Movies
New Hi-Res Photos From Ron Howard’s IN THE HEART OF THE SEA
Warner Bros. Pictures has released brand new, high-resolution photos from their upcoming film, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA.
Oscar winner Ron Howard (“A Beautiful Mind”) directs the action adventure, based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s best-selling book about the dramatic true journey of the Essex.
In the winter of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex was assaulted by something no one could believe: a whale of mammoth size and will, and an almost human sense of vengeance. The real-life maritime disaster would inspire Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. But that told only half the story. IN THE HEART OF THE SEA reveals the encounter’s harrowing aftermath, as the ship’s surviving crew is pushed to their limits and forced to do the unthinkable to stay alive. Braving storms, starvation, panic and despair, the men will call into question their deepest beliefs, from the value of their lives to the morality of their trade.
IN THE HEART OF THE SEA stars Chris Hemsworth (“The Avengers,” “Rush”) as the vessel’s veteran first mate, Owen Chase; Benjamin Walker (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) as its inexperienced Captain, George Pollard; Cillian Murphy (“The Dark Knight Rises”) as second mate Matthew Joy; and Ben Whishaw (“Spectre,” “The Danish Girl”) as novelist Herman Melville, whose inquiries into the event three decades later helped bring the story to light. Tom Holland (“The Impossible”) also stars as young seaman Tom Nickerson, and Brendan Gleeson (“Edge of Tomorrow,” “Suffragette”) as the elder Nickerson, 30 years older.
Howard directed the film from a screenplay by Charles Leavitt (“Blood Diamond”), story by Charles Leavitt and Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (“Jurassic World”), based on the book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick, winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
It is one of the greatest seafaring tales of all time: the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was attacked by a leviathan – a white whale of singular size and intent – leaving only a few of its crew to overcome near-impossible odds and live to recount their experience. But in the almost 200 years since that harrowing voyage, the truth faded into history, eclipsed by the celebrated novel it inspired, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
Now, with acclaimed director Ron Howard at the helm, the legend of the Essex, her courageous crew, and that mythic white whale comes to the big screen for the first time in the epic adventure IN THE HEART OF THE SEA.
Moby-Dick is fiction; however the film brings to life the powerful saga that would fuel Melville’s defining and enduring novel. Howard says, “The true story of the Essex is fantastic. It’s visceral; it’s rich and cinematic at its core, with lots of twists and turns along the way. And though the film is set in the past, it touches on ideas about relationships, survival, humanity and nature that are relatable and thought-provoking, and connect to our own sensibilities about who we are as people.”
Without question, the white whale plays a pivotal role in the drama, so his creation involved the combined expertise of several departments. Howard says, “The behavior of sperm whales was something we researched and analyzed as a team. We met with ocean mammal experts and marine biologists to get a better understanding of their behavior. What interested me most was why this happened. A ship being relentlessly attacked by a whale was unheard of, unparalleled; it was the most freakish thing. I came to believe that this animal was pushed to the breaking point leading to an inevitable clash.”
Production designer Mark Tildesley says, “We needed to make sure the whale feels like a living presence in the film. We tried a few images of white whales and they looked fantastic, but, unfortunately, the pure white also engendered a very ethereal, calm image. But in our research we learned a lot of older whales start to lose their skin, so we made the whale darker, but you see the white coming through in patches where the skin has flaked off.”
“He is also scarred from previous battles with humans and other predators, so his appearance conveys the harshness of his history,” adds visual effects producer Leslie Lerman.
The whale was brought to life via CGI by the visual effects team, led by Lerman and VFX supervisor Jody Johnson. Johnson comments, “It was particularly challenging, with a creature of such immense size and power, to push the envelope without going over the edge because we didn’t want to pluck the audience out of this real world and take them into a fantasy realm. Each time we conceptualized an action sequence that involved the main whale, or any of the whales, we sent it off to our experts and we’d discuss how plausible it was and what other behaviors they might suggest. It gave us a great spectrum from which to work.”
What does set this whale apart from anything in our frame of reference is his size: measuring 95 feet long, weighing approximately 80 tons, with a tail spanning 20 feet. By contrast, the other male sperm whales they encounter measure just over half as long, at about 52 feet.
The Essex of “In the Heart of the Sea” was comprised of an actual sailing ship, used on the open water, and a replica, situated in a tank at Leavesden Studios.
“We did a lot of research,” Mark Tildesley offers. “There was obviously no photography at the time, but we gathered some visual images from paintings, drawings and the like. There’s also a whaling museum in Mystic, Connecticut, which has the last original whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan. It has been completely restored and was a fantastic resource for us.”
The behind-the-scenes creative team included Oscar-winning director of photography Anthony Dod Mantle (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “Rush”); production designer Mark Tildesley (“The Fifth Estate”); Oscar-winning editors Mike Hill and Dan Hanley (both for “Apollo 13”); costume designer Julian Day (“Rush”) and composer Roque Baños (“Evil Dead”).
IN THE HEART OF THE SEA has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense sequences of action and peril, brief startling violence, and thematic material.
Photos: © 2015 WARNER BROS. PICTURES
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