For the climactic “Maelstrom” sequence of “At World’s End”-the massive, apocalyptic battle between the pirate and British East India Company armadas that takes place in a supernaturally-induced storm of monumental proportions-the filmmakers had to find a facility in which they could build full-sized replicas of both the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman from the decks up, as well as various other set pieces.
The only such structure anywhere near Los Angeles (or perhaps anywhere else, for that matter) was Building #703 of the enigmatically named “Site 9.” This elephantine 600 foot long, 300 foot wide and 70 foot tall hangar in the desert community of Palmdale, California-58 miles north of The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank-was built by Rockwell International in 1983 for the assembly of 100 B-1 bombers, and had over the past few years been used as a shooting stage for a number of films, including Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal.
“This is one of the most elaborate and ambitious action sequences I’ve ever seen conceived for a film,” notes Rick Heinrichs, “and it requires coordination of several departments, including ours, visual effects and special physical effects. If it’s even 85% of what we hope for, it will be off the charts.” Adds executive producer Mike Stenson, “You walked inside of that hangar, and it was like Area 51.”
Inside of “Site 9,” Rick Heinrichs worked in synergistic conjunction with another Academy Award-winner, special effects supervisor John Frazier (Spider-Man 2), to construct the Pearl and the Dutchman, decks up, mounted on massive, highly sophisticated motion bases, surrounded by gigantic blue screen backings. “John Frazier is the best special physical effects supervisor there is,” says Stenson. “Nobody else could have pulled off the physical elements of the special effects that we do in this movie.”
Frazier and his team designed and built the motion bases for the two key prop ships, as well as another rig for both the scene in which the Hai Peng goes off the edge of the world, and the “Green Flash” sequence, in which the Black Pearl passes between worlds by turning completely upside down in the ocean. “What we decided to do on At World’s End that has never been done before on any motion picture,” notes Frazier, “was to put a tower at each end of the two ships which allowed us to heave them up 15 feet. And by doing that, we were able to get the actual realistic movement of a ship in the ocean. Normally, we pivot it in the center, but ships don’t do that. In this case, we pivoted the ships on each end to bring the bow up and down, and then we had two hydraulic rams on the either side of the ships that allowed them to roll.”
The construction of the full-sized Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman on Frazier’s motion bases was a huge collaboration between several departments. “We built the motion bases in three months, but in stages. Greg Callas’ construction department built the ships on top of our truss. Then we built the towers on each end of the ships which make them move up and down. We then designed a computerized system to operate them from sort of a mission control. We had 150 special effects welders on the project, and we were working 24/7. They never stopped. The day guys would cut the pieces and lay it out, and the equally talented night guys would weld it all together. All 150 people who worked on this project gave us 150 percent. It’s a long, long process to tune these motion bases with the computer, and requires a lot of patience. It’s like watching paint dry, but our computer team had the necessary patience, and were terrific at their work. They didn’t turn the system on until every bar was synched up, and every graph was there.
“The hydraulics team also stepped up to the plate,” continues Frazier. “There are over 2000 feet of hydraulic hose that runs to the motion bases. There are over one million pounds of steel, some of which didn’t exist, so we had to have a special run made. Nobody had ever done this before, and it was a big honor for us to be chosen for this project.
“In the amount of time that we had to design and create this monster, three ships built on three motion bases in three months is pretty much unheard of,” Frazier admits. “Previous to this, the biggest motion base we built was for the U.S.S. Oklahoma for Jerry Bruckheimer’s `Pearl Harbor,’ and we said that we would never build anything bigger than that. Then along comes `At World’s End,’ and it’s absolutely the biggest thing we’ve ever done, and I can’t imagine that it will happen again. This is the Super Bowl of motion pictures.”
When the ships and gigantic rigs-each weighing more than a million pounds each-had to be moved from one position to another inside of “Site 9,” simple looking but high tech air bearings were called into play, something like mini hovercraft capable of carrying 60 tons. “It’s the best way to move a million pounds of ship,” explains John Frazier. “If you could imagine an air hockey game that’s upside down, that’s what we’re doing… taking the table and putting it on top, and letting the hockey puck move it around. The biggest thing about moving the ships isn’t the moving, but stopping them. Once you take that million and build up that inertia, it’s hard to stop it. So we take these big 12,000 pound forklifts and we chain them right to the motion base so it can’t get away from us. We could literally just move the bases, and the ships, anywhere in the hangar that we wanted.”
For the special lighting required of any blue screen sequence, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and his gaffer Raphael Sanchez designed a staggeringly complex grid of 1400 space lights, as well as some 40 lights around the 60-foot-tall blue screen that surrounds the ships and at least eight 10,000 amp truck generators, as well as 60 miles of cable and 3,000 frequencies for the dimmer boards. “We created 108,000 kilowatts of power,” noted executive producer Eric McLeod, “enough to literally light 500 homes.”
Frazier and his team of technical experts also designed a system of piping and rain heads installed into the ceiling of the hangar which poured down hammering showers onto the ships (and the actors, stuntmen and crew), driven by several gigantic fans capable of blowing winds up to 100 miles per hour. The rain had to be carefully calibrated and developed by John Frazier and his crew. “We started by testing rain heads for weeks, and finally got the look that Gore wanted,” notes the special effects supervisor. “Then we have to change the heads, because when Gore is shooting a close-up, you don’t want big raindrops falling on people. You need something finer. So we switch out the rain heads depending upon whether it’s a long shot or closeup.
“Because of the size of the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman, we were probably pumping somewhere around 25,000 gallons of water a minute. This is more rain than has ever been created on a motion picture soundstage. We put tanks outside of the hangar, hooked up the pumps, filtered and heated the water, so basically what we have is this big revolving waterslide. We pump the water in, it goes up 80 feet, rains down on the set, hits the stage floor, goes into the utility corridors that were originally built into the floors, back into the tanks that we have outside, and, recycled, back in again.”
Next Page – Chapter 11: Inside of the Massive “Site 9″ Hangar
