【水世界】的前製設定與現場劇照
WATERWORLD (1995)
In celebration of today’s anniversary of this wet mess/epic. Let’s celebrate the hard work this crew put into bringing this world to life. Water movies are never easy but when it comes to this movie anytime you bring it up and a crew member from it is in earshot, the stories pour out. Not always bad, I know a AC that said he had a blast, he loved the boat rides out and all the camaraderie the crew had to have to get thru it. To all the crew that helped bring WATERWORLD to life, We salute you and thanks for the memories. I personally enjoy this hot mess of a movie, it’s one of the last ones of its kind...done practically...in a way.
let’s take a deepest of dives into WATERWORLD
The director, Kevin Reynolds, knew there would be problems before production had even started, “During pre-production. Because having never shot on water to that extent before, I didn’t really realise what I was in for. I talked to Spielberg about it because he’d gone to do Jaws, and I remember, he said to me, “Oh, I would never shoot another picture on water”.
“When we were doing the budget for the picture, and the head of the studio, Sid Sheinberg, we were talking about it and I said, “Steven told me that on Jaws the schedule for the picture was 55 days, and they ended up shooting a 155 days”. Because of the water. And he sat there for a moment and he said, “You know, I’m not sure about the days, but I do know they went a hundred percent over budget”. And so, Universal knew the potential problems of shooting on water. It’s monstrous.”
The film began with a projected budget of $100 million which had reportedly increased to $175 million by the end of production. The principle photography had overrun for at least thirty days more than originally planned due to one major decision.
Whereas today they would film in water tanks with partially built sets, employing green screens to fake the locations, back in 1995 they decided to build everything full size and shoot out on the ocean.
This causes extra logistical problems on top of those that already come with making a major action blockbuster. Cast and crew have to be transported to sets. The camera boats and sets float out of position and will have to be reset between takes taking up valuable production time.
The first draft of Waterworld was written by Peter Radar, a Harvard graduate who wanted to break into the film business. His contact in the film industry was Brad Kevoy, an assistant to the legendary director Roger Corman.
Roger Corman is best known for making films very quickly on a small budget. He also liked to give young talent a chance to direct and write their own films. Brad informed Peter that if he could write a Mad Max rip off, he would arrange to finance and let him direct the picture.
Radar came back and pitched the idea for what would become Waterworld. Kevoy took one look at him and said,
“Are you out of your mind? This would cost us three million dollars to make this movie!”
So Radar kept hold of the idea and decided to re-write the script but, this time, going wild. He wrote what he wanted to see on-screen, limited only by his imagination, not a real world production budget.
He managed to get the newly written script shown to a pair of producers with whom he had made contact with. They loved it and ironically they passed it onto Larry Gordon. He shared the enthusiasm saying it had the kind of cinematic possibilities he was looking for. A deal was signed on Christmas Eve of 1989.
As further script rewrites progressed, it became clear that Waterworld was too big for the Larry Gordon’s production company to undertake by themselves. In February 1992, a deal was signed with Universal Pictures to co-produce and co-finance the film. This was now six years after the first draft had been written.
Universal had signed director Kevin Reynolds to Waterworld. Whilst he was finishing his latest film, Rapa Nui, pre-production for Waterworld was already underway.
The decision was taken that the largest set for the film, known as the atoll, would be built full size. The atoll was the primary location for film and in the story served as the location for a small population of survivors.
The logic behind this decision was due to the high percentage of live action filming required in this location, as well as a huge action set piece. No sound stage would be big enough to incorporate this number of scenes and it was crucial that we see the mariner sail his boat into the atoll, turn around and set out again. A full-size construction was the only way to go as the use of miniature and special effects would be impractical.
The next problem was deciding where to build this huge set. After much research, Kawaihae Harbour in Hawaii was chosen as the location. The atoll could be constructed in the harbour and rotated when needed thus allowing for open sea in the background. Later towards the end of principle photography, the atoll could be towed out into the open sea for the filming of the big action sequences which would be impractical to shoot in an enclosed harbour.
Director Kevin Reynolds also discussed the possibility of using the same water tank as James Cameron’s The Abyss, which had filmed there around five years ago,
“We had even entertained the notion of shooting at that big nuclear reactor facility where they had shot The Abyss, to use it for our underwater tank. But we found it in such a state of disrepair that economically it just wasn’t feasible. We didn’t have as much underwater work as they did. Most of The Abyss is interiors and underwater and model work, ours is mostly surface exterior.”
