In the past couple of weeks I’ve talked about complex sets and production weeks, but in my opinion the hardest practical effect to achieve is massive natural water disasters, like a tsunami, a flood or a boat sinking. Many famous films have water disasters like the film 2012 and Pirates of the Caribbean, but a lot of the time these effects are done using CGI, but a couple films and TV shows take the leap and use real water tanks and wave machines to get the full effect and it shows.

Titanic:

Obviously, everyone knows that Titanic takes the cake in extreme water spectacles. James Cameron wanted to make you feel like you were on that boat.

One of the most harrowing scenes to film practically in the Titanic was the after crashing down the stairwell. They had to get the shot exactly right with the first take because the staircase was rigged to fall apart a specific way and after that take if the shot didn’t work they would have had to halt production and fully re-built a completely destroyed set.

On top of that the boat they built and sunk in a massive water pool in Mexico cost over $150 million dollars and the movie itself cost over $200 million, making the most expensive movie ever made at that time. On top of everything else because everyone had to be in the water for so long, people were freezing to death and getting ill, no one could pee so people started peeing in the water, it was overall just bad. “When the production moved to Mexico, and literally thousands of extras and stuntmen re-enacted the sinking of the Titanic on a replica built to 90 per cent scale, Cameron imposed a work regime that left everyone else reeling. After spending hours each day standing waist-deep in chilly, dirty Pacific sea water, many cast members came down with colds, flu or kidney infections.” (Gumbel).

The Impossible:

Another movie that went all the way on getting realistic water effects and shots with the actors in the water disasters them selves was the 2010 film “The Impossible” which was another true story about the Tsunami that hit Thailand. In an interview done with director J.A. Bayona he tells The New York Times, “One of the early decisions was not to use C.G.I. water, because it was very expensive, but also because it didn’t feel real,” Mr. Bayona said during an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. “So we decided to go with real water, which was kind of a crazy thing.” (Murphy).

The filmed used 3 different types of water rigs to get different needed scenes. The wave was a massive pool that had a maxi-miniture, which is just a larger scale miniature of the resort buildings that get destroyed by the wave. “The special-effects team worked with Edinburgh Designs, a company specializing in simulating waves for surfing schools and pools at water parks. “They work on creating the perfect wave, but what we wanted to create was very nasty, wide and imperfect, so it was something completely different for them,” he said (Murphy).

For the current that pulls the mom, (Namoi Watts) and the eldest son (Tom Holland) they used what they called a massive flowerpot so that the water would be controlled but large enough to make them feel like they were actually being yanked around. For this footage the actors were shot in a surge of water created in an outdoor tank in Alicante, on the southeast coast of Spain… “We put them in what looks like a giant flowerpot, so we could move them in the water safely,” Mr. Bayona said. Powerful pumps moved 3,000 liters per second to create the pull” (Murphy). This was tricky and put everyone a little on edge because the person who was on screen the most taking the hit from the water was Holland, who at the time was only about 13 or 14 and the crew were extra careful to make sure he didn’t get hurt or actually start to drown.

Fox’s 9-1-1

The final project that used complicated practical water effects was Fox’s hit television 9-1-1. In their season 3 opener a tsunami hits the coast of California and the main characters are stuck trying to help everyone at the Santa Monica boardwalk and other places around Los Angeles.

The TV sho creators and producers chose to take the whole cast and crew and fly down to Mexico to film in the same monster pool that Titanic was filmed in. They even built half of the Santa Monica Ferris Wheel and had it sticking out of the water like it had been washed away. In a Fox featurette on the episode, Bradley Buecker, the director and one of the show’s executive producers, said “We built a replica of the Santa Monica Pier and really it’s one of the most insane things I’ve ever done.”

Using that pool they fully flooded fake streets had full fire trucks submerged in water and put the whole cast out on real rescue boats with cameras attached to them as they filmed them rescuing extras from the water.

For a network show that doesn’t have as big a budget or as long of a shooting schedule as a major motion picture the episode that the tsunami took place in could have been pulled form a major block-buster film they looked so good.

All three films achieve incredible feats, but the complexity and the months of preplanning paid off because these movies and tv show really pull you in and make you feel the panic the characters have as their lives flash before their eyes because they’re drowning in real water.

