TITANIC

TITANIC

Here is a shot from "Titanic" which was shot in January 1998.

Synopsis Blackness....then you see something. You can't make it out at first. Edges start to form...and there it is, clear as day. Out of the murkiness comes the image of a wine glass with the White Star Line logo on it. Just then, you catch a glimpse of "Snoop," the ROV as it passes through the sunken wreckage, revealing its former elegance. These haunting images bring you some 11,000 feet under the ice cold North Atlantic to Titanic. So starts our version of Titanic. Titanic was an archive of our rendition of scenes from James Cameron's Titanic. Jackson Price did an excellent job on the model of Titanic in a very limited amount of time. Kurt did the filming for this movie. One interesting fact about this movie is that it was filmed entirely in the largest water tank ever used for an archive (72,000,000 cubic millimeters). A particular goof in the movie was a section of film where you can see the "edge" of the ocean. It was never digitally edited out.
In a recent interview, Jackson stated, "In our version of Titanic we wanted to focus totally on historical events. Up until now, all Titanic movies have focused a little on historical stuff, and a little on a subplot. More often than not, the subplot overshadows the historical story. I liked James Cameron's Titanic, and thought it had a very good story line that expressed the emotional drama of Titanic. Now that we have seen that side of the story, I think it is time to see everything exactly as it happened." In the same interview, Kurt expressed the technical side of the production of Titanic:
"Sure, some of the special effects were not the greatest. Upon undertaking this project, we both knew that there would be some bad aspects and some good aspects of this film. The bad aspect was that, unlike James Cameron's Titanic, we didn't have a $200 million dollar budget (it was more like a 200 cent budget) or two major studios backing us. The good aspect was that this was a project that was done to express the truth of the Titanic sinking. I don't expect everyone to leave this archive feeling great, I just want them to have a sense of understanding and hopefully be entertained in the process."

Fun Facts

In a particular scene, we wanted to show some old coins resting on the ocean floor. So we were able to locate some coins from the first decade of the 1900's. In order to be able to see the coins in our murky tank, they had to be situated right next to the glass window. This whole process took about an hour, but when we viewed the final product, you couldn't even make out the coins! The reason: the water in the tank was so cold, that it caused the window to fog up.
Many people have asked how we were able to make the illusion of a piano resting on the ocean floor. As you might imagine, we used miniatures for the scenes involving the Renault and the piano. We must admit, however, it did turn out impressive.
Titanic didn't float!! Our wooden model of Titanic had one minor flaw. It didn't float!! At least not the way we wanted it to anyway. When we added the funnels, it always wanted to capsize. To fix this "minor" problem, we position a thin wooden rod across the tank which Titanic rested on.
The iceberg was made out of styrofoam, and painted a blue tint.
The sinking scenes were made using an elaborate underwater pulley system.
The scene showing Titanic breaking into two pieces was actually a mistake originally. Our pulley system failed, causing the model Titanic to pop back out of the water. But when we saw this on film, we figured it could be passed for the ship breaking in two.
This was the largest tank used for an archive since Yellow Submarine.

Credits Executive Producers....................................................................Jackson Price
Kurt Schuette
Art Director................................................................................Jackson Price
Sound Editing..............................................................................Kurt Schuette
Music by.....................................................................................James Horner Based on James Cameron's TITANIC