Titanic – 1997 (WINNER)
This was, as I’ve said before, a movie befitting its name on a number of levels, and its visual effects were a huge part of its success. And while I have the Special Collector’s Edition on DVD that has bonus features and the like, remarkably few of those bonus features focused on those incredible effects. There was a very short featurette from which I learned a few things, but I was surprised at the lack of attention given to this movie’s spectacular special effects.
Now, I realize that most of the movie’s effects budget went into the sinking of the ship, but before I get into that, I want to mention a few of the effects that were shown before the big event. Like I keep saying, the best special effects are the ones you don’t see. I was surprised to learn that very few full scale sets were built, though it looked like there were many.
For an obvious example, the engine room, with its five-story tall pistons, was a CGI set that was seamlessly composited with live actors, all filmed separately in bits and pieces. But then there was a less noticeable scene in which some ladies are sitting at a table and having a conversation in a grand dining room. It was apparently less expensive to create the room in a computer, and film each table in the background separately, as well as the couple walking behind the main characters, not to mention the main characters, themselves. There were no black composite outlines, and not a single thing to give away the fact that the scene was made up of five or six different elements. It really only looked like a single image.
That’s not to say that all of the CGI effects were perfect. Every time I watch the movie, the shot where Jack and Fabrizio are at Titanic’s prow and the camera pans back all along the entire length of the ship. The tiny CGI people on the decks move like bad Poser figures, stiff and mechanical, and like their feet seem to be sliding, ever so slightly, across the wooden planks they are supposed to be walking on.
But the climax, the actual sinking of the ship was beyond incredible. This movie really earned its Oscar. Every detail of Titanic as it sank into the Atlantic was meticulously adhered to. Every nuance was given thought. The actors, the lighting, the angle of the deck as it slowly but inevitably tilted from horizontal to vertical, the people falling into the icy water, all combined to create an illusion so realistic, you almost feel like you were there on the real Titanic. Watching the boat sink can sometimes be an emotional experience.
There are two awesome little sequences that always catch my attention, every time I watch the movie. One was that emotional little scene where the Captain dies. The windows of the submerged bridge crash in and the unfortunate man is drowned. The other is when the sinking Titanic breaks in two, just before its last moments in the open air. The effects that made up the sinking of the ship, the super-detailed scale models, the perfect compositing, and the mostly undetectable CGI were flawless, and this juggernaut of a movie really deserved all its awards.