Imagine actual hell, now think this set was most likely worse than that. Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and released in 1979 goes down as one of the best war films of its time, but for the director, actors and the crew it was an almost 68 week long nightmare that pushed everyone physically, mentally and emotionally.

Compared to the other projects I’ve covered in past weeks, this takes the cake. The movies horrible production period goes down in history as legend. When people say the title of this movie the first thing that pops into peoples’ mind isn’t the actual film, but the hell that it was to make the film.

Drugs, Alcohol and Acting Fueds:

Most people know that Hollywood isn’t known for being made of saints and that drug fueled performances is nothing new, but on a set like this were the heat makes you delusional and your sitting around for hours waiting for the director to bring a completed scene to the table, alcohol, LSD and cocaine became the only way that some of the actors could actually complete their scenes. In an article by Death by Films, the author describes it as “With Coppola making the script up as he went along, there was a lot of free time on the set of Apocalypse Now. Crew members described the crazy shoot as the result of too much money, too much time, too much drink and too much drugs. Little by little they all went insane. Actor Sam Bottoms, who played the surfer Lance Johnson, spent the whole shoot high on speed, LSD and marijuana” (Deathbyfilms).

Not only was it actor Sam Bottoms, but leading man Dennis Hopper and Marlan Brando were also using substances heavily. “Amidst all the chaos, stood Dennis Hopper. The hippy hellraiser of Hollywood. A man who lived on a daily diet of a half gallon of rum, 28 beers and three ounces of cocaine. When Coppola asked him how he could help him with his role, Hopper replied “an ounce of cocaine”. The production team ended up supplying him throughout the filming.” and for Brando, “He turned up drunk, weighing as much as an African elephant and having never looked at the script or read the book it was based on” (deathbyfilm).

Because Brando was so over weight they ended up having to shoot him completely in shadow in order to hid his body and because he never actually read the script he basically just said whatever and did whatever he wanted on camera.

But the worst part for director Coppola was that after a misunderstanding when Brando and Hopper first met, Brando refused to film any scenes with Hopper. So in order to actually complete the movie Hopper came in first and recorded all of his lines and then Brando listened to his recordings to film his part. “Brando said, ‘I’ll work with him, but you come in and do your scenes first and then I’ll come in and listen to you, but we’ll never be on the set together” (Parker).

Typhoons and Disease:

After missing actors for weeks and already being 6 weeks behind schedule a massive Typhoon hit the Phillepeans and halted production again because it had wiped most of the sets out. ” the typhoon that tore through the production destroying all the sets. More down time, which the crew put to good use. Parties at the hotel grew more infamous by the day. Swimming pools surrounded by bottles of beer and actors hurling themselves off the roof” (deathbyfilm).

Once production started up again the heat and bugs were so unbearable that crew members and the equipment weren’t functioning properly and many of the crew members feel ill. In a featurette all about the behind the scenes nightmare of Apocalypse Now they talk about the worst of the illnesses which go to Martin Sheen and Francis Ford Coppola. Sheen had spiraled out of control so badly with drugs and alcohol and the toll of tropical heat exhaustion caused him to have a massive heart attack and then crawl for a half a mile to get help, and when Coppola found out about the Sheen’s near death accident. He suffered an epileptic seizure as well as already loosing over 100 pounds and threatening to take his own life on 3 separate occasions due to filming. Of course all of this was kept from studio executives in hopes that they wouldn’t shut the production down.

The Location of the Shoot was an Actual Hell-scape:

Even if drugs and disease are your worse problems on set, it’s manageable, but Apocalypse now was filmed in the Philippines on an active war ground as the Philippines was in the middle of a Civil War. So the helicopters and other military equipment they were using would have to be taken at times to go off and blow things up for real.

Coppola got in trouble for filming the ritualistic killing of water buffalos and then keeping it in the movie. The dead bodies that were shown in many of the scenes were real corpses and after a few weeks of filming no one could handle the awful smell of rotting bodies. At night tigers would roam around the set and the behind the scenes youtube video explained that the film had to hire security guards after one whole weeks worth of on set allowance was stollen.

