Jerry Bruckheimer Talks

Filed under Interviews by on April 27, 2011 at 4:10 am {no comments}

Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley

The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy represents the very essence of why legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer makes moves.

“I love Pirates because there are very few films you can take your children to and you can all enjoy the experience. It is rare,” he says. “And, you know, I have made enough money, I don’t have to do this anymore. But I do it to entertain people and a movie like this really entertains people on a global basis and that is a real thrill.”

When the first Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released in 2003 it was a critical and box office triumph. Now Bruckheimer has re-untied his team – director Gore Verbinski, cast Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom and indeed crew – to make Pirates 2, Dead Man’s Chest, and Pirates 3, virtually back to back.

“If that had not all come together – same director, same cast and crew,” he reflects. “I don’t think we would be here right now.”

Bruckheimer reveals that he was thinking of a sequel when the first Pirates was being filmed – long before, of course, it become a box office phenomenon. At that time, a skeptical media was casting doubts on the commercial chances of a film based on a theme park ride. How wrong they were.

“And it wasn’t until the picture started making steam that we got the studio to say “Yeah, let’s go! Start writing another one!” Johnny loves the character and he’ll tell you that and he was excited about coming back.”

Bruckheimer isn’t gloating – his remarkable track record speaks for itself – just delighted that a project he clearly adores is back with a massive fan base anxious to discover what happens to lovable rogue Jack Sparrow (Depp) and young lovers Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) and Will Turner (Bloom).

“The anticipation for the movie is very high,” he says. “We feel that there is real want and need to see a continuation and since we have created what we consider a full story between the three movies – because everything that you will see in the second and third movie really relate to the first – it’s created a real arc and a real trilogy for the three films.”

Indeed, such is Bruckheimer’s enthusiasm for the project he would quite happily make a further three films. He certainly wants the ships used in the movies, The Black Pearl – pirate Jack Sparrow’s ship – and The Flying Dutchman, to be kept shipshape and Bristol fashion just in case.

“Hopefully, we’ll make more,” he says. “Hopefully Disney will save these ships, unlike last time, and save the sets and we can continue another trilogy – another three films. I would love to do that but it’s not my money.

“Johnny loves the character and he’d love to play it. He has a fan base at home; his two kids love it. So that’s a good start.”

Bruckheimer, 60, is one of the most successful producers in Hollywood. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he started his career producing television commercials before moving on to films with his partner, the late Don Simpson.

His list of credits is truly remarkable – ranging from American Gigolo, Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Bad Boys, Crimson Tide, Con Air and Armageddon amongst many others, in the seventies, eighties and nineties. More recently, he has produced Gone In Sixty Seconds, Pearl Harbour, King Arthur and Glory Road.

This interview was conducted on set at the Universal Studios biggest sound stage.

Was it a risk to make these movies back to back?

It’s made around $600m in revenue, just in theatrical revenue not counting DVDs and all the other stuff, so it’s a pretty good bet. Especially if you can get the same writers back, the same directors, the same director and the same cast and had that not all come together I don’t think we would be here right now.

Did everyone commit to the project straight away? When did you decide to make two and three?

We were thinking about it while we were making the first one but the studio wasn’t. Then the press was slamming us for making a movie about a theme park ride that involved pirates because pirates were a dead issue at the box office – at least in the past. And it wasn’t until the picture started making steam that we got the studio to say “Yeah, let’s go! Start writing another one!” And Johnny loves the character and he’ll tell you that and he was excited about coming back.

You actually do have a bit of a break in between two and three. There was the two month hiatus and then in early 2006 Gore will have to go off and finish editing number two. What was the thinking behind that?

Well, first of all Gore needed time to edit the movie so he needed the two months to cut the two together and then jump to three and you don’t want the audience to over dose on it too, give them too much, so we thought the year apart was good as far as generating more interest. Plus, you have the DVD coming out and revitalising two, before three comes out. So it was a good plan from a business point of view

It must be an added bonus that both Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley have become bigger stars since the first movie?

Yeah, it’s great. The anticipation for the movie is very high. We feel that there is real want and need to see a continuation and since we have created what we consider a full story between the three movies -because everything that you will see in the second and third movie really relate to the first – it’s created a real arc and a real trilogy for the three films.

Is there more pressure after having so much success with the first one?

I feel pressure on every project even the tiny ones. I feel pressure every time I take somebody else’s money and try to get a good return on it. So sure.

You’ve worked on so many different movies- big scale, small scale. How does this compare? Is this the biggest so far?

Yeah I think it is the biggest undertaking that I have ever done. I’m doing two movies back to back plus all of the other things, ten television series and there are two other movies that we are currently working on. This is a big chunk of my time, let’s put it that way.

Q: The first film was a great surprise and no one knew what to expect. But now we kind of know what Johnny’s performance is going to be like. How do you conquer that and still make it surprising?

Well it’s all about story telling. It’s all about really good story telling. We have a new character, we have a number of new characters and we have a creature. It is a bigger, funnier, more exciting script. You don’t know how the movie is going to turn out but I know the script is wonderful and the dailies and cut footage I’ve seen seem terrific. I don’t make the decisions about what you spend money on when you go the theatre, you do,. So whether you’re going to spend your six or ten bucks to go and see Pirates, I don’t know. But I hope you will.

How much input did you have in the scripts?

Well it `s a team; Gore, the writers, myself, my group of executives all work on it together. It’s certainly a vision by the writers and by Gore. The writers came up with the ideas and the new characters for the second and third films then Gore certainly worked on it and embellished it as did our company. It’s a team. But it’s the writers who are the driving force creatively, along with Gore…

Whose decision was it to cast Chow Yun-Fat in the third film?

I think it was a combination of Gore and myself and the writers. He’s just a wonderful actor and he is a real gentleman .I’m thrilled to be able to work with him.

Is the Asian element in the third part an attempt on your part to tap into the huge Asian audience?

Well we had a huge Asian audience for the first one . It did really well out there and we kind of wanted to give them something too. Why not? We really did well in Japan, Hong Kong and all those markets.

The first Pirates introduced Johnny Depp to a much wider audience…

Yeah, sure, Disney made a PG13 movie for the first time and parents thought �Well, it’s a Disney label, maybe my 10 year old can see it.’ Before most of Johnny’s pictures were R rated, or wonderful artistic endeavours, that were not big crowd pullers. But, suddenly kids knew who Johnny was. And we’ve got kids now who want to be Johnny Depp ; 8 year olds running around in pirate hats and swords. Pirate costumes are the most bought costumes now.

Is there going to be a whole lot of merchandise to go with the film?

I hope so because there wasn’t much on the first one. It caught Disney by surprise.

Is the script now driven by something that you can merchandise?

I don’t think we look at it that way, but I think we’ll probably take advantage of everything we have in there in terms of merchandising it. For example, we have a dice game that’s a lot of fun and hopefully we’ll get some company who can do the same dice game. It shows up in the Pirates Two.

Why have you employed so many British actors?

A number of reasons. One they’re really good. I like good actors and they are very talented and this kind movie really lends itself to that. An American accent probably wouldn’t work too well in this movie. So I think it is that old fashion kind of English drawl that they have. It is perfect for a pirate movie.

Do you have to pay your professional cast a little bit more than in the first part?

Yeah, you are absolutely right (laughs)

What are the advantages of a sequel?

For a studio it gives them confidence that there is an audience that is pre-sold. So, if you liked the first one, chances are that you’ll sample the second.

What is the key to controlling a film like this?

Nothing is ever under control. I’m not under control. I can’t control my wife! (laughter) Let alone anything else.

But it’s a big movie?

