Welcome to Chapter Seven of the "Poseidon Journals". By now most of you know all about this, but for those just joining the fray let me take some time out to explain. A set visit usually consists of a large group of journalists getting together to visit a set all at once - we look around whatever constructions are underway that day, interview the various key cast and crew, and then essentially head back to our computers and type it all up and wait for the studio to give us a time to release it. If we're lucky the sets are grandiose, the interviews go smoothly, the location involves jetting into some exotic locale with hopefully a few hours to spare exploring our surroundings, and the whole trip results in some good stories usually involving major group intoxication and passing out in someone else's bedroom. With this movie though, things were different right from the start.
Starting mid-August, Warner Bros. Pictures decided to try something a little unusual. Rather than doing a set visit all at once which would yield similar reports, duplicated interviews and a bar bill that would make Dennis Hopper blanche, they came upon the notion of a weekly series of reports directly from the set of "Poseidon" by nine different major online outlets. Each of us visited the set separately and did our own interview each with different members of the cast and crew. The result has been distinctly different coverage week by week that has so far encompassed pretty much every aspect of the production. Already six major sites have done chapters, and now it looks like I rolled lucky number seven.
Admittedly its been two weeks since the last update, but various production factors on the film couldn't help but delay these press visits rotations for a few days whilst some sensitive filming took place. Once the go ahead was given to continue, I hopped onto the standard fourteen hour 'Oceanic Flight 815' flight it takes to reach Los Angeles from my house in Sydney, Australia. Its a long trip I've been taking regularly lately (cavity searches yield great frequent flyer mile bonuses), and after a few days recovery from the standard post-flight cold - along with witnessing a seemingly endless amount of people who seem to over pronounce the letter 'R' - I end up on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, California. With a pass in hand I met with Tiffany, my very own chaperone who shows me around and we share our appreciation on a variety of topics ranging from the few good eateries in this city to our mutual Wentworth Miller infatuation. With the exception of a certain superhero who can pull off blue tights and red cape without seeming too camp, "Poseidon" is Warners big action film entry for next Summer at the box-office. A remake of the 1972 classic "The Poseidon Adventure", the story similarly tells of an ocean liner capsized by an enormous rogue wave, and the people on the ship who have survived. Led by two guys (Josh Lucas & Kurt Russell), they struggle through flooded corridors and dangerous hazards to try and find a way to the surface before they all drown. Wolfgang Petersen, the director behind the likes of "Troy", "The Perfect Storm" and "Air Force One" is sitting in control of this baby as well.
Wandering around the Warners lot is a fun experience much of the time. The place is always thriving with purposeful activity amidst the decorative flora, cavernous sound stages painted a pink only Tom Wolfe could truly appreciate, and extras lounging around letting the LA sun bake their make-up into a crisp exema-inducing brown. The downside with arriving on set towards the end of a production is that a lot of the bigger sets are gone, usually torn down in favour of demanding scenes involving more complicated effects but on a smaller scale. Thus it was that most of the sound stages being used for "Poseidon" that week simply contained packing material. Yet that didn't mean there wasn't much to see, on the contrary one cool set still standing was a long corridor nicknamed 'Broadway'. Essentially what looked like one of the lower decks of the ship was constructed upside down and on top of a giant gimbal which allowed the entire thing to be moved on an incline. That day it was on a moderately steep slope, enough that upon first entering one of the rooms I had to flinch - after all I came face to face with an upside down urinal, not the first time admittedly but certainly an unexpected sight. Further back were some utility rooms and a long corridor, fluorescent lights tiling the floor giving it all that harsh white glow that makes one run for some concealer. Stumbling down it and exiting the set, we moved onto another sound stage where Wolfgang Petersen and a five camera crew were hard at work shooting a key scene in the engine room. Its a tight scene filled with people struggling through half-flooded rooms (go figure), but it is essential to the storyline so I can't go into any real details I'm afraid. For spoilers, buy a ticket next Summer you cheap bastard.
Moving on I noticed a couple of dead bodies lying against a small building, looking like they had met a rather fiery end. Slipping into Nancy Drew investigative mode, I went inside to find a literal 'body farm'. Wall to ceiling were the make-up effects guys hard at work on the cadavers that you'll see floating around in the wreckage of various scenes. Made with a silicon base which was pre-tested to ensure it'll all work for countless hours of use in the water, one couldn't help but notice a vague familiarity to some of these faces. In fact many of them involved taking discarded makeup molds of famous actors and altering them. As a result I saw a black Lucy Liu, a Chinese Johnny Depp and an oddly erotic transexual Mandy Moore.
Skipping ahead, the Warners gang were very cool about understanding that there was only a little left to see. So a half week later I ended up back on the lot where I got to see a major scene being filmed in the giant tank. A moderately deep pool (something like 7 feet and extending pretty much throughout the entire stage) was built several years ago, and expanded to 92x98x22 feet deep for "The Perfect Storm". The tank is used for not only underwater sequences in this film but one scene which I saw being shot involving people outrunning a torrent of rushing water through a corridor. One of the fun guys of the online crowd, Jeff Otto, was also there and will be able to tell you more about that scene in the next chapter. Anyway back to the earlier visit and after some organisation of details, and saying a brief hello to one of my favourite visiting New Yorkers whom I'd last seen fairly drunk in the pre-dawn hours of a London bar earlier this year, I got lead through the star's trailers to conduct my interview with the quickly rising actress Jacinda Barrett who essentially has the film's key female role. This lady ain't no Shelley Winters folks so make sure to check below for a link to that interview, along with a link to some Dark Horizons exclusive video footage from the set approved by Wolfgang Petersen and the studio.
Jimmy Bennett, the eight year old star of "The Amityville Horror", plays Jacinda Barrett's son in the film 'Connor' and during a quick chat with him he said she has proven a bit of a mentor to her on this production. Bennett also liked the water scenes, even if the water itself "gets a little iffy after a while". Describing the aqua action, he says "Right now we're just trying to get out and a big river of water is coming towards us. One time we were in the lobby [set] and we had to climb up this beam - it was a fallen elevator and it was like forty feet down, and we were wired and it was a lot of fun". He even had a drowning scene in which "the water rises and rises and covers my nose, and then somebody pulls me under". As shooting heads towards the final leg on "Poseidon", things are moving smoothly. So many film sets are tense, filled with gruff workmen who hate visitors and nervous assistants running about determined to prove to that by being a good busboy they'll one day prove to be a good filmmaker. Nothing like that was going on with "Poseidon". Considering its a film that's so reliant on complicated water effects, it is truly amazing to see everyone seemingly relaxed and a schedule that's on budget and less than a day behind in its four and-a-half month shoot.
A quick shout of thanks must go out to the whole online publicity team at Warners ranging from those three Big Apple boys welcome to my house anytime to the quartet of party girls in LA who make this job so fun. One thing I'll always remember from this trip is that this film production is not only one of the biggest I've been on, but certainly amongst the most enjoyable. I hoped you liked this Chapter in this ongoing series. Be sure to head on over to IGN Filmforce for Chapter 8 of The Poseidon Journals! soon.
