Originally published in POV in 1998

It was just a few days before opening night for Titanic at the US boxoffice. An interview with James Cameron was airing on the syndicated Charlie Rose TV show. It was a more interesting and intelligent conversation than most media tour hyperbole. But Rose still felt compelled to ask the question everyone asks: Did it cost $200 million or $230 million dollars? Rose also observed there are no mega-licensing deals. Tots aren't dragging their parents to fast food restaurants to munch on Titanic burgers, and retailers aren't promoting action toy boats that sink in the bathtub. Talking about how much it cost to produce Titanic, and whether it will be profitable, has become a national sport.

Cameron mischievously threw a little fuel onto that fire by pointing out there also won't be sequels or a movie ride. Rose also asked if Titanic is too long for audiences and for exhibitors who are anxious to pack more screenings into each night. Apparently, it wasn't too long for him. Rose said his only disappointment was that questions about certain characters were unresolved. Cameron promised the answers will be on the laser disk release.

There was some discussion about how Cameron sold the idea to 20th Century-Fox. He joked that the studio hated the idea but liked the script. The talk segued into remembrances of seminal movies Cameron saw as a youth. They ranged from the epic scale of Dr. Zhivago to the minimalism of Easy Rider. The common denominator was movies that told stories. Titanic is in that genre.

Cameron was among the first digitally literate directors to recognize the possibilities of the convergence of computer and film technologies. There was nothing subtle about the waterpod in The Abyss or the morphing sequences in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The visual effects were both in-your-face and integral to the stories. Titanic is the polar opposite. Cameron said, "All the special visual effects are intended for one purpose: to put the viewer on Titanic. It's a very you-are-there experience." In other words effects shots had to be absolutely transparent to the audience.

It took swarms of ship builders three years to construct and outfit the real R.M.S. Titanic for its maiden voyage. The letters stood for Royal Mail Service. The 60,000 ton vessel was 882 feet long and it stretched 45 feet high. R.M.S. Titanic traveled at a top speed of 23 knots, and it was considered unsinkable because of 16 watertight compartments designed to keep the ship buoyant. It was considered a technological marvel, capping a decade of wondrous inventions ranging from the car to the motion picture.

The ship began its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean on April 10, 1912 with some 2,223 people onboard. Five days later, on a moonless night, it smashed into an iceberg while steaming at a high speed. Five of the watertight compartments were breached. Approximately two hours and 40 minutes later the R.M.S Titanic sank. Seven hundred and ten survivors filled two-thirds of the space in lifeboats. Hundred of others died in the freezing waters while all but one of the lifeboats kept their distance.

"Titanic didn't just sink," says executive producer Rae Sanchini. "She literally ripped in two at the surface, with over 250 feet of the stern lifting out of the water. At one point, it stood nearly vertical to the ocean's surface. Her dramatic death throes lived up to her pretentious name. The maiden voyage of 'the ship of dreams' ended in a nightmare truly beyond comprehension. It's the greatest disaster story ever told ... and a landmark historic event. In a sense, it signaled the end of the age of innocence, shattered confidence in progress and technology, and challenged passive acceptance of class as a definition of birthright. Survival on the Titanic was a direct function of class and gender."

Women and children first! That's the myth. The reality is that all of the women and half of the men traveling first class survived, while only one quarter of the women and one-tenth of the men in steerage lived. Hundreds of crewmen from one town died. Almost all of them left hopelessly impoverished families to fend for themselves.

Cameron spent years researching the history of the R.M.S. Titanic. He relied on Don Lynch and Ken Marschall, the writer and artist who collaborated on The Titanic: An Illustrated History, for authenticity. The cast and crew called the book "the bible."

The wreckage of R.M.S. Titanic was discovered on the floor of the North Atlantic in 1985. It was two and a half miles below the surface, some 400 miles from the coast of Newfoundland. An IMAX crew filmed the wreckage through a nine-inch thick porthole for their 1992 film Titanica. Cameron wanted more. He chartered a Russian scientific vessel that carried two deep sea submersibles. They ferried a remotely operated vehicle (R.O.V.) with a camera platform and custom lighting to get an up close and personal look.

The platform held a conventional Panavision 35 mm camera in a titanium housing that was capable of withstanding the 6,000 pounds per square inch pressure. The remotely controlled camera could pan and tilt. Cameron also chose the right lens for each dive. There were 12 dives with each taking some 16 hours to execute. The 500-foot magazines had a 12-minute capability adding up to 144 minutes of compelling film.