The production company had originally envisioned building the atoll by linking approximately one hundred boats together and building upon this foundation, just like the characters in the film. The production crew set out to search Hawaii and get hold of as many boats as possible.
During this search, a unique boat in Honolulu caught their attention. Upon further investigation, they discovered it was built by Navitech, a subsidiary of the famous aircraft production company, Lockheed.
They approached Lockheed with the strange request of figuring out how they could build the foundations of the atoll. Lockheed found the request unusual but didn’t shy away from the challenging. They agreed to design the atoll foundation and Navitech would construct it.
Meanwhile, an 11ft miniature model of the atoll was sent out to a model ship testing facility in San Diego. Scaled wave tanks are used to determine the effects of the open sea on large scale miniature models of new untested ship designs. This would help determine what would happen with the unusual design of the atoll when it was out of the harbour.
The atoll, when finished, was approximately ¼ mile in circumference. It took three months to construct and is rumoured to cost around $22 million. As the atoll would be used out on the open sea, it required a seafaring license. Nothing like this had been done before and after much deliberation, it was eventually classed as an unmanned vessel. This meant that all cast and crew would have to vacate the set whilst it was towed into position. By the end of production, the atoll was towed out to sea a total of five times.
Shooting out on the open sea presented a series of logistical problem as Reynolds describes,
“We had an entire navy, basically – I mean, this atoll was positioned about a mile off-shore in Hawaii, it was anchored to the bottom of the ocean so it could rotate. What you don’t think about are things like, you’re shooting on this atoll to maintain this notion that there’s no dry land, you always have to shoot out to sea. Away from the land. So we chose a location where we had about a 180 degree view of open water. Nevertheless, any time when you’re shooting, there could be a ship appear in the background, or something like that, and you had to make a choice. Do I hold up the shot, wait for the ship to move out, or do we shoot and say we’re going to incur this additional cost in post-production of trying to remove the ship from the background.
And at that time, CGI was not at the point it is now, it was a bigger deal. And so, even though if you’re shooting across the atoll and you’re shooting out onto open water, when you turn around and do the reverses, for the action, you had to rotate the entire atoll, so that you’re still shooting out to open water. Those are the kinds of things that people don’t realise.
Or something as simple as – if you’re shooting a scene between two boats, and you’re trying to shoot The Mariner on his craft, another boat or whatever, you’ve got a camera boat shooting his boat, and then the other boat in the background. Well, when you’re on open water things tend to drift apart. So you have to send lines down from each of those boats to the bottom, to anchor them so that they somewhat stay in frame. When you’ve got a simple shot on land, you set up the camera position, you put people in front of the camera and then you put background in there. But when you’re on water, everything’s constantly moving apart, drifting apart, so you have to try to hold things down somewhat.
And these are simple things that you don’t really realise when you’re looking at it on film. But logistically, it’s crazy. And each day you shoot on the atoll with all those extras, we had to transport those people from dry land out to the location and so you’re getting hundreds of people through wardrobe and everything, and you’re putting them on boats, transporting them out to the atoll, and trying to get everybody in position to do a shot. And then when you break for lunch, you have to put everybody on boats and take them back in to feed them.”
The final size of the atoll was determined by the size of the Mariners boat, the trimaran. The dimensions for the trimaran were finalised very early on in pre-production, allowing all other vehicles and sets to be sized accordingly.
Production required two trimarans boats which are so called because they have three hulls. The first was based on the standard trimaran blueprint and built for speed but also had to accommodate a secret crew below decks.
During wide and aerial shots it would have to look like Costner himself was piloting the boat. In reality, a trained crew could monitor and perform the real sailing of the boat utilising specially built controls and television monitors below deck.
The second trimaran was the trawler boat which could transform into the racer through the use of special practical effects rigs. Both of these boats were constructed in France by Jeanneau. Normally this type of vessel requires a year to construct but production needed two boats in five months!
Normally once the boat had been constructed, Jeammeau would deliver it on the deck of a freighter, requiring a delivery time of around a month. This delay was unacceptable and so the trimarans were dismantled into sections and taken by a 747 air freighter to the dock Hawaii. Upon arrival, a further month was required to reassemble the boat and get them prepared for filming.
sets recreating the inside of the tanker were built using forced perspective in a huge 1000ft long warehouse which had an adjoining 2000ft field. In this field, they built the set of the oil tankers deck, again constructed using forced perspective. Using the forced perspective trick, the 500ft long set could be constructed to give the impression that it was really twice as long.