Yes, as a movie it’s got a lot of moving parts and it is doing quite well. Some parts break down and you fix them. But as, as a movie of this size it’s as good as you can imagine. You don’t know because tomorrow something could happen that you just hope doesn’t happen. I was getting ready to make a movie in New Orleans, and we were supposed to start last October, obviously we didn’t g at that time. So you never know what can happen on a film. But it all comes down to the director and we have a wonderful director and he is very prepared. He knows what he wants to do and most of his big action sequences are pre planned. He’s got IOM working with him and they’re wonderful. So for this size, it is going quite well.

What parts have broken down on Pirates?

Every day something breaks down. I don’t think any major parts. We had a storm in the Caribbean. We built this tank and the depth was down to 25ft and the sand came in and we had to re dig it and put a retaining wall in. But things like that happen on a daily basis: a ship won’t be ready on time, an actor gets sick. We had an actor get sick and he couldn’t fly from England. Those things happen. But it is just part of it being a big movie. I don’t see that as a detriment,. When you have been doing it as long as I have, you just see it as daily events.

What can you tell us about the story? What’s the overview?

Well basically the overview is that the East India Trading Company, which you sort of met in the first movie, has come to Port Royal to take over the seas and make the seas free of pirates and the first thing they do is arrest everybody associated with letting Johnny go and so that’s the beginning. And this character, Beckett is the major villain in the piece. He is trying to get rid of all the pirates. It is kind of like Wal-Mart eating up all the independents you know, so he wants to get rid of all the privateers. And then Johnny made a deal in order to get the Black Pearl before the first movie started, with Davy Jones, the legendary character who lives under the sea. They agreed Johnny could have the Black Pearl for 10 years but then he owed his soul to Davy Jones. And now it’s 10 years and Davy Jones has come back to claim Johnny, and Johnny doesn’t want to go. So he has got to figure out a deal to get him away from Davy Jones. And Davy Jones, because he can’t find Johnny, sends this creature. He’s been living under the sea forever and all his tentacles move and he smokes a pipe. (Played by Bill Nighy).

And how often have you sat down with Keith Richards to discuss him appearing in Pirates 3?

I never have. Johnny has, not me.

Are you still hopeful that it`ll happen?

Well, we’ve got some schedule problems with his tour, so we’ll see.

Does the ending of two leave you having to see three, or is it kind of completed?

I think there is an emotional ending to it. But then there’s something else that happens. It will certainly make you want to come back.

Could you translate this to TV?

You could do anything but hopefully we’ll make more. Hopefully Disney will save these ships, unlike last time, and save the sets and we can continue another trilogy. Another three films. I would love to do that but it’s not my money.

And Johnny has already indicated as well that he would do more…

Yeah, he loves the character and he’d love to play it. He has a fan base at home; his two kids love it. So, that’s a good start.

And so once the third part is over there’s a consideration of doing a 4th and 5th?

Yeah I would love to. But I don’t write the cheques.

You’ve made a lot of films, what is it that you love so much about Pirates?

I love Pirates there are very few films you can take your children to and you can all enjoy the experience. it is rare. Normally we dumb down things for kids and you are sitting there thinking, “I can’t wait to get out of here.” You’re thinking about everything but the movie and something like this comes along and you just get such a broad audience and it is not just a movie here for Americans, it’s bigger elsewhere in the world. And it’s the reason I do this. I have made enough money, I don’t have to do this anymore. But I do it to entertain people and a movie like this really entertains people on a global basis and that is a real thrill to be able to do this – take people away from their lives for a couple of hours and make them feel good, make them feel something. Let them watch something that engages them, where they like the characters and they want to be with the characters and that is a lot of fun.

Are there plans to modify the actual rides in Disneyland?

I know they are doing some alterations to the ride that I think will be open around the time of the movie at least in California, and maybe in Florida, too. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I know they are making some alterations.

Are you on set much yourself?

I try to come by here once a day. But I have so many other responsibilities too. And when they’re out of town I try to go out for a week and then come back for a week. But I do love being with the actors, it’s just that we have so many other things.

At World’s End: Introduction

Filed under At World's End Production Notes by on April 26, 2011 at 3:20 pm {no comments}

Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and Geoffrey Rush reunite in Walt Disney Pictures’ / Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” an all new epic tale in the blockbuster series chronicling the fantastical adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbossa, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann. This time around, the quartet is joined by international superstar Chow Yun-Fat as Captain Sao Feng, the pirate lord of Singapore.

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Gore Verbinski, Captain Jack and the others set sail on the spectacular new adventure, once again laced with lashing of rollicking and irreverent humor, which takes them into new realms of adventure and fantasy. Their two previous “Pirates” adventures smashed records around the world, with “The Curse of the Black Pearl” garnering more than $650 million worldwide, a figure nearly doubled by “Dead Man’s Chest,” which became the third highest-grossing movie in international box office history with more than $1-billion, and a gigantic domestic take of $423,315,812, the sixth highest position in history.

The writers of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” are Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, co-writers of the first film and its follow up “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” also have such hits on their resume as “Aladdin” and “Shrek.” The film is based on characters created by Elliott & Rossio and Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpert, and based on Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. The film’s executive producers are Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Bruce Hendricks and Eric McLeod.

Johnny Depp has become one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed actors, with a hugely versatile range of performances marking his outstanding career. He was nominated for Best Actor Academy Awards for both “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Finding Neverland.” Depp’s extensive motion picture credits since the late 1980s have included “Cry-Baby,” “Platoon,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?,” “Ed Wood,” “Benny & Joon,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “Don Juan DeMarco,” “Donnie Brasco,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Sleepy Hollow,” “Chocolat,” “Blow,” “Once Upon A Time in Mexico,” “Secret Window,” “The Libertine,” “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” and Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Orlando Bloom became a major international star with his portrayal of Legolas in Peter Jackson’s award-winning “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy after co-starring in Jerry Bruckheimer’s production of “Black Hawk Down,” directed by Ridley Scott. Since then, the increasingly popular actor has starred in Wolfgang Petersen’s “Troy,” Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven” and Cameron Crowe’s “Elizabethtown.”

Keira Knightley was first brought to the attention of international audiences in the sleeper hit “Bend It Like Beckham.” In addition to “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” she was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress for “Pride & Prejudice,” and also starred in “Love, Actually,” Jerry Bruckheimer’s production of “King Arthur,” and the upcoming “Atonement,” “Silk” and “The Best Time of Our Lives.”

Geoffrey Rush won an Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for his captivating performance in HBO Films’ “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” in which he portrayed the title character. He first became internationally known for his starring role in Scott Hicks’ feature film “Shine,” which garnered him an Academy Award for Best Actor as piano prodigy David Helfgott. He also won a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Film Critics’ Circle of Australia, Broadcast Film Critics, AFI and New York and Los Angeles Film Critics’ Awards for the film. Rush also received an Academy Award nomination for his performances in Philip Kaufman’s “Quills,” and both Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for “Shakespeare in Love.”

Chow Yun-Fat exploded into international stardom after more than a decade as Hong Kong’s most popular leading man in a memorable series of portrayals that included director John Woo’s now classic films “A Better Tomorrow,” “The Killer,” “Once A Thief” and “Hard-Boiled.” Chow has also starred in Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Anna and the King” and most recently, Zhang Yimou’s “Curse of the Golden Flower.”

With only seven features to his credit thus far, Gore Verbinski’s highly acclaimed films have totaled more than $2-billion worldwide. His films have included the immensely successful “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” the chilling horror film “The Ring” and the acclaimed drama “The Weather Man,” starring Nicolas Cage.

Jerry Bruckheimer holds an undisputed position as one of the most successful producers in both motion pictures and television. First in partnership with Don Simpson, and then as the chief of Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Television, he has produced an unprecedented string of worldwide smashes, hugely impacting not only the industry, but mass culture as well. Bruckheimer’s films have included “American Gigolo,” “Flashdance,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Top Gun,” “Beverly Hills Cop II,” “Days of Thunder,” “Bad Boys,” “Dangerous Minds,” “Crimson Tide,” “The Rock,” “Con Air,” “Armageddon,” “Enemy of the State,” “Gone in 60 Seconds,” “Coyote Ugly,” “Remember the Titans,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Black Hawk Down,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” “Bad Boys II,” “Veronica Guerin,” “King Arthur,” “National Treasure,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” and the upcoming “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.”