Titanic was produced by Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment in conjunction with 20th Century-Fox and Paramount Pictures. Though the story is religiously true to reality, Cameron created a number of fictional characters, including Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio). She's a first class passenger traveling home for her wedding. A first class ticket cost $3,100 dollars, the equivalent of $124,000 in current US dollars. He's a destitute artist who won a $32 steerage ticket in a poker game. They meet on the ship and fall in love. They also steal the audience's heart.

A number of visual effects houses played roles in creating the approximately 500 shots needed to tell a seamless story, including VIFX, Cinesite and ILM. Most of the magic, however, including continuity with live-action filming, was orchestrated by visual effects maestro Rob Legato at Digital Domain. His credits include the TV series The Twilight Zone and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine plus Interview With the Vampire and Apollo 13.

Legato has a vivid memory of the day Cameron showed him some of the underwater footage and asked if he was interested in working on the film.

"I realized it was the chance of a lifetime," he says. "The film had real emotional content that transcended an ordinary movie. It's not just entertainment or something cool to look at. There's a deeper meaning. This would be an interesting story if it was a fictional script. Titanic has a different quality because it's real. There's some magic to it. It's like we brought the people who made that voyage back to life."

Legato prepared by visiting a theater showing Titanica and studying laser disks of documentaries and A Night to Remember, an earlier Titanic film. He was struck by the sadness of survivors who described their experiences. To a person, they said that R.M.S. Titanic felt as solid as a rock on firm Earth, and how surprised they were that it sank.

"Jim made himself into one of the world's foremost historians on the sinking of the Titanic," Legato says. "That's one of so many things that make him a great moviemaker. He totally immersed himself in the subject. During his dives, he spent more time around the R.M.S Titanic than the actual passengers. He didn't overlook a shred of research material."

The movie was still in the early planning stages when Legato came onboard. Cameron had written a memo that was part script and part treatment. It provided a basis for writing dialogue, creating storyboards and for previsualization. The latter began with a 25-foot model and a lipstick video camera. Cameron used it to plan shots and for building sets. It also helped him define the line between shooting live-action film, models and CG.

"It was an organic process with many possible scenarios," says Legato. "Jim built a 775-foot long set at the Fox Baja Studio in Rosarito Beach on the Mexican coast. It was a faithful replica of around 90 percent of the R.M.S. Titanic. At that point, we began figuring out the scales for models and how big our tanks should be. We did a considerable amount of filming of scale models which intercut with live-action footage. There were many questions about how the ship was going to sink in a believable way. Should we use real or digital water, and what other computer images would make composites seem real?"

Titanic was filmed in Super 35 format (2.4:1 aspect ratio) with a common top line. Cinematography was done by Russell Carpenter, ASC. He previously shot True Lies and a 3-D movie ride based on Terminator 2 with Cameron. Carpenter's other credits include The Lawnmower Man, Money Talks and Indian in the Cupboard.

Carpenter recalls his first thoughts when Cameron asked him to shoot Titanic.
"I thought it was the chance of a lifetime," he says, which exactly echoes how Legato describes his first reaction. There are breathtaking live-action shots from the perspective of a remote controlled camera on an Akela crane soaring 80 feet high with simulated moonlight coming from a tower crane that stretched as far as 200 feet away.

But Carpenter describes Titanic as "A love story on an epic scale. There are spectacular effects. The computer is an amazing tool ... but it is no more powerful than the well-lit close-up. What moves me the most is that singular image filled with poetry, and light that captures the twinkle in Kate Winslet's eyes and the radiance of her skin, or the electric energy of Leonardo DiCaprio. For me, a close-up is an opportunity to enter the soul of another human being. Jim knew these characters inside out, and he never lost sight of what it was about them that invites them into the audience's hearts. As spectacular as the effects are, they take a back seat to the dynamics between the two central characters."

Having said that, Carpenter adds that he believes Legato's work on Titanic will set the contemporary standards for the art and science of visual effects. The collaboration between them was close. When Carpenter was hired he used Lynch and Marschall's book, the art department's storyboards and Legato's effects team as resources for defining a look.

