It took the Titanic: rare photos from the shoot

19 Dec 1997 premiere of the film "Titanic". The shooting has spent 200 million dollars, which was a record budget for the time. Following the record — the film became the highest grossing in the history of cinema, bringing $ 1.8 billion. This record could break after only 12 years, the film "Avatar".

And want to look "behind the scenes" and see how it was filmed familiar scene? Today you have a chance!

In early 1996 on the coast of Rosarito Beach in the state of Baja California (Mexico) began construction of a new pavilion, a giant of 20th Century Fox, which was to shoot most of the scenes for the film. There, with five tons of dynamite was created pool with a displacement of four million liters, which in the future will "float" the largest model in the history of cinema.

Artist picture Director Peter Lamont (Peter Lamont) managed to get the shipbuilding company Harland & Wolff copies of drawings of the Titanic. Using them as well as the diary of Thomas Andrews (Thomas Andrews), the main designer of the ship, builders started work on the construction of the almost complete copy of the "Titanic." The final model created by the ship reaches 231 m in length, while the real ship was only 34 meters long. It is on Board the "ship" was produced by shooting actors, replaced later in the film to digital doubles. "Because of the shooting, on our ship model range of effects declined by nearly a thousand episodes," said the film's producer Jon Landau (Jon Landau).

According to Rob Legato, one of the reasons why the special effects in "Titanic" looks so lifelike, is the constant improvement of software and hardware to control the position of the cameras and "motion capture".

"We used the system of motion capture for the filming of how the characters move, stand, sit, he says. — Then we have the film scanned into the computer and put our actors on their computer model."

During filming, the actors were dressed in costumes, hung with sensors for motion capture. Their actions seemed arbitrary, although they were told in advance what to do. People shook hands and introduced himself. They drank tea, waving to their friends and perform other movements that seem natural and appropriate in a given place and a given time. In the depths of the Digital Domain has created a comprehensive library of digitized movements, which was made available to every animator Studio.

"The person in charge of the process of filming to capture the movement, saying, "Let three people stand there and shake his hand. Then let the others pass trio behind these“. In principle, the whole process resembled normal shooting actors in a particular scene. Then our artists using computers cut out the faces and clothes of these actors and put it over the digital doubles. We also used data from filming to simulate natural light. When digital actors go on the deck, they come in a shaded, and, conversely, lighter parts, resulting in greater compliance of these scenes shot by Russ (Russell carpenter (Russell Carpenter) — the cinematographer of the film)".

During the filming of scenes with the technique of motion capture was used services of forty actors. By copying three-dimensional models in the scenes of the ship's sinking were more than a thousand people.

Rob Legato: "Jim could hire a thousand people, but they would have to carry, to feed, clothe, and employ additional masters for applying make-up. My rule during the shooting of the film was simple: if something can capture using standard cameras we shoot on film. If a scene or an object it is impossible to withdraw, we use a computer. For episodes in which passengers on Titanic falling from a great height into the water, we shot real squirt from falling ordinary objects thrown into the ocean. Instead of the expected three weeks to simulate the dynamics of splashing of water by means of a computer, it took us only an hour."

Continuing the theme about the process of shooting falling in the water people Legato notes that after the film, the film was scanned and transferred to the computer animators Digital Domain made the jump stunt with 6 meters high and 21 meters tall. This was used a computer simulated water, allows you to make a collision with a more dramatic and natural. The supervisor explains that even the best stunt will be compressed directly before falling into the water.

"Just a glass dome crowning the top deck of the ship, taken from the budget of the Titanic to 500 thousand dollars!"

In addition to three-dimensional passengers and water, to generate special effects for the film were necessary miniature model of the Titanic Museum of detail built several pieces. Did this Digital Domain (DD) and Donald Pennington Inc. (DPI).

"For the creation of this episode was shooting the copy of the Titanic in scale 1:20. On the deck were later established the "digital" passengers. It is necessary to praise employees Digital Domain rotoscoping for a great scene: the image clearly shows that all the passengers are over the rope railing of the ship. On this episode worked BFTR: during the filming of the ship's hull was covered with a coating of rust, in addition, the paint because of the scorching sun faded. Using ElectricImage and Adobe After Effects, Studio BFTR replaced the real new painting, digital".

In the creation of models was attended by another Studio, Vision Crew, manufacturing thumbnails Digital Domain granular parts of the ship: rescue boats, cranes, propellers, and about 2000 of the Windows! On the creation of interiors of the Titanic apart from Digital Domain and Donald Pennington worked for other studios.

The main instrument Digital Domain while creating digital ocean "Titanic" is software, developed by Arete on the analysis of satellite imagery of sailing ships. According to Legato, the developers studied the dynamics of waves, leave floating ships that have investigated the influence of wind speed on the waves, the quantity of light absorbed and reflected by the water. Digital Domain has improved the program by adding the ability to uninstall the virtual camera over long distances, as well as create a variety of trajectories of its flight. In addition, was added and other parameters-lets you choose the height, angles, sizes of the lenses, the reflection of the sky in water, and objects on or in the water surface reflecting sunlight.

Studio created: 7.5 m (scale 1:35, DD), 13-m (scale 1:20, DD) and 18th (scale 1:14,5, DPI) models, as well as 44th (scale 1:6 DPI) the miniature, which is in the process of filming the movie will break it in two (DPI), a 7.5-m nose (DD), 7-m and 15-m aft (DPI) of the ship. Both studios have also collaborated in the process of building a full-sized copies of the submarines "the World."