There’s more to a film than just it’s sets and filming locations. Over two thousand costumes had to be created with many of the lead actors costumes being replicated many times over due to wear and tear.
This is not an uncommon practice for film production, but due to the unique look of the people and the world they inhabit, it did create some headaches. One costume was created with so many fish scales the wardrobe department had to search the entire island of Hawaii looking for anyone who could supply in the huge quantity required.
Makeup had to use waterproof cosmetics, especially on the stunt players. As everyone had a sun burnt look, a three-sided tanning booth was setup. The extras numbering in their hundreds, with ages ranging from six to sixty-five, passed through the booth like a production line to receive their spray tan. The extras then moved onto costume before finally having their hair fixed and becoming ready for the day.
In some scenes, extras were actually painted plywood cutouts to help enhance the number of extras on the set. This can easily be seen in one particular shot on board the Deez super tanker.
Filming on the water is not only a difficult and time-consuming process but also very dangerous. It’s been reported that Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino nearly drowned on their first day of filming.
Waterworld’s star Kevin Costner reported having a near-death experience when filming a scene in which the mariner ties himself to his catamaran to survive a storm. The pounding water caused him to black out and nearly drown.
Unbeknownst to most of the crew, Kevin Costner’s stunt double was riding his jet ski across 40 miles of open ocean between his home on Maui and the film’s set on the Big Island. When he didn’t show up for work one day, the production team phoned his wife, who informed them he had already left for work. The stunt double’s jet ski had run out of gas halfway through his “commute” and a storm had swept him farther out to sea. It took a helicopter most of the day to find him. The stunt doubles name was Laird Hamilton.
As well as the logistical problems of creating a film of this scale and on water, they also had to deal with the press who seemed intent on wanting the film to fail. Director Kevin Reynolds discusses the situation,
“It was huge, we were constantly fighting – people wanted to have bad press. That was more exciting to them than the good news. I guess the most egregious example of that that I recall was that the publicist told me that one day…we’d been out the day before and we were doing a shot where we sent two cameras up on a mast of the trimaran and we wanted to do a shot where they tilled down from the horizon down to the deck below. We’re out there, we’re anchored, we’re setting the shot up and a swell comes in, and I look over and the mast is sort of bending.
And I turned to the boatmaster and I said, “Bruno, is this safe?”. And he looks up the mast and he goes, “No”. So I said, “Okay, well, we have to get out as I can’t have two guys fall off from 40 feet up”. So, we had to break out of the set-up, and go back in a shoot something else and we lost another half-day.
Anyway, the next day the publicist is sitting in his office and he gets this call from some journalist in the States and he goes, “Okay. Don’t lie to me – I’ve had this confirmed from two different people. I want the facts, and I want to hear about the accident yesterday, we had two cameramen fall off the mast and were killed”.
And, he goes, “What are you talking about?”. And he goes, “Don’t lie to me, don’t cover this up, we know this has happened”. It didn’t happen! People were so hungry for bad news because it was much more exciting than…they just said it, and you know, it hurt us.”
Upon release, the press seemed to be disappointed that the film wasn’t the massive failure they were hoping it to be. Universal Studios told Kevin Reynolds that one critic came out of an early screening in New York and in a disappointed tone said,
“Well, it didn’t suck.”
It is true that during principle photography the slave colony set sank and had to be retrieved. However due to bad press, the rumour became much bigger and to this day when you mention the sinking set, most people assume it was the huge atoll.
During production, press nicknamed the film “Kevin’s Gate” and “Fishtar”, referring to 1980’s box office failures Heaven’s Gate and Ishtar. Heaven’s Gate failed so badly it led to the sale of United Artists Studio and has become synonymous with failure in Hollywood.
As well as the exaggerated set problems and other various production rumours, there were also difficulties with the script. In a risky move, the film was green lit and moved into production without a finalised script.
The final total is a reportedly thirty-six rewrites. One of the writers involved was Joss Whedon. Joss had worked on many scripts before becoming a director having being at the helm of both The Avengers and the sequel Avengers: Age Of Ultron. He described his experience on Waterworld as,
“Seven weeks of hell”
Everything came to a head just three weeks before the end of principle photography. Kevin Reynolds who was an old friend of Kevin Costner allegedly walked off set or was fired. There was no official statement on what happened.
