|
|
BelowSynopsis: The terrifying essence of submarine travel is that once you are submerged beneath the ocean, it is as if a final door has shut, and there is no chance of escape. Whatever accidents, crimes, mechanical breakdowns or battles take place, you are beyond help and beyond judgment. Miles below the frigid sea, sealed off from the outside world, separated by steel and billions of gallons of water, you are isolated and utterly alone. Unless you have uninvited company. In BELOW, the supernatural thriller plunges into the deep claustrophobia and sensory deprivation of the underwater world with a tale of an inexplicable haunting at sea. Director David Twohy dubs his tense, suspense-driven film a “submarine noir,” a story about what lies beneath the surface, both of the ocean and in the human mind. In this already eerie realm of scarce oxygen, heart-stopping sounds and uncomfortably close quarters, it is impossible to tell the dividing line between shadows or reality, sea-noises or screams, mind-games or a ghostly reckoning for a terrible wrong. The fear-provoking journey begins as the crew of the USS Tiger Shark, a World War II sub prowling mid-Atlantic waters for German U-Boats, heads for its homeport in Connecticut. At the end of a long and deadly mission, the crew is ordered to take on three survivors of a torpedoed British hospital ship. To the shock of the men, the refugees include a female nurse, who reminds them of the age-old fable that a woman on a submarine brings bad luck. Indeed, bad luck begins to churn all around, as the sub finds itself unable to surface, putting them all at risk of oxygen deprivation. Making matters worse, the alluring new passenger begins to ask probing questions about the recent death of the sub’s captain. Soon, the crew finds itself battling not only the Germans but for their own sanity as ghoulish apparitions, disturbing noises and spontaneous accidents begin to plague the journey home. The chain of command breaks down, as does the men’s courage and certainty, until absolute chaos reigns in the tight spaces of the boat. Is it lack of air causing primal fears to emerge? Are the untrustworthy newcomers playing some sort of deadly game? Could it be the unsettling presence of a woman? Or is there something aboard the sub that, like the crew, cannot find a way out? BELOW dives into the deepest human fears fear of strangers, fear of being trapped and fear of the unknown -- to explore a unique realm of reality-based psychological terror. Production notes: In the long tradition of submarine movies, from 1958’s “Run Silent Run Deep” to the modern classic “Das Boot” to “The Hunt for Red October,” there have been certain lasting stylistic conventions of shooting submarines, usually emphasizing their long, tight corridors and cold steel exteriors conventions David Twohy wanted to break away from. Rather than harking back to the submarine tradition, Twohy’s look for BELOW was more inspired by film noir, by lighting and camera movement that emphasize deep shadows, anxiety-producing camera angles and a visually-aided aura of suspicion. Twohy substituted waterlogged quarters for rain-slicked streets and blacked-out hallways for the dimly lit hotel rooms usually found in classic noir. Says Twohy: “In the submarine genre, everyone looks to ‘Das Boot,’ which was all about cinema verite, but I wanted to do something more classically noir with more of a placed camera. I wanted the sets to allow for more angles and more impressionistic lighting, to really bring the essence of the supernatural thriller to the location of a submarine, instead of the other way around.” From the beginning, it was clear that doing this would require innovative sets and cutting-edge digital effects. The film’s exteriors were shot on the USS Silversides, an authentic Gato-class World War II era sub that sunk 23 Japanese boats, which is normally moored in Muskegon, Michigan but was towed to Lake Michigan for on-water filming. However, the interiors and underwater shots were a different story. The former were created on production designer Charles Lee’s dynamic, tilting sets and the latter were brought to life digitally by special effects supervisor Peter Chiang. Lee’s sets were created in part on the fabled “007” stage at London’s Pinewood Studios, where one of the world’s largest indoor shooting tanks also resides. Here, he built fully modular sub quarters operated by hydraulics. Explains Lee: “Our first idea was to create a set using whatever parts we could off of real boats, but a real boat weighs so much that you just couldn’t do what we wanted with it. We wanted a set that could lift, tilt, shake, jiggle and more. We ended up fabricating everything ourselves from top to bottom. Then we designed these scissors jacks that just pick up the whole set and tilt it.” Ultimately, it took about sixty people working for fourteen weeks to design and manufacture the sets. Lee worked closely with David Twohy to make sure his sets would allow for some of the innovative photography the director wanted to go after with cinematographer Ian Wilson. Lee explains: “Most submarine movies are shot kind of along the length of the boat, but David wanted to shoot across the boat and from underneath. So we basically raised the whole set and created ‘flying walls’ that could float out.” Lee continues: “Creating a set that can move and shake is no easy matter, because each compartment where we were shooting weighs about twenty tons. We had to come up with fairly interesting ways of being able to move the set yet still have crew standing on either side and not getting in the way!” The designs of the interior set modules were based primarily on the various stations of the USS Silversides, but each area was about 25% larger than the real sub in order to accommodate the still tightly squeezed camera and lightning crew. Says David Twohy: “The sets are probably 95% accurate to a real submarine. Our technical advisor was very impressed he said we came so close that not only did it look real, it even smelled like the real thing.” Sums up producer Sue Baden-Powell: “Charles made the kind of sets that you’re really proud of, that you want to show people, but at the same time were remarkably filmable, giving David everything he needed to get different camera angles and provide a real sense of claustrophobia along with a real unique sense of style.” Peter Chiang, who previously worked with Twohy on “Pitch Black” was tapped again as visual effects supervisor for BELOW. This time he was handed the challenge to create realistic digital underwater submarine shots since finding a 1943 submarine that would be able, or allowed, to dive to the bottom of the ocean was impossible. Although such images have traditionally been shot using miniatures, Chiang made the decision to go entirely digital. “We felt that technology has now reached a point where you can generate these types of images digitally rather than go for the more traditional sort of motion-control miniatures in smoke-filled environments,” he explains. “This allowed us far more control, gave us the freedom to play around with different looks and also allowed us to play with the movement. If David Twohy wanted to change the direction of the submarine’s travel, we just went to our database of submarines. Instead of having to go back to the miniatures stage and shoot motion control again, we could just generate a new shot in the computer.” Directed by DAVID TWOHY Produced by DARREN ARONOFSKY Cast Running
time
105 mins Category
:
2B Cinema: Windsor
/ Broadway-Mongkok / Broadway-Olympian City / Broadway-Tsuen Wan
/ Broadway-Kwai Fong / |