Legato shot miniatures of the ship in the same Super 35 format used for principal cinematography, and with the types of film Carpenter used for live-action elements of a scene. It was either the 50-speed Eastman EXR 5245 daylight-balance film, the 200-speed 5293 film, or the new Kodak Vision 500-speed film, depending on the scene.

"I also asked questions about how he lit, so I could match his look," Legato says. "Russ or his gaffer would call occasionally and ask how a green screen should be lit or what the exposure should be ... little stuff like that. If a master cinematographer can do dramatic lighting, he can certainly balance the light on a background screen."

Many scenes were filmed on partial sets at the Baja studio. Extensions to sets were built in 3-D computer space and digitally composited into those scenes. At the peak of postproduction, Digital Domain had some 300 people building miniatures, doing motion control camerawork, and working with digital composites.

Legato says that one reason why effects shots look and feel so much more realistic today is that refinements to motion tracking software give cinematographers more freedom to move the camera. There also is much more freedom to use filtration and light in ways that are consistent with the rest of the scene.

"Years from now, when people in this industry look back at the making of Titanic as one of the milestones, they'll see the growing collaboration between the cinematographer and the digital effects studio," says Legato. "That's essential for a seamless look."

Decisions about whether to shoot with green, blue or black background screens were generally determined by the colors of costumes, scenery and props in the foreground. Night scenes were usually filmed with green background screens because of the bluish quality of moonlight. Some effects scenes were filmed with multiple cameras shooting from different angles and with different background screens.

"There were frequent notes from Jim that were very specific about how a shot or a scene was changing," Legato says. "One of the things we did to keep everyone on the same page was use e-mail. There were picture database and web sites with all the latest notes on every shot. E-mail was also used to ask and answer questions."

Digital Domain's artists created digital characters which were composited into scenes on the deck of the ship and also in the water. Forty actors in motion control suits were filmed on a stage. They shook hands, greeted people, waved at friends and performed other everyday activities. The film was scanned into digital format, and the facility created a library of these shots which could be composited into scenes on one of the models of the ship in any situation, at any angle and scale or distance.

"We shot film of faces and pasted them and clothing on the digital actors," Legato explains. "We also used texture mattes to emulate reality. The person directing the composite would say, 'Give me three people over there and have them shaking hands.' Maybe he'd have three other people walk by in the background. It was just like he was directing the actors on a stage. The digital characters step in and out of pools of shade and light that match the live-action parts of the scene filmed by Russ (Carpenter). That allowed the editor to intercut the film we created with live-action footage."

In some crowd scenes, digital characters were replicated to look like 1,000 people or more. Why didn't Cameron ask Legato to simplify by just creating CG characters?

"My rule of thumb is that if it's something that's photographable, we shoot it," says Legato. "If it is something that can't be photographed, we use the computer. For splash sequences, when people are falling or jumping off the ship, we filmed actual splashes created by objects being dropped into the ocean. That took us about an hour as opposed to spending weeks trying to emulate the dynamics of ocean water splashing with a computer."

In the scene where the R.M.S. Titanic snaps into two parts, the stern rises straight up into the air at about a 45-degree angle. Cameron built a set for filming that scene on a hydraulic rig. Characters seem to be hanging on for dear life, and the lead actors are near the tip of the poop deck. There are shots of stunt men jumping and falling into the ocean. That film was scanned into digital format and the length of the jump was stretched from 20 to 30 feet to 70 feet or more in the computer. Digital water was used to make the point of impact seem more realistic. Legato explains that even the best stunt people instinctively brace themselves at the last seconds before impact. The digital artists made the collisions with the ocean look more realistic because it seemed to be happening in free fall.

Shots at sea were augmented with digital water. An off-the-shelf software program created by Arete was used. The software is based on a satellite photography of ships at sea. The developers studied the dynamics of the wakes ships leave, and how much light is reflected and absorbed by the ocean. The computer artists created aerial views which simulated camera movement at specific heights, angles of photography, lens sizes, reflections of the sky in the water and objects in the water reflecting sunlight.

Legato believes that the use of computers is making filmmaking into a much more collaborative process. "You can use computer to build entire sets," he says, "but you still need an art director, a production designer and cinematographer to make the creative decisions. The history of this industry is that the tools are always changing. We have better films and lenses, and now we have better software. But none of that replaces the human factor. One thing that won't change is the need for creative people."