POTC: At World's End Production Notes

[CaliMom]

This site contains the full production notes of the movie. As you would imagine, spoilers abound! I haven't read all of it, just a few select chapters. It's very extensive, providing lots of neat background information. There are also a few new pictures included.

[KLSMom]

These notes are truly a fascinating read, and I can't wait to see the behind the scenes clips when the DVD comes out. It's definitely worth reading through the complete notes, but if you're short on time, I've pulled out most of the Will related bits here:

Chapter 3 - Revealing the True Nature of all the Characters

"We're all still in character," adds Orlando Bloom, but thankfully, the character development is really great in the third film. Will Turner definitely has a few more edges. In the second movie, the major conflict for Will is whether to choose between his father or his love for Elizabeth. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to rescue his father, Bootstrap Bill, and he also wants to be with the girl he loves, but the two are opposite magnets that push away from each other.

"By the time `At World's End' begins, "Bloom continues, "Will has embraced the pirate code that he so hated at the start of `The Curse of the Black Pearl,' to pursue his own purposes. A promise has been made that he will save his father's life, and Will will try and do everything he can to honor that vow, not forgetting that he still loves Elizabeth, and wants to get her back into his life. The third movie reveals the true nature of all the characters, and it's great to go on a journey with Will where you're not quite certain which direction he will turn to."

Chapter 11 - Inside of the Massive Site 9 Hangar

(The Maelstrom Battle)

Gore Verbinski and his crew donned protective gear to allow the water to roll off their backs, as much as possible anyway. The stars and stunt players weren't so fortunate. Says Keira Knightley, "You get into costume. You've got a wet suit on underneath, which obviously makes going to the toilet really tricky.

Then they turn the rain on, and you're drenched within 10 seconds. I just feel sorry for the crew because they're in it all day long. The rain is so heavy at times that you literally cannot see. When the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman are side-by-side, we're working on a 15 percent slope, in which you're running uphill doing a swordfight in torrential rain, with an entire camera crew coming at you. It'll look great, but it's definitely a hard one to work on."

"I wouldn't call it acting, I call it survival," laughs Orlando Bloom. "It's kind of brutal to stay wet from eight in the morning until eight at night. Even though they turn off the rain machines between takes, you're still soaked all the way through, and I'd be lying if I said it was fun. But it's hard on everyone, not just the actors. And ultimately, we all have a lot of confidence in the destination, and know that it's worth the effort."

"The Maelstrom is like the biblical whirlpool from hell, and we're shooting it the way Cecil B. DeMille probably would have," says Geoffrey Rush. "It's absolutely massive."

"We were running away from hurricanes in the Bahamas," adds Johnny Depp, "shooting in Dominica during the rainy season in a rain forest, and then we went to the desert, in Palmdale, filming in a torrential downpour and about 75 knots of wind inside of a massive facility on a ship tilted to a 15 percent rake on the gimbal.

'Once again, this is another one of those situations where it's so weird that you just don't question it anymore. `Johnny, we're going drive you an hour and a half up to the desert, you're going to climb aboard the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman built on gigantic rigs, and we're going to drench you in high winds while you swordfight at a steep angle.

"And you just kind of go, `Okay, fine. No problem.'"

One aspect of the Maelstrom shoot-which lasted for nearly four months-was the change in weather outside of the hangar in desert Palmdale, from the raging 110 degree heat of mid-September to the 20 degree Fahrenheit nighttime chill of early December. Not so bad if one could stay indoors all day, but basecamp was outside, which one had to pass through to a second hangar which housed 50 makeup stations for background players, as well as seating for meals. Sooner or later, the drenched actors, stunt and background players had to expose themselves to the elements, whether hellishly hot or bone-chillingly cold, not to mention the sometimes fierce desert winds whipping across the landscape.

"Obviously, the `Maelstrom' climax was the most spectacular and challenging for us on `At World's End,'" notes stunt coordinator George Marshall Ruge. "All of the principal cast were involved, and there were multiple story lines being played out within the epic action." For this massive final ship-to-ship showdown between the pirates and the East India Trading Company, Ruge coordinated stunt sequences both in The Bahamas and inside of the massive Site 9 hangar used for shooting in Palmdale, California. "Because the ship set pieces on Grand Bahama were not particularly designed for stunt rigging opportunities, we had to be very creative to pull off the creative action," says Ruge. "These ships and the pirates on them take heavy cannon fire. We used multiple air ramps and wire/ratchet work to create the illusion of our stunt pirates taking this fire. And because these were floating set pieces, we had the luxury of selling this action all the way to the water in many instances.

"Inside of the Palmdale stage, we at least had the luxury of being indoors and not having to worry about the elements, but we faced a new whole new set of challenges because of the immense number of visual and physical effects required for the sequence."

The stars finding themselves clinging onto the edge of the Black Pearl for dear life on John Frazier's "tilt rig" for the Green Flash sequence became major stunt players themselves. "It was actually really scary," admits Naomie Harris. "The only thing that stopped me from screaming was the fact that I was roped down and no one else was screaming, so I would have felt stupid if I had, but I really wanted to." The Green Flash was a combination of material shot with the actual Black Pearl gimbaled in the tank on Grand Bahama Island by special effects coordinator Allen Hall and his crew, a Pearl setpiece mounted on John Frazier's tilt rig in the Palmdale hangar, and underwater shooting in another tank in the Falls Lake section of the Universal Studios backlot.