What was supposed to be a 60 day shoot dragged on for a whopping 238 days and came in millions of dollars over budget. But the film was a gritty and downright fantastic showing of war time nightmares, but when Coppola said that, “this film isn’t about Vietnam, it is Vietnam” it’s easy to see why.

The Haunting of Hill House was a Netflix original TV series that dropped in 2018 and quickly after being released it became one of Netflix’s most popular series. The haunting tale of 6 children trying to live with the lasting effects of growing up in Hill House and loosing their mother at such a young age is extraordinarily entertaining but the true winner of the whole series is specifically episode 6 titled “Two Storms” which jumped between the adult versions of the siblings at a funeral for their youngest sister while a storm raged on outside and back to them as young children in Hill House also battling a huge storm. You would think that the episode would be just as scary an haunting as the other episodes but this one stands out specifically because it was filmed to look like a one take.

The director, Mike Flanagan, later goes on to uncover the fact that the whole episode was actually 5 long takes strung together. Similarly to last weeks Nightmare from Set installment about the long takes of 1917, this TV series had to create a specially built set and work with their camera and art department to make everything run smoothly. The biggest differences through are that in this case the actors change through out the story but with no cutting and because the plot takes place at night inside you can’t rely on natural lighting. So they had to not only choreograph the actors and cameras but also the light and reflection boards.

Specific Set and Lighting Design:

In YouTube features posted by both Netflix and Insider, the director, Flanagan describes when they first starting building the set they had episode 6 in mind. Since the modern funeral home set needed to be connected to the main Hill House set. This is because multiple times through out the episode the Mr. Crain, the father, walks through the funeral home into Hill house as if he walking back in time into his memories. “The sets also had to include hiding places for the crew, equipment and special lighting rigs, along with secret passage ways for the actors and their photo doubles to sprint through as the scenes slip from past to present” (Insider).

As they rehearsed they also used sound and dialogue cues to tell the steady cam operator when to pivot or an actor when they need to hit a specific mark so that the people controlling the beauty lighting can make sure it hits them just right. “The production was shut down for a month so that they could focus on rehearsing the episode with second team stand-ins. They’d walk through the entire script over and over and over again so that the crew could learn all the blocking, lighting, and camera choreography” (Insider).

The biggest challenge was that the scenes had to be carried out perfectly. There could be no leeway for error because then the scene’s dialogue wouldn’t make sense, the actors wouldn’t be lit properly or someone could get seriously hurt, by a set piece flying in or out or a bounce card being swung over head to get to the next acting mark. There was even a make shift steady cam elevator that brought the camera from the first floor to the second as the actors ran down the massive stairwell.

In the beginning part of the episode the father is circling the room and watching his fully adult children revert back to their younger selves and then become fully grown again but the camera never stops. In an article for Den of Geek, Flanagan the director reveals who it was done. “This first segment involved hiding the younger actors playing the Crain children around the corner in the viewing room, so they could run in and replace their adult counterparts during a 360-degree move around Tim Hutton. The adults sprinted back into place a moment later.”

Real Rain Effects = Real Flooding:

Since both parallel plot lines are tied together by a massive storm that knocks the power out the crew brought in huge rain and lighting rigs to actually create real rain and the lighting effect. Through out the whole rain comes pouring through the fireplace and the windows get hammered with rain seeping and then at the most climatic part of the episode a hall of windows chatter and the rain and wind comes blasting in. The windows shattering was the only thing made with CGI everything else was practical. “They installed massive rain effects which actually flooded the set a few times during rehearsal” (Insider). Director fo Photography, Michael Fimognari, went on to explain, “We thought it was important that you could feel the water effects.” (Netflix).

Child Actors:

Often times you hear about the nightmare of trying to rangle young children on set and get them to act just as fantastically as their adult counter parts. Take this show which had extremely young actors handling very heavy material and now make them learn both their lines and everyone else’s lines in the script as well as memorize all this complicated blocking and then perform it like a live stage production that just keeps going instead of filming it in small takes like usual.

The children tackled the episode so well that TV Guide highlighted them as their actors of the week when the show was first released.