When Reynolds left the production this event caused many changes to be made. Composer Mark Isham had already composed approximately two-thirds of the film’s score by the time Reynolds left and that event ultimately caused him to leave production. As Mark describes in this interview excerpt,
“Kevin Reynolds quit the film, which left me working for Kevin Costner, who listened to what I had written and wanted a completely different point of view. He basically made a completely different film — he re-cut the entire film, and in his meeting with me he expressed that he wanted a completely different approach to the score. And I said, “oh let me demonstrate that I can give that to you”, so I presented him with a demo of my approach to his approach, and he rejected that and fired me. What I find a lot in these big films, because the production schedules are so insane, that the directors have very little time to actually concentrate on the music.”
Rumours report that Costner took control of production. He directed the last few weeks of principle photography and edited the final cut of the film that was released in cinemas.
Reynolds discusses his surprise at discovering that one of the most famous scenes from what is known as the extended version, was left on the cutting room floor,
“…it would have differed from what you saw on the screen to some extent, and one of the things I’ve always been perplexed by in the version that was released, theatrically, although subsequently the longer version included it, and the reason that I did the film, was that at the very end of the picture, at the very end of the script, there’s a scene when they finally reach dry land and The Mariner’s sailing off and he leaves the two women behind, and in the script they’re standing up on this high point and they’re watching him sail away, and the little girl stumbles on something.
And they look down and clear the grass away and that’s this plaque. And it says, “Here, near this spot, 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary first set foot on the summit of Everest”. And that was in script and I was like, “Oh, of course! Wow, the highest point on the planet! That would have been dry land!”. And we got it! We shot that. And they left it out of the picture. And I’m like, “Whaaat?!”. It’s like the Statue of Liberty moment in Planet of the Apes. And I was like, “Why would you leave that out?”
Written by John Abbitt | Follow John on twitter @UKFilmNerd
If any the crew cares to share any of their experiences on it please comment.
Thanks for reading
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board frame for pictures 在 Tiara Jacquelina Facebook 的最佳解答
Reading this post by @Shacind Ananthan
(@shacindananthan) made me cry tears of joy and pride, I felt compelled to share it with all of you...
"This is for all my fellow Malaysians who are still abroad; I hope this gives you a little insight on what went on during my journey from the UK all the way to the hotel I am quarantined in in KL. To my non-Malaysian friends, this is me unabashedly showing off the exemplary work by our government. This is my tribute to the countless men and women in duty who assisted us with so much care and respect.
It all started on the plane from Doha to KL, where I had transited from Manchester. With a mere 50 people on the plane, we were all fairly separated to sit in isolation from one another. After taking off, we were handed a Health Declaration form to fill up. In addition to the general information (name, age, etc), COVID specific questions were also asked. It even asked for our flight and seat number- I figured it was to track down those who came in contact with a suspected COVID-19 patient.
When I landed in KLIA, we were greeted warmly by 2 men in uniform at the end of the jet bridge. One was coordinating us to queue, strictly keeping in mind the 1m gap, and the other was guiding us to the skytrain on a Segway. As we approached the skytrain, another policewoman took over and brought us to the bus lounge, where we boarded a bus to the arrival hall. Each bus had a maximum of only 10 people, and the seats were marked with an ‘X’ to make sure we sat adjacent to each other. In the bus was another policewoman who made sure we went in one by one, and only allowed the next person to enter once the previous one had sat down. A recurring theme you would find is that at every ‘checkpoint’ there were at least 1-2 officers who did their job so diligently, that there was no hold up, making the process very smooth. It felt as if this was an extremely well thought out procedure that had been going on for years. All the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed.
Once we alighted the bus, we walked to the immigration counters and were screened by an infra-red thermometry system. After passing it, we were guided towards a team of health officials from KKM on the right. I was very impressed with the number of health officials and the amenities provided for them. There were around 10 officials in what looked like full hazmat suits, each provided with a chair and table. I was greeted by this lovely woman, who asked for my health declaration form and reaffirmed if I had any symptoms. The constant glee on her face and referring to me as “adik” made me feel like I was in safe hands. The first step to addressing a crisis is to calm the stakeholders. It is the little things like these that reassures one in an anxiety driven situation. She then gave me a home assessment form where I had to monitor and report my symptoms daily.