Chapter 12 - Dressed for Success

"We see a more confident and powerful Will Turner and a new and exciting Elizabeth Swann," informs (costume designer Penny) Rose. "We've given Orlando an embossed buckskin vest, a dark, wine-colored shirt and a beautiful, mud cloth coat. I think it's important that in the third film, you're slightly confused as to whose side Will is on, so we needed to help his character look a little bit darker, metaphorically. He has a rather wonderful dark, dark midnight blue coat made out of mudcloth, which looks very romantic and mysterious.

"Keira gets to wear a Chinese courtesan costume, with a heavily jeweled and ornate headdress and matching collar piece, a tasseled vest and a completely embroidered silk gown with what would probably have been a skirt, but which, for practical reasons, we turned into a culotte so that when she gets to the fighting sequences, we could lose the vest and the other accessories and go straight into action mode."

Chapter 17 - Aloha Oe: Hawaii Farewell

"Aloha Oe" was the beautiful song of farewell written by Queen Liliuokalani, Hawaii's still-beloved last monarch. So perhaps it was fitting that the last three days of principal photography would take place on two of the most beautiful islands in her still gorgeous kingdom.

Following yet another Christmas / New Year break, a reduced crew, along with Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, flew off once again in the second week of January 2007 for one final location: the magnificent islands of Maui and Molokai in the exquisite Hawaiian chain. Requiring a dramatic tropical locale, Bruckheimer, Verbinski and production designer Rick Heinrichs decided that it was far easier to find what they were looking for with a relatively quick 5-1/2 flight to Hawaii than spending 10 hours flying back to the West Indies.

Very remote locations were discovered by location scouts Laura Sode-Matteson and Val Kim (who, although now L.A.-based, are Hawaiians themselves) both on Maui, and then the nearby Molokai, which is a mere 15-minute flight away from the more heavily populated and touristed island. As usual, unpredictable weather followed the company right to the end, with the skies over Maui darkening dramatically throughout the shooting day, occasionally showering the company with water rather than sunshine. Nonetheless, the rugged coastline selected by Verbinski and the moody clouds formed a perfect backdrop to the scene.

The two days in Molokai alternated clouds with brilliant sunlight. However, the beach location, dotted with sharp, black volcanic rocks, was nearly a mile from the nearest road, so access was difficult. So much, in fact, that ace pilot David Paris, who usually flew a helicopter for sweeping aerial shots, now utilized it for cargo duty, hauling the heavier equipment from basecamp to the beach with a net on multiple runs, both at the beginning and end of the filming days. "Gore is always looking for a visual treat," notes Jerry Bruckheimer, "and he never takes it the easy way. He always wants something that's really spectacular, something you haven't seen before. So when we went to Molokai, Gore wanted to find a place in which to shoot that was almost impossible to get cameras and equipment into."

"It was a good operation, very safe and well done," adds first assistant director Dave Venghaus. "Everyone pitched in lugging equipment around the beach. It was fun, we got it done, and that's the way you should do it. It was logistically very difficult, and watching our cast and crew climb up on volcanic rock was both interesting and unnerving."

But as always, there were no obstacles to Verbinski completing the final, 272nd day of combined principal photography of "Dead Man's Chest" and "At World's End" (that's 284 days if one counts pre-principal shooting) on January 10th, 2007, just a month-and-a-half shy of two years to the day that the cameras first rolled on February 23rd, 2005. And the finale was celebrated in suitably special fashion when the warm, aloha-drenched locals of Molokai feted the entire company with a real, down-home luau, replete with beautiful flower leis, a whole pig roasted in an imu (underground lava rock oven), such traditional foods as poi and haupia, and a rip-roaring performance by the young and enthusiastic members of a local halau (hula school).

It was a well deserved final gift of the heart to a company which had endured the extremes of filming conditions, weather, discomfort, geography, time away from family and home, and almost never wavered over the course of nearly 300 days of shooting. "I guess this is what Darwin was writing about," joked Gore Verbinski as he surveyed the survivors-those faces which remained from the first day of production in February 2005-in the lunch tent on the final day of production in January 2007.

[molokai]

...locals of Molokai feted the entire company with a real, down-home luau, replete with beautiful flower leis, a whole pig roasted in an imu (underground lava rock oven), such traditional foods as poi and haupia, and a rip-roaring performance by the young and enthusiastic members of a local halau (hula school).

They had poi and kalua pig! I would have loved to be a fly on a wall palm tree to see their reactions on tasting the local cuisine 'cause some dishes are definitely acquired taste.

I never would have thought that something as big as this production would have ever filmed on the island. Most local teenagers can't wait to get off the island. We considered it a piece of rock because nothing exciting ever happens there, which is probably the reason why they filmed there. Not too many fans rushing them.

Orlando was on Molokai*...still boggles the mind.

Thanks for this Christine and Faye.

Ermina

*The island, peeps, the island!

[Adrianne]

"We see a more confident and powerful Will Turner and a new and exciting Elizabeth Swann," informs (costume designer Penny) Rose. "We've given Orlando an embossed buckskin vest, a dark, wine-colored shirt and a beautiful, mud cloth coat. I think it's important that in the third film, you're slightly confused as to whose side Will is on, so we needed to help his character look a little bit darker, metaphorically. He has a rather wonderful dark, dark midnight blue coat made out of mudcloth, which looks very romantic and mysterious.

Oh My, is he ever! The clothes he wore were gorgeous.

Thanks Christine and Faye.

Hello Ermina! Or should I say, Aloooooha!