“Though each of the child actors has a standout moment in the season… we’d like to single out the younger set’s work in Episode 6. The hour is composed of several continuous shots, a format challenging to an actor of any age. And the script requires the kids to go from wariness about the sudden storm to an explosion of outright horror after having several ghostly encounters in the night, in the dark. Grace and Wilson gave off a quietly disturbed vibe as Theo and Shirley tried to process what they’d seen. Singleton made Steven a reassuring presence for his siblings. McGraw’s breathless panic when Nell was recovered was terrifying. And Hilliard’s earnest worry for Luke’s twin sister was note-perfect. In short: We care so much about the Crain children as adults because the actors playing their younger counterparts did their job — and were scary-good at it” (TV Guide).

The complexity and the nightmares of this episode caused a lot of head aches for the director, the camera operators and both the young and old cast, but the result is an entrancing episode that you can’t take your eye off of and it’s definitely the stand out episode of the season.

The film 1917, was released in theaters Christmas of 2019 and the movie is a feat in it of itself. The movie is a minute shy of 2 hours and for the entire film you feel like your watching one take in real time and that’s is because you sort of are. Director Sam Mendez, producer Pippa Harris and cinematographer Rodger Deakins combined brain power and immense talent created a film that had all one takes that ran any where from 6 minutes long to 15 minutes long takes that were stitched together with hidden cuts.

Of course creating a film like this, it goes with out saying that there were going to be more than your usual obstacles. The art department, location team and camera department had to work tirelessly along with the director and actors to create multiple different sets. This included taking an empty field and digging full WWI style trenched that were the exact length of the time the scene took that was going to be shot with in them. In a behind the scenes featurette video the director Sam Mendes says “The challenges of prepping this movie re the same challenges of prepping any movies, times five. We had to measure every step of the journey… The scene has to be the exact length of the land and the land cannot be longer than the scene and the scene cannot be longer than the land. And so you have to rehearse every line of dialogue on location.” (Mendez)

A Fight Against Mother Nature:

In another article written by Vulture, the author Nate Jones, talks to producers and different department directors talk about each of their individual “hardest days on set”. For producer Harris, cinematographer Deakins, and location manager Emma Pill the weather and nature it self were there biggest threats. Because this film was shot as a oner the production team didn’t have any extra coverage to cut away too, if they couldn’t land a specific shot or if they wanted to cut something during post production because they didn’t like how it turned out. Everything in this movie had to happen otherwise you would loose the connection you had with the main characters long and argues trek.

So in order to keep continuity amongst all the long takes and because they couldn’t actually light any of the scenes since the camera would be moving on a 360 degree axis they shot the entire thing in complete cloud over and for anyone who knows anything about Great Britain it’s usually overcast there. Of course though, on day one of principal photography the sun came out to shine and wouldn’t go away. For Pippa Harris the lead producer on set, this was a nightmare. No producer and no studio wants to be behind schedule and over budget so at the end of the day when the studio called asking why they haven’t heard anything no one was happy. Harris recalled. “At about four or five in the afternoon, I got a slightly admonishing call from the studio, saying ‘You do realize you’re meant to email us when you first turn over?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well, we actually haven’t turned over yet.’ And that was of course not what the studio wants to hear on the first day of shooting.” (Harris). From this point on Harris explains this was the pacing of filming some days they would get way behind schedule and just rehearse since they couldn’t shoot and other days the rehearsing would pay off and they would get ahead again. And as a producer having to schedule for all exterior shots with no cover days was daunting. The whole production lasted for about 60 days at 5 different outdoor locations, which to Harris’s excitement met that they came in ahead of schedule and under budget.

The sun was also a nightmare for Deakins as he had to be the one to call when the cloud coverage was enough to shoot and when it wasn’t and he never wanted to call it too early god forbid it went away too soon and then the entire production would have to go back to one. The issue with each take was that once it got started everything was in motion because usually no one was calling cut until the whole 8 to 10 minute scene was finished. “Deakins recalled. “I spent a lot of time watching the sky, and looking at weather apps on my phone, seeing when clouds might come in.” But even that was an imperfect method. “Sometimes you would think the radar would show a cloud system and some light rain coming towards you, but it would dissolve by the time it came to us. It was really frustrating.” (Jones)

