Love story with a battle plan

Hollywood's top special-effects people stressed realism in re-creating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

May 20, 2001

By BARRY KOLTNOW
The Orange County Register

The studio behind the movie "Pearl Harbor" would like you to believe that it is just a love story set against the backdrop of an actual historical event.

They also would like you to believe that a mouse named Mickey runs their company.

But the fact is that a rodent does not sign paychecks at Disney, and "Pearl Harbor" is much more than a summer romance.

The name of the movie is not "Love on a Sunday Morning." This is "Pearl Harbor," baby, and that means there are going to be planes flying, boats sinking and bombs bursting. There is going to be action with a capital A.

"It really is a four-hankie love story," said Eric Brevig, the film's co-visual effects supervisor and second-unit director. "But it also is an hour of things blowing up, with effects that are so state-of-the-art, they didn't exist a few months ago. You won't see anything like it in any movie this summer."

Director Michael Bay said more than 3,000 people worked up to two years on the $140 million movie, and most of them were involved in re-creating the surprise attack on America's Pacific Fleet by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941.

And if you think you've seen all this before - like in the 1970 film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" - think again.

"They did a great job on that movie for their time," Brevig said, referring to the film's Oscar for special effects. "But there is no comparison to our film. It's sort of like watching one of those nice old stop-action monster movies, and then switching to 'Jurassic Park.' "

Bay said he instructed his crew not to watch "Tora! Tora! Tora" in advance because the movies had nothing in common except they are based on the same event.

"Our movie has nothing whatsoever to do with their movie," the director said.

In case you need further proof that this is going to be a slam-bang summer popcorn movie, with a little romance thrown in for good measure, then check out the movie's producer - Mr. Slam-Bang Summer Popcorn Movie himself, Jerry Bruckheimer. This is the same guy who brought you "Armageddon," "Con Air" and "The Rock." Not a quiet love story in the bunch.

"Yes, there is a lot of action in this movie," the producer said from Morocco, where he is working on another war film with director Ridley Scott. "But in the end, 'Pearl Harbor' is totally a love story."

Sure, Jerry. And "Titanic" was an episode of "The Love Boat."

GOING TO WAR

More than one person involved in the "Pearl Harbor" project likened it to going to war with an army of Hollywood actors and technicians. And most agree that Bay was the army's general.

"Michael is the general because he commands all the people on the set," Bruckheimer said. "I backed off and let him do his job. The key to any project of this magnitude is to hire talented people, and I started with Michael."

Once Bay was aboard, then came the top names in the effects business, from Brevig and co-visual effects supervisor Ed Hirsh (both from Industrial Light & Magic) to special-effects coordinator John Frazier, whose laundry list of credits includes "The Perfect Storm," "Speed" and "Twister."

It was Frazier's job to handle the stunt work, explosions and every other special effect that could be accomplished with real people and real machinery. It was up to ILM to create magic through computer-generated effects and miniatures.

Before there was a single meeting of the minds, everyone was sent a script.

"You read the script and decide long before photography begins what can be done for real, and what would be too expensive, too dangerous and too big to do for real," Brevig explained. "Once you know how the effects are going to be divided up, you know what you are going to have to come up with. It's all part of an elaborate game plan."

Bay is a well-known believer in real physical effects. He admits that he once had a problem trusting computers to make things look real.

"Michael walked into that first meeting and said he wanted to make the most realistic flying movie ever made and then he challenged us," Hirsh said. "He stressed that he wanted the planes to look so real that the audience should not be able to tell the difference between the real planes and the planes created on a computer screen."

Bay said his problem with computer-generated effects stemmed from a belief that computers could never re-create how sunlight and shadows reflect off planes.

"I could always tell the fake planes," the director said, "and I went to ILM and told them that if they couldn't make it look real, there was no point in doing the movie."

Bay said he shot some footage of a real Japanese Zero (the only flying Zero left in the world) and gave it to ILM to use as a model.

"To their credit," Bay said, "they made a digital Zero and edited it into the footage I had given them. I am usually unfoolable when it comes to effects, but I must admit that they fooled me. It looked cool and I knew there was potential to make the kind of movie I wanted."

From ILM's standpoint, Bay's challenge was exciting.

"Look, the reason he came to us is that he wanted world-class images," Brevig said. "And we wanted to give it to him."

Hirsch said the ILM artists were able to fool Bay by studying documentary footage of World War II planes in flight. "We studied how they flew, and more important, how they behaved in the air."

A BLEND OF REAL

AND SYNTHETIC

Once Bay, Frazier and the ILM team decided which effects would be real and which would be created by computers, a film crew was sent to Hawaii to shoot background footage.

"Michael wanted a bedrock basis of reality to the movie, so we shot as many real elements as possible," Hirsch said. "We shot the water around Pearl Harbor and Ford Island, and we shot the sky. But in the end, we replaced 90 percent of what we shot with computer-generated imagery.

"You have to remember that there is no battleship row anymore, so we had to create it. There are no waves of Japanese Zeros, so we had to create them. There were only nine actual planes flying around; the rest were created. But I defy anyone to tell me which is which."

Although the battleships were invented for the long shots, it was up to Frazier and his crew to simulate the explosions aboard the ships in close shots. The ships he "blew up" were inactive but still used for parts.

The special-effects wizard said he not only had to worry about the safety of extras (many military personnel were used in the film), but there were environmental concerns as well.

"It was an environmental nightmare," he said. "There was a bird sanctuary a quarter-mile from where we were filming, and we had divers constantly monitoring the birds to make sure they were OK. I'm proud to say that none of the birds left their nests."

An even bigger obstacle faced Frazier when he was asked to simulate the destruction of the battleship USS Oklahoma. One-fourth of the 600-foot ship was built on a gimbal designed to roll it over. The ILM people filled in the rest of the ship on computers.

"From an engineering standpoint," Frazier said, "it was the biggest thing that's ever happened in Hollywood, even bigger than what they did in 'Titanic.' "

Bay was impressed. But he was more interested in whether Adm. Thomas Fargo would be impressed.

Fargo is the commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and he was only one of many naval officers on the scene to make sure the action looked authentic.

Six weeks ago, Bay said he invited Fargo into his office to watch the movie on a TV monitor.

"He watched the whole thing and smiled. He said it was best movie ever done on the attack on Pearl Harbor."

So no need to rent "Tora! Tora! Tora!