On television, Jerry Bruckheimer had an unprecedented 10 television series airing simultaneously in the Fall season 2005, a record in the medium for an individual producer. JBTV’s series have included “C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation” and its spinoffs “C.S.I.: Miami,” “C.S.I.: NY,” “Without a Trace,” “Cold Case,” and “The Amazing Race.”

Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Television have been honored with 39 Academy Award nominations, six Oscars, eight Grammy Award nominations, five Grammys, 23 Golden Globe nominations, four Golden Globes, 53 Emmy nominations, 14 Emmys, 16 People’s Choice nominations, 11 People’s Choice Awards, numerous MTV Awards, including one for Best Picture of the Decade for “Beverly Hills Cop” and 14 Teen Choice Awards.

Along with Depp, Rush, Bloom and Knightley, cast members returning to “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” include Stellan Skarsgard as Bootstrap Bill Turner, Bill Nighy as Davy Jones, Jack Davenport as Admiral James Norrington, Jonathan Pryce as Elizabeth’s father, Governor Weatherby Swann, Naomie Harris as Tia Dalma, Tom Hollander as Lord Cutler Beckett, Kevin R. McNally as Joshamee Gibbs, Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook as Pintel and Ragetti, David Bailie as Cotton, Martin Klebba as Marty and, from the first film, Giles New and Angus Barnett as thick-skulled British soldiers Murtogg and Mullroy. Vanessa Branch and Lauren Maher return for a third time as Jack Sparrow’s favorite Tortuga wenches, Giselle and Scarlett. New cast additions include Reggie Lee (“The Fast and the Furious”) as Tai Huang, Captain Sao Feng’s lieutenant, and a diverse group of international actors portraying the Pirate Lords, including the legendary Keith Richards as Captain Teague, Keeper of the Code.

A large contingent of the award-winning “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” creative team reunites for “At World’s End,” including director of photography Darius Wolski, production designer Rick Heinrichs (Oscar nominated for “Dead Man’s Chest’), costume designer Penny Rose, supervising art director John Dexter, set decorator Cheryl Carasik (who shared the nomination with Heinrichs for “Dead Man’s Chest”), film editors Craig Wood and Stephen Rivkin, visual effects supervisors John Knoll and Charles Gibson (both of whom won Academy Awards for their work, along with ILM’s Hal Hickel, on “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”); special effects coordinator Allen Hall (who shared the “Dead Man’s Chest” Oscar with Knoll, Gibson and Hickel); stunt coordinator / second unit director George Marshall Ruge; three time Academy Award-winning key makeup artist Ve Neill and key hair stylist Martin Samuel, both of whom shared an Oscar nomination for “The Curse of the Black Pearl”; and composer Hans Zimmer. Joining this world-class team on the new film is Academy Award-winning special effects coordinator John Frazier (“Spider-Man 2”)

Next Page: Short Synopsis

At World’s End Short Synopsis

Filed under At World's End Posters, At World's End Production Notes, Poster Store by on April 26, 2011 at 2:53 pm {no comments}

Pirates Of The Caribbean - At World's End

Pirates Of The Caribbean – At World’s End
39 in. x 27 in.

Buy This Allposters.com

It is a dark time as the Age of Piracy nears to a close. Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) of the East India Company has gained control of the terrifying ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman, and its malevolent, vengeful Captain, Davy Jones (Bill Nighy). The Dutchman now roams the seven seas, unstoppable, destroying pirate ships without mercy, under the command of Admiral Norrington (Jack Davenport).

Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) embark on a desperate quest to gather the Nine Lords of the Brethren Court, their only hope to defeat Beckett, the Flying Dutchman, and his Armada.

But one of the Lords is missing–Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), either the best or worst pirate ever, and now trapped in Davy Jones Locker, thanks to his encounter with the monstrous Kraken.

In an increasingly shaky alliance, our heroes, including Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris), Pintel (Lee Arenberg) and Ragetti (MacKenzie Crook) must first travel to dangerous, exotic Singapore and confront Chinese pirate Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) to gain charts, and a ship, that will take them off to world’s end, to rescue Jack.

But even if Captain Jack is successfully rescued, the gathering of the legendary Brethren Court may not be enough to hold back the fearsome tide of Beckett, Davy Jones and their powerful Armada… unless the capricious sea goddess Calypso, imprisoned in human form, can be freed and convinced to come to their aid.

As betrayal piles upon betrayal, it becomes clear that Jack, Will, Elizabeth, Sao Feng, and Barbossa each have their own agenda, and no one can be trusted. Yet each must choose a side, and make their final alliances for one last battle, in a titanic showdown that could eliminate the freedom-loving pirates from the seven seas — forever.

Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Stellan Skarsgård, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-Fat, Jack Davenport, Naomie Harris, Kevin R. McNally, Jonathan Pryce
Directed by: Gore Verbinski
Screenplay by: Terry Rossio, Ted Elliott
Produced by: Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Eric McLeod
Running Time: 145 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action / adventure violence and some frightening images.
Release Date: May 25, 2007
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures

Next Page: Chapter 1 – Success Can Be A Tough Taskmaster

Success Can Be a Tough Taskmaster

Filed under At World's End Production Notes by on April 26, 2011 at 2:46 pm {no comments}

Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp

Success can be a tough taskmaster… and coming off of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” which garnered more than $1 billion internationally and took third position for the top grossing films of all time, Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski were absolutely determined to once again rise to, and then go beyond, audience expectations.

“It’s scary when you make a picture that’s such a huge success,” confesses Bruckheimer. “You never quite know. It was against conventional wisdom that a pirate movie based on a theme park ride could be such a hit. Then we came back with the second film, and it’s common knowledge in our business that a sequel will make 20 to 30 percent less than the first one. And yet, `Dead Man’s Chest’ made almost double of what `The Curse of the Black Pearl’ took in.”

Bruckheimer attributes the massive success of the first two “Pirates of the Caribbean” films to the enormous amount of hard work put in by the filmmakers and talent on both sides of the camera. “You start with the writing, and Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio did a brilliant job creating great new characters and exciting arenas for them to work in. Then you add a director who’s as talented as Gore Verbinski, who gave audiences such a thrill ride in the first film, and took them even further in the second. And what really makes it all come together is when you see actors like Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush going through the paces of what Gore, Ted and Terry worked so hard to create with characters who are engaging, funny, romantic and witty. It took a lot of energy, brain power and time on the part of Gore, Ted and Terry to work out all of those amazing characters, situations and set pieces.

“Then you go behind-the-scenes,” continues Bruckheimer, “with Rick Heinrichs’ production design, Darek Wolski’s cinematography, Hans Zimmer’s music, and the rest of the people who worked so hard on these pictures and helped make them the huge success they became.”

For the third film, the producer and director encouraged screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio to push that envelope even further…quite literally, to the ends of the earth. “What we set for ourselves with Jerry, Gore, Johnny and everyone else,” says Elliott, “was to figure out a way to do two more movies that were of a piece with the first one, and yet still be unique in their own right. What we had to do with each one was, as quickly as we could in the story, satisfy expectations. And then set ourselves the challenge to go past that, and create events that people could never anticipate. Which isn’t easy.”

“The overall theme that we’re dealing with in `At World’s End,’” adds Terry Rossio, “is the nature of what it takes to be a good person, and each person faces that struggle. We embrace the idea that all pirate movies are about moral ambiguity, and good people can be forced into circumstances wherein they do something bad. So from the point of view of every character, they all have to go through that challenge, that transformation, facing their own ability to do something they’re not comfortable with, and making really tough choices. In that sense, every character in the story has a villainous moment at some point.”

