Behind the Scenes at the Making of Pirates of the Caribbean 3
Ahoy mates and welcome to a look at the making of Pirates of the Caribbean - "At World's End"
These video clips take an in-depth look at what went into the Maelstrom segment finale of the movie. All of the departments highlighted here in these videos; Special Effects, Construction, Painters, Electrical, Visual Effects and Armory, represent the hard work and long hours everyone on the crew put into this movie. This is just a glimpse of what it takes to put together a production of this magnitude. For example, just this sequence alone took 4 months of pre-production. Starting with an empty warehouse, where the B1 Bomber was constructed; to design, build and test the Black Pearl & Flying Dutchman boats. Special Effects and Construction crews were working 2 shifts, 24/6 at the beginning, then 24/7 as the first day of shooting was rapidly approaching. All this work, plus the 3 months of production filming, for about 15 minutes of screen time! This was one of the largest live action sets ever built for a Hollywood movie and also one of the largest blue screen arrangements as well.
Both of the boats, Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman, took so much steel to build, the steel suppliers ran out of certain shapes and had to commission a couple mills to fabricate what was required. Each boat weighed in at an estimated 500 tons or 1,000,000 lbs! Whoa. Overall dimensions were 100' long, 60' wide, and 40' in height. Both boats were computer motion controlled, having three programmable axes: Pitch, Roll, and front & rear Heave. The computer system ran software that could mix the axes together to form realistic virtual boat movements. Each ship could roll a total of 45 degrees; -10 to +35. The Pearl could Heave up 8 feet and the Dutchman 4 feet. The front and rear heaves were independent of each other to create the Pitch up/down angles. Both boats could be programmed separately allowing different move profiles to run during filming. This was important when there were scenes where battles took place between the two ships.
The hydraulics required to run both boats at the same time were immense. When both boats were operating, the demand on the system was over 900 gpm. The piping delivery into the stage included a 5" diameter high pressure pipe, rated at 3000psi, and a 6" low pressure return line. Over 2 miles of 2" hydraulic hose was used to connect the valves and actuators. All the hydraulic manifolds were custom built for high flow and special servo valves with multiple fitting connections. Cylinder requirements were custom too. The Heave cylinders were a whopping 14" bore and roll cylinders were 10". Nothing on this project was just "off the shelf".
In addition to the two ships was the rotisserie rig called the Green Flash set. This was the most complex gimbal to build and program. It had 4) 8" hydraulic cylinders which all had to work perfectly in sync. This rig was used to simulate the Black Pearl rocking back and forth, eventually rolling over; as the actors ran back and forth across the deck. The Green Flash could roll +/- 90 degrees and was fully programmable. It was the most technical set but also the most useful one as well. See below for some still shots and video clips of the set
Making of Pirates - Palmdale Hangar Intro
Palmdale Hangar Pirate Ship Construction
Pirate Ship Special Cannon Effects
The Black Pearl on Wave Simulator
Moving One Million Pound Ships on Air
Stunts Test on Green Flash Rolling Set
Green Flash F/X 180 Degree Roll Test
Ahoy mates and welcome to a look at the making of Pirates of the Caribbean - "At World's End"
These video clips take an in-depth look at what went into the Maelstrom segment finale of the movie. All of the departments highlighted here in these videos; Special Effects, Construction, Painters, Electrical, Visual Effects and Armory, represent the hard work and long hours everyone on the crew put into this movie. This is just a glimpse of what it takes to put together a production of this magnitude. For example, just this sequence alone took 4 months of pre-production. Starting with an empty warehouse, where the B1 Bomber was constructed; to design, build and test the Black Pearl & Flying Dutchman boats. Special Effects and Construction crews were working 2 shifts, 24/6 at the beginning, then 24/7 as the first day of shooting was rapidly approaching. All this work, plus the 3 months of production filming, for about 15 minutes of screen time! This was one of the largest live action sets ever built for a Hollywood movie and also one of the largest blue screen arrangements as well.
Both of the boats, Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman, took so much steel to build, the steel suppliers ran out of certain shapes and had to commission a couple mills to fabricate what was required. Each boat weighed in at an estimated 500 tons or 1,000,000 lbs! Whoa. Overall dimensions were 100' long, 60' wide, and 40' in height. Both boats were computer motion controlled, having three programmable axes: Pitch, Roll, and front & rear Heave. The computer system ran software that could mix the axes together to form realistic virtual boat movements. Each ship could roll a total of 45 degrees; -10 to +35. The Pearl could Heave up 8 feet and the Dutchman 4 feet. The front and rear heaves were independent of each other to create the Pitch up/down angles. Both boats could be programmed separately allowing different move profiles to run during filming. This was important when there were scenes where battles took place between the two ships.
The hydraulics required to run both boats at the same time were immense. When both boats were operating, the demand on the system was over 900 gpm. The piping delivery into the stage included a 5" diameter high pressure pipe, rated at 3000psi, and a 6" low pressure return line. Over 2 miles of 2" hydraulic hose was used to connect the valves and actuators. All the hydraulic manifolds were custom built for high flow and special servo valves with multiple fitting connections. Cylinder requirements were custom too. The Heave cylinders were a whopping 14" bore and roll cylinders were 10". Nothing on this project was just "off the shelf".
In addition to the two ships was the rotisserie rig called the Green Flash set. This was the most complex gimbal to build and program. It had 4) 8" hydraulic cylinders which all had to work perfectly in sync. This rig was used to simulate the Black Pearl rocking back and forth, eventually rolling over; as the actors ran back and forth across the deck. The Green Flash could roll +/- 90 degrees and was fully programmable. It was the most technical set but also the most useful one as well. See below for some still shots and video clips of the set