After clearing the immigration, we queued up to sanitize our hands, and then were given another form to register our particulars and emergency contacts. We sat down and filled up the forms while waiting for 3 more batches of people to arrive. After 20 minutes passed, a police officer gave us a short briefing on the do’s and don’ts while in quarantine. The question on everyone’s minds was “where are we being taken?”. I overheard conversations of people praying that it was a five-star hotel in KL. However dire the circumstances, the innate Malaysian tendency to always expect luxury never fades, does it? The policeman politely replied that he wasn’t sure where we were going to be quarantined, but assured us it was going to be a good place nevertheless.
Then we were escorted by another officer to the baggage claim area where our luggage had already been taken off the baggage carousel and organized for us to simply go and grab them. I figured that this was to reduce the contact between people in case we crowd around the conveyer belt. This also significantly reduced the time taken for us to get re-organized. Take note of the little details that the authorities paid attention to.
Later on, the same police officer led us to the arrival hall where 3 Smart Selangor buses had already been parked for us to board. Before entering the bus, a fireman proceeded to fumigate our luggage and backpacks one by one, while we sanitized our hands once more before being handed a bag full of snacks by another officer. In the bus was a lady who helped us load our luggage. It was very systematic, only allowing one person in the bus at a time to maintain social distancing.
We waited for around 30 minutes for all 3 batches of people to board the buses. My mind was still in a state of disbelief, I and kept wondering how much manpower and logistics it must have taken to make the process as smooth as possible and achieve this insane level of efficiency. Before leaving, the bus driver announced that we were being taken to Impiana KLCC Hotel. Mental gasps could be heard from the 15 people in the bus.
The journey to the hotel was just short of 50 minutes. We were all aghast looking at the sight before us when we reached the hotel. People were busy clicking pictures and taking videos of the scene that frankly seemed like it belonged to a distant dystopian future. Dozens of people in full hazmat suits were standing by a long table which looked like an assembly line, busy screening and registering us aliens. Before we got off the bus, a man in a PASKAU uniform briefed us on the next course of action. He told us to keep our passports ready for registration. We patiently helped each other with the luggage (still maintaining an appropriate distance) and queued up according to yellow tapes on the ground. I was standing in line between two sisters, so I offered the one behind me to take my spot but she politely declined. Soon enough, it was my turn.
The lady at the start of the table proceeded to check my temperature with a temperature gun and passed me another form, similar to the home assessment one. I then handed my passport to the next guy who immediately photo stated it with the photocopier behind him. While waiting for my passport, the following person asked for my phone number and my place of origin. After I received my passport, I was given the room key along with two masks and was quickly thrusted into the hotel. While it seemed quick and rushed, it was effective as the primary goal was to limit as much contact with others as possible.
As I walked in, I saw the girl who was in front of me struggling with her 4 huge bags, so me and another KKM personnel assisted her into the lift. We had a brief conversation and I got to know that she was a third-year student who had to leave the UK and pack her things for good overnight. Laughing at the fact that our rooms were next to each other, we bid goodbye and stormed into our rooms. In the room were two boxes of bottled water, plastic bags for the contaminated clothes, a huge bag filled with coffee, biscuits and snacks and so on. We are being served good nutritious food three times a day and housed in a four star (some five star) hotel all for free of charge. There is 24/7 surveillance and a medical team at our doorstep at all times. I bow down to this great nation with utmost humility, thank you for this Malaysia.
This lockdown/ quarantine has really cultivated the sense of community and the innate feeling of unity that we had lost. Though the time frame of when this epidemic will end is still unclear, it became clear to me that we will pull through, because that’s what Malaysians do best. This was further proven when all 74 of us quarantined at Impiana KLCC were added into a WhatsApp group by Lieutenant Zakee (who was in charge of our welfare in the hotel) for ease of communication. The group was instantly flooded with messages of hope, optimism and love and gratitude for the lieutenant, health workers and other officers who heroically put our welfare in front of their own lives.
Why am I writing this? This is a primary account of someone who experienced the plight of leaving a foreign country overnight with an uncertain future. This is to counter the fake narratives online that seek to defame our great nation. The entire ecosystem functioned like a well-oiled machine, NO stone was left unturned. It is not an overstatement when I say that Malaysia has been one of the most proactive countries with tackling the menace of COVID-19. Therefore, I urge the armchair economists at home, the constant naysayers- if you cannot acknowledge the good our government is doing, at least don’t stand in their way.
Thank you again, Malaysia, for keeping me safe. I have always been, am always, and will always be a proud citizen of this country that has given me so much.
Tanah tumpahnya darahku!
- Shacind Ananthan
(@shacindananthan)