“There’s never a trust between any of our characters in the movie,” adds Jerry Bruckheimer. “There’s always a devious plan to benefit their own ends. `At World’s End’ is a movie about who’s going to end up where, when and how, with constant one-upmanship.”

Once again, as with the first two films, Elliott and Rossio were constant presences on the set, from the Caribbean to Hollywood and beyond. “Their contribution was enormous,” says Bruckheimer, “because they would work with Gore and the actors right on set to make sure everything was right for the movie and their characters.

“Screenwriting is a real craft,” Bruckheimer explains. “Back in the 1930s and `40s, Hollywood decided to bring out journalists, novelists, anyone who could write, and many of them failed at screenwriting, which is a very different art form. Ted and Terry are masters of this craft. They love movies, old and new. They’re on top of everything happening in film. They know what it takes to write a great character, because they’ve studied and worked at it for years. And they’re fresh…Ted and Terry take pirate movie conventions that might seem mundane and clichéd, and flip them in a way to make them interesting and new. Along with Gore, they’ve completely re-invented the entire pirate movie genre.”

The geographic range of the story expands all the way to old Singapore and mythical realms beyond, such new characters as Chinese pirate Captain Sao Feng are introduced, and one crucial character is re-introduced: Captain Barbossa, freshly returned from the other side of the pale, this time in an uneasy alliance with his old nemesis Jack Sparrow against the forces of the East India Trading Company. We also get to meet the entire international Pirate Brethren in their hideaway of Shipwreck City, a rogue’s gallery of cutthroats from all the seven seas, including the Keeper of the Code, Teague, played by none other than immortal Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Also returning from the first film are Murtogg and Mullroy, the two thickest skulls in 18th century British uniforms.

Next Page – Chapter 2: Pirates Saga by Numbers and Awards

Every Saga Must Make a Start

Filed under At World's End Production Notes by on April 26, 2011 at 1:41 pm {no comments}

Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

…And for “At World’s End,” that beginning was as early as April 6, 2005, when the first scenes for the film were shot in production designer Rick Heinrichs’s Tortuga set constructed in Wallilabou Bay on the beautiful and atmospheric island of St. Vincent in the West Indies, giving that tiny country a three for three batting average, having hosted all of the “Pirates” films.

And ironically, the sequence was one of the final moments in the film. Of course, shooting this scene was in concert with the simultaneous filming of “Dead Man’s Chest,” and it’s doubtful if the challenge of producing and directing not one, but two massively scaled epics could have been more daunting to Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski, and their collective production teams and company of actors. But the point was, they were up for it, and then some. “Anytime you make a movie it’s a challenge,” says Bruckheimer. “But when you try to prepare two movies at the same time, that’s a serious challenge. You just don’t get the kind of preparation time that you need for the second movie, let alone the first movie.

“But from the producer’s point of view,” he continues, “it was the only way to make the second and third `Pirates’ films. You have Gore Verbinski, who is a directing star based on the first movie and his other work. You have Johnny Depp, who has been a star for years, but who broke out into a huge, mainstream audience on `The Curse of the Black Pearl.’ You have Orlando Bloom, who blossomed even before the first `Pirates,’ and became a superstar after it was released. And then you have Keira Knightley, who’s come into her own right as a phenomenal young actress. To get all of them together for two movies, if you did it separately there would be three or four years in between before you could figure out their schedules and make all of their deals to get slots. Blocking out their time based on two back-to-back movies, as well as Gore and the screenwriters, Ted and Terry-as well as keeping together the rest of the crew-meant that this was the only way to go.”

Although the majority of filming in both St. Vincent and the following West Indian location of Dominica were for “Dead Man’s Chest,” Verbinski also took full advantage of the exotic locales for required “At World’s End” sequences as well. A convoy of production vehicles bumped along half-constructed or barely constructed roads to access St. Vincent’s Black Point Beach, a spectacular stretch of sand and rugged surf. On Dominica, the very first scenes shot on the re-designed and re-built Black Pearl-which had sailed almost 2,000 nautical miles from the Steiner Shipyard in Bayou La Batre, Alabama-were filmed, re-uniting Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush as his old nemesis, Captain Barbossa. Here on Dominica, at Capucine Point, we see the Black Pearl and her passengers approaching Shipwreck Island, one of the most spectacular settings in “At World’s End.”

Despite the fact that less of St. Vincent and Dominica are seen on screen in “At World’s End” than in “Dead Man’s Chest,” executive producer Eric McLeod points out that “in the end, technically, this film was shot in more places than `Dead Man’s Chest.’ In addition to St. Vincent, Dominica, The Exumas and Grand Bahama Island, `At World’s End’ was also filmed in different locales in Southern and Central California as well as Hawaii and second unit filming in Greenland and Niagara Falls. Gore wants to take the audience on a journey to places they haven’t been to before.”

Next Page – Chapter 6: Singapore Sling

Return to the Bahamas

Filed under At World's End Production Notes by on April 26, 2011 at 12:55 pm {no comments}

Return to the Bahamas

Following three tough, sweaty weeks of shooting the Singapore sequence, the company flew back to Grand Bahama Island in late September 2005 for the continuation of “Dead Man’s Chest” water shooting in the massive tank and on the open seas, with marine coordinator Dan Malone and picture boat coordinator Will White, and their respective teams on dozens of support craft keeping everything afloat.

Following a Christmas / New Year break, the company returned to The Bahamas one last time in the second week of January 2006. First, back on the tiny sand spit of White Cay in The Exumas, Verbinski filmed the “Parlay” scene with the big guns of Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy and Tom Hollander (interspersed with final scenes of the “Dead Man’s Chest” three-way swordfight, which had not yet been filmed to conclusion).

“The Exumas, which we used in both movies, was very difficult but unbelievably organized,” says first assistant director Dave Venghaus. “It should have been a lot more miserable than it was. We went back three times to that location to accomplish the work, and it was an extraordinary crew that really pulled it together. The transportation and marine departments once again put two huge barges off of White Cay as a basecamp, and we took the cast and crew to the island on smaller craft. The crew accepted the challenge, and then rose to it really well.”

Then it was back to the tank on Grand Bahama, with shooting alternating between the final sequences necessary to complete “Dead Man’s Chest” once and for all-nearly one year after the cameras first rolled-and then the required, and very numerous, water sequences for “At World’s End.” The weather on Grand Bahama had now cooled considerably, enough so that parkas had to be donned for night shooting. The late winter weather also kicked up the seas considerably, as Verbinski and the company learned the hard way on the night of February 2nd, 2006, as they attempted to shoot an exciting “At World’s End” sequence in which Elizabeth Swann and a group of Chinese pirates escape imprisonment on the Flying Dutchman by climbing a rat line connecting that ship to the Empress-Captain Sao Feng’s flagship junk-which is being towed behind. A stiff wind whipped the waters into a whirlpool, with the Dutchman and the Empress tossed about like toys, and the smaller support craft even more so.

“That night was surreal,” recalls stunt coordinator George Marshall Ruge. “The stuntmen had to negotiate a 150 foot long rat line, hand-over-hand, while alternating their leg holds on the rope as they went. The physical demands were already extreme, but what we didn’t anticipate was bad weather and rough seas. We’re not talking just rolling waves…we’re walking about a churning cauldron of wickedly, unpredictable, rough water. The seas became too rough for the pick-up boats to navigate, the rat line itself was heaving up and down as much as 10 feet. Conditions couldn’t have been worse. We ended up using another vessel that had a roof to get the stuntmen off the rope. The roof had to be reinforced, as it wasn’t mean tot carry the weight of people on top. The stuntmen had to time their transfer from the heaving rope to spotters on the boat’s roof. The real stunts were performed behind-the-scenes that night!”

