, lamps that had to stay on, china, all of that. It took hours and hours to set up correctly.
"As the ship begins to sink, the camera is often bobbing just inches above the water. There's very little underwater photography in the picture, with the exception of the deep-dive stuff at the beginning. Instead, we're very close to the surface from 6" to 3' and we never went really high except for a few shots, because Jim thought that would take the audience away from the actors and out of the picture. We wanted to be right in there with the actors, moving through the same environment they were."
Muro reports that "the roll axis on the Steadicam was extremely useful on the Tank Two sets. The ship was supposed to be at a 12-degree angle and rising. To add to the sensation, we'd just dial that in on the Steadicam and go. We often brought in a second Steadicam for some larger scenes, like one in the dining room when the ship is going down, the tables and chairs are sliding all over the place and the water is welling up. Bob Ulland and Guy Bee were with us at some points on the shoot, and we played 'dueling Steadicams.' The dining room was the size of a football field, and it tilted and sank into the tank. In this case, we kept our rigs at true level while the set turned around us. That was incredibly difficult to do, because we had to forget everything we'd ever learned about keeping a shot lined up with the bubble level. Sometimes the instincts of operating the Steadicam would catch up with us, and we'd add a bit of list or dial out some list when we turned 90 degrees to the tilt of the set. That was sometimes frustrating."
Something beyond frustration and closer to fright is the feeling Carpenter describes as he recalls the filming of the flooding scenes. He expounds, "Jim likes to film 'real for real' that is, to construct a shooting scenario that is as true to the situation being depicted as possible. For example, there are scenes in Titanic where Rose and Jack are trapped below decks and the water is rising so fast that you have to wonder how they can get out before they are really crushed into the ceiling and suffocated. Our safety divers were just out of camera range when the actors were doing these kinds of things, where they had just inches of space to catch a breath. It looks real because it basically is real except that we could instantly stop the water, and the divers were right there. But the situation certainly put the actors and the camera crew through some paces."
Muro echoes this account, adding, "It was so tight in some of those corridors that once you got in there with the equipment, you couldn't get out. The corridors were built to withstand these huge volumes of water being dumped into them, so the walls weren't going anywhere. Of course, when you're thinking about safety, things become safe it's when you're too comfortable and not thinking about it that things can go wrong. There were a few times where we had allowed ourselves to get tired. Even Jim, who has gotten a lot of criticism for working long hours, said on more than one occasion, 'Hey, we're getting diminishing returns here, let's wrap it.' So there were safety concerns. Oftentimes, we'd rework the shot or even remove portions of the corridor ceiling to make sure the shot could be done safely and there would be an escape if necessary. We were amazed by the strength of the water pressure, and all of that water had to go somewhere."
While it may have seemed as if it might last forever, the Titanic shoot did finally end, and the ship set, which had become an astonishing landmark for anyone driving down the Mexican coast, was rapidly dismantled. In its wake, Fox Baja Studios remained to welcome a new group of filmmakers.
Despite all the production's trials and tribulations, the $190 million project was certainly a memorable one for the cast and crew. "I was on the show for almost nine months, but I didn't necessarily mind it," gaffer John Buckley concludes. "Jim demands the best out of you, no matter who you are, and that's a joy. This picture was a mammoth undertaking, and I'm really proud of it because I gave it everything I had as did everybody else on the crew."
Carpenter confirms, "As enormous and logistically challenging as this film was, I feel happiest with the more intimate scenes. This was a great opportunity to show some work that is more delicate than the action-oriented films I've done in the past. I'll remember Titanic as a challenge and a testament to Jim's visionary gifts and drive, but perhaps more importantly, I'll recall that I was supported through it all by a group of talented and committed crew members. That's the bottom line for me."
