"We built this big tower crane with almost a 200-foot reach," Cameron says, "and we put the track along the side of the ship in the water tank. We could go right over the top to the funnels and reach a point on the ship from end to end in a space of five minutes. We could put a camera anywhere over the whole length of that ship."

Cameron himself would be suspended high above the ship set, using a gyro-stabilized camera mounted on the crane basket. This would allow Cameron and director of photography Russell Carpenter greater flexibility in shooting material for visual effects and establishing shots of the ship, as well as moving in close for dramatic moments involving the actors.

"We could stabilize the image enough," the director continues, "and use it for visual effect shots and for big, beautiful establishing shots. It evolved into a very important tool."

As for the ship set itself, the structure was a completely finished in 100 days, two-decked platform (A Deck and the boat deck with a facade of riveted steel hull plating descending to the water line). Producer Jon Landau estimates that "almost a thousand effects shots were eliminated because of the ability to shoot on the full-sized ship set."

Over a three-week Christmas hiatus, the set was repositioned to a 6% angle via a complex "jacking process," involving two construction companies, to simulate more advanced stages of sinking. For the final stages of the disaster, the ship would be separated into two pieces, the front half sinking in 40-feet of water using powerful hydraulics. One of the more chilling facts about the actual sinking was that there were only enough lifeboats to handle barely half the passengers aboard. Heightening this tragedy was the crew's failure to fill the boats to capacity, resulting in only a third of the passengers making it to safety. For the film, the production team was able to apply a layer of realism to this technically complex and emotionally powerful sequence. The lifeboat davits, which is the system of pulleys and mechanisms required to launch the vessels, were constructed by the same company that built the davits for the actual Titanic.

Music by Ed Melendez
http://edmelendez.com/