As the incredibly brave stunt players climbed the rope between ships, and the marine department crafts desperately tried to remain afloat without capsizing (although at least one did, with no one hurt), executive producer Eric McLeod noted, “Take a good look at this. You’ll never see moviemaking on this scale again. Soon it’ll all be done with blue screen. This is movie history being made.”

The supporting cast, depending upon when they were needed for filming, would come and go from The Bahamas with regularity. “That was a great luxury,” notes Jonathan Pryce, who plays Governor Weatherby Swann, “because since we started shooting I did both a West End play and Broadway musical in between my work for `Pirates.’ It’s always nice to come back, see some friends, visit for a few days or a couple of weeks, then go off and do something else.

“It means people are very pleased to see me when I arrive,” adds Pryce with a laugh. “I’m full of admiration for the crew, the majority of whom worked on all three films, and their energy never diminished, nor has Gore’s enthusiasm and inventiveness on set amongst this huge machine. Gore always finds time for the actors and the acting, because he knows that’s ultimately what the audience focuses on. In a film of this size and success, there’s no sense of complacency. It’s a bit like doing a musical where there is no place for cynicism. We laugh a lot on `Pirates,’ but when you’re doing it, you’re doing it for real.”

Strangely enough, the very last scene to be filmed for “Dead Man’s Chest,” on February 7, 2006, was Johnny Depp’s very first appearance in the film as Captain Jack Sparrow, popping out of a casket which has just been hurled into the Turkish sea. At last, Gore Verbinski could concentrate solely on “At World’s End,”

Much of “At World’s End” is set on the sea, and in addition to the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman, Rick Heinrichs had even more ships to design for the film. The Empress and the Hai Peng are both Chinese junks, but a real study in contrasts. The Empress is the elaborately decorated flagship of Singaporean pirate Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), the Hai Peng a much more modest affair, a junk that really looks like junk, composed of rotting, decrepit wood and thatched roofing on its deck structure.

“For the Empress, we were taking off on the idea of Captain Sao Feng as something of a peacock,” explains Heinrichs, “so there are design elements which reflect that, such as the long arc of its shape which seems to almost swoop up into a tail on the rear of the ship. There are sail extensions on the sides of the ship which are almost like feathers that help to drive the ship forward.” Sao Feng’s elaborate cabin on the Empress was separately constructed on a Walt Disney Studios sound stage, layered with sensual fabrics, a multitude of burning candles which created atmospheric lighting, and a moon gate entrance.

“It really takes great craftsmanship to make a ship like the Empress,” says Chow Yun-Fat. “The only problem was that because I was born into a family of farmers, I never went on ships. So when I was on the Empress I got seasick after I went on board! So although the ship was beautiful, I didn’t have any feelings because I was too dizzy!”

Fully half of the Endeavour, Lord Cutler Beckett’s imposing East India Trading Company flagship, was constructed for filming in Grand Bahama Island, with the remainder to be added by CG imagery. Beckett’s cabin on the ship was built in the studio, its design reflecting his vaunted view of himself as someone making over the entire world. “There’s sort of a Chaplinesque Great Dictator aspect to Beckett,” says Heinrichs, “which we can see in the huge globe that’s in his cabin, kind of a counterpart to the big map of the world that’s in his Port Royal office. On Beckett’s desk in the cabin are toy ships and navigational devices which intentionally resemble instruments of torture. He not only has the world in a vise, but he’s going to flay it as well.”

Spending that much time at sea, particularly as fall turned it both cooler and choppier, tested the mettle of even the hardiest “Pirates.” “I mean, you’re on a boat 10, 12, 14 hours a day,” notes Martin Klebba. “There’s no way to walk away somewhere and collect your head. You’re on a boat with another hundred or so people all trying to make the movie the best they can. They kept us plied with lots of water and food, brought boxed lunches to the ships, but you have no control of the sea tossing you about, mentally you get drained, and finally you go back to the hotel, wake up eight hours later and do it all over again. And even in your bed at night, or sitting at a computer, everything is still rocking back and forth. It’s like being on a roller coaster.”

“The terrible thing about filming out at sea is that you are used to doing your work, sitting down, and maybe having a coffee and a read,” adds Kevin R. McNally, who plays sea salt Joshamee Gibbs. Every time you sit down somewhere in the Black Pearl, some guy says `Excuse me, I have to move that cannon’ or `Hold on, I just have to pour some blood over this guy.’ So you just basically spend 10 hours a day circling the boat like a cat trying to find somewhere to settle. It’s exhausting.”

Two days before the company wrapped on Grand Bahama, thus completing its Caribbean shoot, it all seemed to come full circle during the filming of a climactic sequence for “At World’s End” in which the pirates of the Black Pearl unfurl the Jolly Roger and raise it high over the masts. A speaker blared Hans Zimmer’s huge, stirring music written expressly for this scene, and goosebumps started to appear on the arms of virtually the entire company. This was what many civilians think moviemaking is really like: sort of like watching a film, only live.

An apt phrase, to be sure, especially when describing how the Black Pearl was shipped, lock, stock and barrels-literally-in a gigantic float-on/float-off yacht carrier called the Super Servant 3, from Southern Florida, through the Panama Canal, and to Ensenada, Mexico. The Pearl then sailed on her own steam to Los Angeles after shooting finally wrapped on Grand Bahama Island on March 1st, 2006, for more “At World’s End” filming back in the Los Angeles area when shooting resumed in August, following the tough post-production schedule on “Dead Man’s Chest,” the film’s massive Disneyland premiere, and its smashingly successful domestic and international openings.

The Flying Dutchman, having completed her duties on the second and third films, was sailed from Freeport to Disney’s very own Castaway Cay in The Bahamas, where it now provides amazing encounters for Disney Cruise Line passengers. By the time the company went on hiatus, approximately 35 percent of “At World’s End” had been completed, difficult and challenging, but by no means was the company over the hump in terms of what was still required.

Next Page – Chapter 8: Truly Salty Sailors in Utah, and Back to California

The Brethren Court

Filed under At World's End Production Notes by on April 26, 2011 at 11:57 am {no comments}

The Brethren Court

The last of the fabulous sets built on Disney’s Stage 2 for the Pirates trilogy was Shipwreck Cove, where the raucous and divisive Brethren Court of pirate lords meets to make a last plan of action against the onslaughts of Beckett and the East India Trading Company armada. “Shipwreck Cove was conceived by Gore as kind of a retirement home for old pirates, comprised of the wrecked hulls of various ships hidden in a volcano,” notes Heinrichs.“The Brethren Court meet in one of those hulls, and outside of the structure we’ve extended the set with a 300-foot-long painted backing which has been beautifully designed and painted in the good, old-fashioned Hollywood tradition.”

The Brethren Court does have some foundation in history, note the screenwriters. “There was a loose confederation of pirates called the Brethren of the Coast,” says Ted Elliott. “And it’s just such a fun idea to have a whole bunch of pirates sitting around trying to come to decisions. Captain Sao Feng has a line of dialogue in which he says that pirates are either captain or crew, and nine captains charting a course is eight captains too many. We also wanted to get more international in flavor, so the pirate lords are from all over the world.”

In fact, although Elliott and Rossio cheerfully admit that they often play (“play” being the operative word) fast and loose with history, there are truths to be found amidst the fun. In fact, most of the Pirate Lords are based on historical buccaneers, and although they didn’t necessarily occupy the same chronological era depicted in “At World’s End,” Captain Chevalle, Ammand the Corsair, Gentleman Jocard, Mistress Ching, Captain Villanueva and Sri Subhajee all made their mark on the chronicles of high seas skullduggery.