On the complete other side of the spectrum, location coordinator, Emma Pill had to find replicas of WWI battle scenes with out actually being able to use the real sites because the were protected historical landmarks. So the main location that had the trenches dug into it was “Salisbury Plains” which is right next to Stonehenge. After digging and shooting in the trenches Emma had to ensure that the field would be put back to their previous state and she had to make sure that the protected wild life and protected archaeological items that lived on and where buried at the plains wasn’t disturbed. This met that Pill was working day and night with Ornithologists and had to get herself a proper license to exhume bodies. “Pill had the fields geo-scanned to ensure production did not disturb any remnants of Bronze Age culture. That included any three-thousand-year-old corpses that may have been lying around. “I had to get a license to exhume bodies,” she recalled. “Obviously if they were modern bodies, you’re calling the police. But ancient bodies, you have to have a license to have permission to exhume them from the ground.” (Heckman)

Thankfully they never did come across any bodies but they did run into troubles with the protected birds on set. After they built the entire worn down barn set and finished wrapping production on it they were set to strike it. But before tearing it down set designers found nests of the birds inside the barn and Ornithologists told them that they couldn’t tear it down and to wait for the birds to naturally just leave. “We couldn’t strike the barn because some swallows and wagtails had decided it was a perfect environment to nest,” Pill recalled. It is against the law to disturb a birds’ nest, and so there was nothing to do but bring in an ornithologist, and watch and wait until each loving couple eventually flew the coop — which they finally did, weeks later.” (Pill) It did put them behind schedule, but the team couldn’t blame the birds since it they were the ones who built the birds the perfect home in an already perfect environment.

This film had plenty of set back and plenty of obstacles, but for the entire production team it was a complete success. They were able to create an incredibly beautiful and technically advanced film that did great in theaters and even better during awards season. The use of the single take and the attention to detail that the camera department, set designers and stunt coordinators had created a story that was so enthralling and nail biting and at the same time completely hidden. For most of the film you can’t tell why you feel so immersed in the story, but then you realize it’s because you’re there with the character the whole time, and you never miss a beat or cut away. Just like the character you never have a chance to take a break and just breathe.

As a producer, as a director, and especially as an actor I wouldn’t have wanted to have been anywhere near this set. A little over 80 years ago, the timeless movie “The Wizard of Oz” was released. Many people believe it to be the first film released in technicolor, while that is false, 1939 was a huge year for movies all across the world when it came to new technology and “The Wizard of Oz” goes down as one of the most influential films of all time, but making it was no easy stroll down the yellow brick road.

Ill Made Costumes:

The first obstacle the production team faced was during rehearsals the original actor casted to play the tin man became widely ill from the makeup that was used to paint him. In an article written by Vanity Fair, the actor Buddy Ebsen, woke up in the middle of the night “screaming from violent cramping in his hands, arms, and legs. When he had difficulty breathing, his wife called an ambulance and rushed him to the hospital. He remained in an oxygen tent for two weeks, recovering from the pure aluminum he had ingested into his lungs”. (Miller) You would think from there the studio would halt production and wait for him to get better to continue, but at MGM back in the day was money so after scolding Ebsen about getting back to work and seeing that he couldn’t they hired a new actor, Jack Haley. The studio also did go back and replace the aluminum make up with something less hazardous but Haley still ended up with ugly eye infections from getting it his while filming.

The tin man wasn’t the only character whose costume was ill made and unbearable to wear for long periods of time. The Wicked Witch of the West’s face had been permanently tuned green for months, once she realized that the makeup and socked into her skin because she was wearing it for so long. Margaret Hamilton’s friend alerted her, about a month and a half before filming ended, that she looked “so odd.” When she looked in the mirror, the actor realized the friend was right: Her Wicked Witch of the West makeup had “sunk into my skin. It must have been months before my face was really normal again” (Miller).

As for the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow their costumes were made so thick and heavy that they felt as though they were suffocating. The scarecrows skin layer wasn’t porous so he couldn’t breathe through his skin and sweat. And the lion’s costume was made from actual lion hair and weighted a ton and because the actors sweat so much in it, it had to be industrially cleaned everyday of filming.