On Heinrichs’ evocative set, rickety boardwalks connect one rotting old hull to another, with the Brethren Court meeting room gorgeously illuminated by some 3500 candles. Figureheads from plundered ships used as decoration are used for target practice by the rowdy pirate lords, pierced by an amusing array of swords, hatchets and daggers. The long wooden table at which the Pirate Lords meet was designed by Heinrichs and Cheryl Carasik, and constructed at a Walt Disney Studios workshop. “We also made a chandelier out of an anchor, which looks like iron but is actually fabricated from foam,” explains Carasik. “Then we took several cases of wax candles and dripped them over the top of the chandelier. We must have used thousands of candles to get this effect!”

The filming of the sequence, which took place over a momentous seven days in mid-September 2006, was pretty raucous itself. The set was crammed with the film’s stars and the wildly colorful array of pirate lords from the seven seas (portrayed by some very distinguished international actors, including Syria’s Ghassan Massoud, who coincidentally portrayed Saladin opposite Orlando Bloom in “Kingdom of Heaven”).

Then there was the matter of who would be chosen as Captain Teague, Keeper of the Code, the Pirata Codex, to which even the most dastardly scalawag must religiously adhere, at the peril of his own body and soul.

But the casting was pre-ordained. For nearly a year, rumors flew hither and yon that it would be none other than Keith Richards, legendary guitarist of the Rolling Stones, and a close mate of Johnny Depp…who very admittedly had modeled some of Captain Jack Sparrow’s style and characteristics on his great and good friend. And the rumors, for a refreshing change, were true.

“The sort of connection I made when first thinking about Captain Jack,” says Depp, “was the idea that pirates were the rock and roll stars of that era. Their myths or legends would arrive months before they would ever make port, much like rock stars.”

“It’s about freedom, baby,” adds Richards. “Open the cage, let the tigers out. Somebody’s gotta do the naughty work. It’s not so much about destroying the establishment. It’s to prevent them from destroying you.”

Richards was understandably somewhat wary at first of accepting the role of Captain Teague. “When I first heard about it, I was thinking, oh my God, this is an Elvis Presley thing. You pop in and sing. But when I saw how it fit into the whole scenario, then it felt quite natural to do it. And they’ve also made me a lovely guitar.”

Strumming that guitar-especially designed and built for him by the legendary instrument maker Danny Farrington at the request of propmaster Kris Peck-and wielding a mean flintlock pistol, Richards took the company, and the days on which he filmed, by hurricane force. “It was kind of a long shot to even think about getting Keith to do this,” says Depp. “The fact that he agreed was above and beyond a dream come true. Experiencing his arrival on set was unbelievable. Every single person on the crew, including people you hadn’t seen in months, suddenly showed up. It was a beautiful, perfect symmetry.”

As for the unique connection between Captains Jack and Teague, Depp notes, “You get the feeling that there was a real tough love relationship there. Teague is one of those pirates who would give you a hug one minute, and blow you away the next. Or maybe he’ll blow you away and then give you a hug. You don’t know what to expect from him.”

“It was really interesting to see the kind of mutual respect that Keith seemed to have for the actors and crew, and that they had for him, his artistry and his long, celebrated career,” notes Jerry Bruckheimer. “I think he had a lot of fun. In fact, he didn’t want to quite leave the set. Usually, when an actor is finished with a scene, they go to their trailer until the next set-up. But Keith was hanging around the set even in between his scenes. I think Keith took his personalized chair when he left as a remembrance of the experience, and I’m sure he took his costume. If he didn’t, I hope he did.”

“Keep to the Code” if an oft-heard slogan in the “Pirates” films, but it’s only in “At World’s End” that the audience actually gets a chance to see the Real Deal…the Pirata Codex, so-named in haughty Latin, a mighty volume of overwhelming size which, in reality, was nothing less than an objet d’art of surpassing craftsmanship.

“The Pirate Code book was something in the making for a very long time,” explains “Dead Man’s Chest” and “At World’s End” property master Kristopher E. Peck, “and we had many people working on it. It had never been done before, and had to be grand and spectacular. I also wanted to put a lot of detail in it, even if it never ended up on film. But I knew that Gore is very detail oriented, and I wanted to give him options to shoot.

“We had some trial and error with Gore, and I finally decided that he wouldn’t see it again for approval until we got it right. I got on the phone with two people from San Diego:Tom Mallory, who’s a writer for one of the city’s newspaper, and Mark Van Stone, who’s an expert in ancient calligraphy and manuscripts. I had both of them get in a car immediately and come up to L.A. and after our meeting we worked until two o’clock in the morning in the production office writing the text and setting it down as quickly as we could. Tom wrote the text based upon what we got from screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, things I’d discovered in my research, storyline points that needed to be factored in. By the time we walked out at two, we basically had the Pirate Code finished.”

Previously, Peck and Van Stone had combed through the manuscript archives of UCLA for inspiration. “We walked into the basement, and there was this beautiful, big library room, low key lighting as if you were going to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, and there was a 40 foot long beautiful wooden table covered with manuscripts. They laid all of these old books out for us to look at, and we studied them microscopically. Mark pointed out little details that I would never have picked up on, like showing that certain parchment were embedded with the follicle hairs of a pig. We spent ten hours there, and walked away with this great archive of researching photos that we wanted to implement. Parchment was scarce back then, so you would see where they would scratch off the ink and write over it, or sew additions on top of the original paper. We tried to put ourselves in the pirate world, wondering what they would be doing, what they would be eating. Maybe there was a parrot on someone’s shoulder, and the sunflower seeds that the bird was eating fell down into the middle of the book, or some ashes from a pipe they were smoking became ingrained into the paper.”

After Peck, Mallory and Van Stone completed their “first draft,” conceptual consultant James Ward Byrkit became involved in the process, drawing illustrations and creating other materials. “Jim came up with some wonderful stuff,” says Peck, “like how to attack a ship, or a castle. We have all kinds of things in the book, including recipes for beer, or where you can find the best brothel in Singapore. Jim helped us lay in the character and texture of the Pirate Code. We have wine stains, blood stains, sunflower seeds, wax stamps and seals, and addendums actually sewn onto the parchment pages.”

The final dimensions of the Pirata Codex were 20 X 28, with the embossed covers an inch bigger, and the “hero” version of the book weighed some 80 pounds and contained a thousand pages of textured parchment. “So we had to make two books,” Peck continues, “because we had these two little old men in the film, sort of like a 90-year-old ZZ Top with beards down to here, playing the pirate librarians, who have to carry it. And since Captain Teague, played by Keith Richards, is the Keeper of the Code, we wanted to give him something easier to work with. So the second version only weighed about ten pounds.”

Next Page – Chapter 10: The Climactic Maelstrom Scene

Inside of the Massive “Site 9” Hangar

Filed under At World's End Production Notes by on April 26, 2011 at 11:36 am {no comments}

Inside of the Massive “Site 9” Hangar

Gore Verbinski and his crew donned protective gear to allow the water to roll off their backs, as much as possible anyway. The stars and stunt players weren’t so fortunate. Says Keira Knightley, “You get into costume. You’ve got a wet suit on underneath, which obviously makes going to the toilet really tricky.

Then they turn the rain on, and you’re drenched within 10 seconds. I just feel sorry for the crew because they’re in it all day long. The rain is so heavy at times that you literally cannot see. When the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman are side-by-side, we’re working on a 15 percent slope, in which you’re running uphill doing a swordfight in torrential rain, with an entire camera crew coming at you. It’ll look great, but it’s definitely a hard one to work on.”

“I wouldn’t call it acting, I call it survival,” laughs Orlando Bloom. “It’s kind of brutal to stay wet from eight in the morning until eight at night. Even though they turn off the rain machines between takes, you’re still soaked all the way through, and I’d be lying if I said it was fun. But it’s hard on everyone, not just the actors. And ultimately, we all have a lot of confidence in the destination, and know that it’s worth the effort.”

“The Maelstrom is like the biblical whirlpool from hell, and we’re shooting it the way Cecil B. DeMille probably would have,” says Geoffrey Rush. “It’s absolutely massive.”

“We were running away from hurricanes in the Bahamas,” adds Johnny Depp, “shooting in Dominica during the rainy season in a rain forest, and then we went to the desert, in Palmdale, filming in a torrential downpour and about 75 knots of wind inside of a massive facility on a ship tilted to a 15 percent rake on the gimbal.

“Once again, this is another one of those situations where it’s so weird that you just don’t question it anymore. `Johnny, we’re going drive you an hour and a half up to the desert, you’re going to climb aboard the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman built on gigantic rigs, and we’re going to drench you in high winds while you swordfight at a steep angle.

“And you just kind of go, `Okay, fine. No problem.’”

One aspect of the Maelstrom shoot-which lasted for nearly four months-was the change in weather outside of the hangar in desert Palmdale…from the raging 110 degree heat of mid-September to the 20 degree Fahrenheit nighttime chill of early December. Not so bad if one could stay indoors all day, but basecamp was outside, which one had to pass through to a second hangar which housed 50 makeup stations for background players, as well as seating for meals. Sooner or later, the drenched actors, stunt and background players had to expose themselves to the elements, whether hellishly hot or bone-chillingly cold, not to mention the sometimes fierce desert winds whipping across the landscape.

“Obviously, the `Maelstrom’ climax was the most spectacular and challenging for us on `At World’s End,’” notes stunt coordinator George Marshall Ruge. “All of the principal cast were involved, and there were multiple story lines being played out within the epic action.” For this massive final ship-to-ship showdown between the pirates and the East India Trading Company, Ruge coordinated stunt sequences both in The Bahamas and inside of the massive “Site 9” hangar used for shooting in Palmdale, California. “Because the ship set pieces on Grand Bahama were not particularly designed for stunt rigging opportunities, we had to be very creative to pull off the creative action,” says Ruge. “These ships and the pirates on them take heavy cannon fire. We used multiple air ramps and wire/ratchet work to create the illusion of our stunt pirates taking this fire. And because these were floating set pieces, we had the luxury of selling this action all the way to the water in many instances.

“Inside of the Palmdale stage, we at least had the luxury of being indoors and not having to worry about the elements, but we faced a new whole new set of challenges because of the immense number of visual and physical effects required for the sequence.”

The stars finding themselves clinging onto the edge of the Black Pearl for dear life on John Frazier’s “tilt rig” for the Green Flash sequence became major stunt players themselves. “It was actually really scary,” admits Naomie Harris. “The only thing that stopped me from screaming was the fact that I was roped down and no one else was screaming, so I would have felt stupid if I had…but I really wanted to.” The Green Flash was a combination of material shot with the actual Black Pearl gimbaled in the tank on Grand Bahama Island by special effects coordinator Allen Hall and his crew, a Pearl setpiece mounted on John Frazier’s tilt rig in the Palmdale hangar, and underwater shooting in another tank in the Falls Lake section of the Universal Studios backlot.

The Hai Peng’s descent over the edge of the world was also a matter of putting together a complex cinematic puzzle that had been evolving over months. “It began, filming-wise, by shooting from tugboats in Greenland going through ice fields,” explains executive producer Eric McLeod. “That sequence alone was shot almost two years before. We also shot plates in Niagara Falls. And from there, we had a motion base specifically built for the Hai Peng that can take 100 feet of the set and tilt it at 90 degree angles. We filmed the dialogue portion about four feet off the ground on the full sized Hai Peng, then had a large crane come in, set up the Hai Peng setpiece onto the motion base, strap the cast in with safety lines on them and the crew, and then tilt the set. It’s a little nerve wracking when you have your cast up there dangling. At first everyone’s a little timid and reserved, but after a while, you could take them anywhere. It’s like,` Oh, you have to jump out of a boat, rappel down a cliff, and hang from a ship at a 90 degree angle and have chairs and barrels fall down on you from the deck,’ and everyone’s like `Oh, okay, that’s great. I can deal with that.’”

Riding the waves, sometimes literally, was director of photography Dariusz (Darek) Wolski, who along with his team of camera operators, clappers, loaders and assistants, as well as key grip Mike (Pop) Popovich and chief lighting technician Rafael (Raffi) Sanchez

met every impossible challenge with a high degree of extemporaneous imagination. “We’ve had an amazing opportunity on these films to experiment and do different ways of filming,” says Wolski. “We’ve shot pretty much every possible thing: in the jungles, on the water, under the water, in dark holes, on soundstages, in super-bright salt flats. In terms of scale, I will never be able to top `Dead Man’s Chest.’ To go any farther, you’d have to completely go in the opposite direction.”

In the post-production phase, it would be up to John Knoll and his team at ILM to provide the environments, including the churning, turbulent sea and terrifying, mile-long whirlpool that threatens any ship that comes too close to its vortex. “Visually, it’s a very bold idea,” says Knoll, “but there’s not really anything that you can shoot practically for that. So all the water has to be computer-generated throughout, and it’s very difficult to do that very realistically. We’re going to end up with approximately 400 visual effects shots in that sequence, with rain, giant waves, whitecaps, foam and spray. These are all challenging things to execute believably.

“What’s happening in the foreground is pretty complicated as well,” Knoll explains. “There’s a huge battle between the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman, so we have computer-generated characters in the midst of rain, atmospherics and splintering wood. Not to mention hundreds of pirate and EITC ships that are seen in the sequence.”

Next Page – Chapter 12: Dressed for Success

Costume Designs: Dressed for Success

Filed under At World's End Production Notes by on April 26, 2011 at 11:30 am {no comments}

Costume Designs: Dressed for Success

Costume designer Penny Rose, who amply demonstrated her prodigious talents on both “The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Dead Man’s Chest,” went beyond the Farthest Gate on “At World’s End,” helping to extend the pirate world well beyond that depicted in the first two films. “We’d done Caribbean pirates to death, and now we were going to have some new ingredients,” explains Rose. “We got a lot of pictorial and editorial information about piracy in different parts of the world. I prepare the films in London, which is a very good base to do that kind of research.”

Rose and her crew literally combed the world for fabrics and materials from which to create the thousands of costumes required for “At World’s End.” “I spend three or four weeks intensively shopping at textile fairs, or with antique textile dealers,” she says. “I go to Rome, Madrid, Paris, New York, and buy myself a great, huge store of stuff. Then it travels everywhere we go… we have workrooms on all of the islands and locations where we shoot, so that everything is within the room. It’s like I have a toyshop here, and when the actors come in I can offer them options and let them choose, because I like everything here anyway. It’s really important for the actors to become involved.

“The moment in the dressing room with the actors is the high point of the work. Far more important and exhilarating to me than how much money the film makes is to send the actors away having visually found the character they’re playing. That’s what I’m here to do.”

For “At World’s End,” the story and character developments go hand-in-hand with their costume changes. Except, of course, for Captain Jack Sparrow. “Jack can never change,” insists Rose. “He doesn’t have a closet full of clothes. He is Captain Jack, and the clothes make the man. Same with Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa. So in terms of the two of them, it was simply a question of remaking more, more, more, which was in itself quite a challenge because it was difficult to find the original textiles.

“For example,” Rose continues, “Captain Jack’s sash was made by a hill tribe in Turkey, and I had to send someone to Turkey to persuade that tribe to weave me some more of the sash material. Because we tried to print it on old French hemp and linen sheets, but it just wasn’t the same. So the hill tribe people made me another hundred yards.

“We see a more confident and powerful Will Turner and a new and exciting Elizabeth Swann,” informs Rose. “We’ve given Orlando an embossed buckskin vest, a dark, wine-colored shirt and a beautiful, mud cloth coat. I think it’s important that in the third film, you’re slightly confused as to whose side Will is on, so we needed to help his character look a little bit darker, metaphorically. He has a rather wonderful dark, dark midnight blue coat made out of mudcloth, which looks very romantic and mysterious.