Now a days, technology has come so far in make up and costuming that the superheros we see in every Hollywood blockbuster have ventilation systems built into their heavy costumes so it’s like having a built in air conditioner. The all blue makeup that used to take hours upon hours to paint the the X-men character Mystique has been made so it only takes an hour or two and can be removed easily and prosthetics and face painting over all have such safety regulations that you would never hear of an actor being stained or hospitalized due to it.

Special Effects Gone Wrong:

Another aspect that made The Wizard of Oz such a captivating movie was its use of early special effects. The Wicked Witch of the West explodes and melts, it snows, there’s a whole tornado. When this movie first came out those things were rarely ever seen before and it was mind blowing for audiences to with in theaters, but how they achieved those things weren’t exactly rated highly for their safety.

In an article written by Mirror on the horrors of the Wizard of Oz set the author goes into detail about the excruciating experience of when actress Maggie Hamilton who play’d the Wicked Witch of the West, caught on fire. “Hamilton was supposed to descend while a fire rose up but it illuminated before she descended and she suffered burns on her face and hands. She spent six months recuperating at home and in hospital” (Knight). After recuperating and coming back to set MGM wanted her to do another fire stunt. Hamilton put her foot down and said no so her stunt double did it and was also severely burned after a pipe exploded. “Stunt player Betty Danko spent 11 days in the hospital and her legs were permanently scarred” (Knight). And because it was the 1930’s in Hollywood females were payed no where near the same amount as their male counter parts and she was reportedly only payed about $35 for all of her pain and suffering.

Another memorable scene is when Dorothy wakes up in a poppy field with snow falling on her and the rest for the crew that snow isn’t computer generated like it could be now instead it was crystallized asbestos. The lovely way Mirror puts it is, “That’s right, Judy and co were being doused in carcinogens”. (Knight)

Looking at how careless the production team was and how poorly treated the stun performers were it’s great to see that today stunt performers have union protecting them and have set rules and guidelines to keep them and everyone around them safe. Just a simple fire stunt like the one the wicked witch of the east was out through would have had layers of protective gear on and KY jelly keeping her cool and fire retardant. A Hollywood stunt professional actually takes you through the process on the Youtube channel, Corridor Crew, of the layers that go on stunt performers before they’re lit on fire.

The Mistreatment of Judy Garland:

Judy Garland was a treasure in this film, but she wasn’t treated like it. MGM producers and studio heads thought she was far too fat and pig like and that she wasn’t ever going to amount to anything. They referred to her as “a fat little piggy with pig tails”. She was also basically the least paid main character in the movie. “Of the film’s 10 main cast members, 16-year-old star Judy Garland got the second-lowest salary—making more than only her canine companion, Terry, who played Toto.” (Miller).

Later in life Garland herself and other actors from the film came forwards and talked about the horrible behavior of the actors who played the munchkins. In an interview with Jack Park, Garland referred to them as drunks who thought they could get away with anything. “Garland added that all the munchkins were housed in one hotel in Culver City. They spent every night getting “smashed” and had to be captured using butterfly nets” (Burke). Judy’s ex-husband and cast mates also said that at the age of 16 the munching would put their hands up her skirt and just make life miserable and uncomfortable for her on set.

Of course a few of the munchkins themselves have spoken up and said that was true at all. “Judy was telling it according to her pills and booze that day. She left behind a legacy of untruths about us…There were a couple of kids from Germany who liked to drink beer. They drank beer morning, noon and night, and got in a little trouble. They wanted to meet the girls, but they were the only ones” (Burke). Which makes this just another case of he said verses she said.

What makes this even more sad is that sexually assault and the unfair treatment of women in the entertainment industry isn’t new and unfortunately hasn’t gone away. It has gotten better the same way makeup and costumes have gotten lest toxic and stunt performances have gotten more safe, but the mistreatment of women is still a very large problem. Just two years ago the #metoo movement started after a rash of powerful Hollywood men were ousted for sexually assaulting women. And it movie horror stories like this one where you can see where the harsh and money pinching movie producer stereotype came from.

Overall, while the movie might have been a nightmare to make it goes down as one of the best yet, I can’t seem to not think that a few of the actors who had to live with long lasting damage from filming wouldn’t have really cared if the movie was a hit but would have preferred it to have just been safer.