“Keira gets to wear a Chinese courtesan costume, with a heavily jeweled and ornate headdress and matching collar piece, a tasseled vest and a completely embroidered silk gown with what would probably have been a skirt, but which, for practical reasons, we turned into a culotte so that when she gets to the fighting sequences, we could lose the vest and the other accessories and go straight into action mode.”

Rose also designed an astonishing costume for the legendary Chow Yun-Fat, who portrays Captain Sao Feng, which weighed a grand total of 35 pounds in its entirety. “Yun-Fat is the Laurence Olivier of the East, and it took less than 10 minutes of the fitting to know that this fellow really knows his stuff,” says Rose. “Yun-Fat knows how to envelope himself into the character, he knew we were here to give him the visual, and he did everything possible to help us. It very quickly evolved into a joint decision-making process about what’s happening in that mirror, how we could progress and make it a bigger and better work. Chow Yun-Fat has a powerful presence in person, but we needed this Chinese pirate captain to be terrifying.”

Rose also had an opportunity to design a costume for Bill Nighy in a flashback scene in which the audience can see what Davy Jones looked like as a man “before he was under the sea for years and years and barnacled up. We finally get Bill out of those gray CGI reference pajamas, for which he’s very, very grateful,” she says with a laugh. “We really set to and made a fabulous costume for Bill, because he was so relieved to be out of gray. I bought some linen damask from a mill in Umbria that we hadn’t used yet, and dyed it beautifully. We just thought that since Bill is a very elegant man, Davy Jones could, perhaps, in his past have been quite a snappy dresser. So we made him a square cut coat from that damask linen.”

For the film, Rose also designed costumes for buccaneers from all corners of the globe: Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Primary among this group are the Pirate Lords who convene in Shipwreck Cove, and chief among them are the Keeper of the Code, Captain Teague…played by the artist also known as Keith Richards. “I was fortunate enough to give Mr. Richards a fitting in July 2005, when he was in Los Angeles just prior to the band rehearsals,” recalls Rose. “And it so happened that it was a week when Johnny Depp was not working, so I asked him to come with me, which he very kindly did. I must say, it was fairly hilarious to see the two of them together, because once Keith was dressed in costume, you really could believe that the two of them were related.

“It was a bizarre moment,” continues Rose, “because how often do you get to costume a rock icon? (Well, actually, Rose has done it before… for Bob Geldof in “Pink Floyd: The Wall,” and Madonna in “Evita”). But Keith was dying to be a pirate. I mean, he wanted to go out that night dressed in the pirate costume! So I think he really enjoyed the process.

“Every single one of the Pirate Lords had a different identity based upon where they’d come from-China, India, France, Spain, Africa-plus their entourages. All of the textiles I used were specifically different in each group.”

Next Page – Chapter 13: The Pirate Makers

Aloha Oe: Hawaii Farewell

Filed under At World's End Production Notes by on April 26, 2011 at 10:11 am {no comments}

Aloha Oe: Hawaii Farewell“Aloha Oe” was the beautiful song of farewell written by Queen Liliuokalani, Hawaii’s still-beloved last monarch. So perhaps it was fitting that the last three days of principal photography would take place on two of the most beautiful islands in the her still gorgeous kingdom.

Following yet another Christmas / New Year break, a reduced crew, along with Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, flew off once again in the second week of January 2007 for one final location: the magnificent islands of Maui and Molokai in the exquisite Hawaiian chain. Requiring a dramatic tropical locale, Bruckheimer, Verbinski and production designer Rick Heinrichs decided that it was far easier to find what they were looking for with a relatively quick 5-1/2 flight to Hawaii than spending 10 hours flying back to the West Indies.

Very remote locations were discovered by location scouts Laura Sode-Matteson and Val Kim (who, although now L.A.-based, are Hawaiians themselves) both on Maui, and then the nearby Molokai, which is a mere 15-minute flight away from the more heavily populated and touristed island. As usual, unpredictable weather followed the company right to the end, with the skies over Maui darkening dramatically throughout the shooting day, occasionally showering the company with water rather than sunshine. Nonetheless, the rugged coastline selected by Verbinski and the moody clouds formed a perfect backdrop to the scene.

Crew members lucky enough to be seated on the left side of the small prop airplane traveling from Maui to Molokai were amazed at the sight of the world’s highest sea cliffs, and the oceanfront settlement of Kalaupapa, the colony of those stricken with Hansen’s disease (leprosy), still in existence some one hundred years after they were ministered to by the legendary Father Damien, who himself died from the terrible ailment after contracting it from those he so lovingly tended to. Peaceful, traditional Molokai is also a refuge for traditional Hawaiian culture, proudly upheld by its hospitable inhabitants.

The two days in Molokai alternated clouds with brilliant sunlight. However, the beach location, dotted with sharp, black volcanic rocks, was nearly a mile from the nearest road, so access was difficult. So much, in fact, that ace pilot David Paris, who usually flew a helicopter for sweeping aerial shots, now utilized it for cargo duty, hauling the heavier equipment from basecamp to the beach with a net on multiple runs, both at the beginning and end of the filming days. “Gore is always looking for a visual treat,” notes Jerry Bruckheimer, “and he never takes it the easy way. He always wants something that’s really spectacular, something you haven’t seen before. So when we went to Molokai, Gore wanted to find a place in which to shoot that was almost impossible to get cameras and equipment into.”

“It was a good operation, very safe and well done,” adds first assistant director Dave Venghaus. “Everyone pitched in lugging equipment around the beach. It was fun, we got it done, and that’s the way you should do it. It was logistically very difficult, and watching our cast and crw climb up on volcanic rock was both interesting and unnerving.”

But as always, there were no obstacles to Verbinski completing the final, 272nd day of combined principal photography of “Dead Man’s Chest” and “At World’s End” (that’s 284 days if one counts pre-principal shooting) on January 10th, 2007, just a month-and-a-half shy of two years to the day that the cameras first rolled on February 23rd, 2005. And the finale was celebrated in suitably special fashion when the warm, aloha-drenched locals of Molokai feted the entire company with a real, down-home luau, replete with beautiful flower leis, a whole pig roasted in an imu (underground lava rock oven), such traditional foods as poi and haupia, and a rip-roaring performance by the young and enthusiastic members of a local halau (hula school).

It was a well deserved final gift of the heart to a company which had endured the extremes of filming conditions, weather, discomfort, geography, time away from family and home, and almost never wavered over the course of nearly 300 days of shooting. “I guess this is what Darwin was writing about,” joked Gore Verbinski as he surveyed the survivors-those faces which remained from the first day of production in February 2005-in the lunch tent on the final day of production in January 2007.

For Gore Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer, the end of shooting just marked the beginning of an unbelievably intensive four-and-a-half month post-production schedule which would see them working 24/7 with film editors Craig Wood and Stephen Rivkin, visual effects supervisors John Knoll and Charlie Gibson, the Academy Award-winning team of supervising sound editor/designer Christopher Boyes, supervising sound editor George Watters II and sound mixers Paul Massey and Boyes (all of whom were nominated in two different categories for “Dead Man’s Chest”), and an army of other technical artists.

And once again, as he has for the first two “Pirates” movies and several other Bruckheimer and Verbinski films, Hans Zimmer would again compose the music. “Hans is one of those artists who always comes up with something fresh, unique and different,” says Bruckheimer. “He’s a brilliant composer who has these wonderful melodies in his head. You hear the `Pirates’ theme everywhere now, and for `At World’s End’ he’s created several new motifs and melodies, as well as a new love theme. It’s wonderful to watch Hans in the recording sessions, when he has 80 musicians and talks to each individual violinist to tell them exactly the pitch, tone and feeling that he wants in every note.”

Next Page – Nothing But Praise for Gore Verbinski

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