Okay, I know I read this somewhere before but I can't find it now so I'll ask again. Did they ever actually sail the ship they built for the movie? I know that they did all the rivets on the wrong side, hence everything was filmed "backwards" for the boarding scene. But did that ship ever actually sail on the water, thus giving us the flying scene, etc? I remember reading somewhere that Kate was jumping up and down trying to film it in time to catch the sunset but then I saw a picture with the two of them in a studio on a prop built to look like the bow so now I'm a tad confused. And it's not hard to confuse me, as I'm sure most of you who know me know already :-)

And I know that it was a computer generated image when the camera did that "sweepover" thing and it was all fake little people on the deck, I must say they did a great job, I never would have guessed if I hadn't been watching all these "Making Of" Titanic shows.

-- Emma (dilemma76@hotmail.com), October 28, 1998

Answers

Hi Emma,

No, the ship built for the movie never sailed even a foot. At its most developed, the movie ship was only about half a ship, ie., one side fully built, plus whatever was needed whole to preserve the illusion of a real ship, such as the bridge area.

If anyone tried to sail this prop, it would have sunk even faster than the real thing did. To quote Jack D., "You would have gone straight to the bottom!"

-- Thomas Shoebotham (cathytom@ix.netcom.com), October 28, 1998.

Thanks for your input Thomas.

One quick extra question, I remember seeing on the Titanic special that Oprah had Jim Cameron was telling about how they made it and he said he made a boat 9/10 the size of the real Titanic, but he didn't take any of the size just from the front, back or sides, he said to imagine a loaf of bread, and take a few slices out at certain points and the ship retains it shape. So was he fibbing?

I know I'm babbling but I hope this makes sense.

-- Emma (dilemma76@hotmail.com), October 28, 1998.

Ems, I remember that the "ship" was only 9/10 wide as compared to the original, I'm not sure about the length though. But as costs were mounting, they decided not to go full scale, although probably the funnels, for example, were made full scale. Cameron wanted to say that they did not fully respect proportions in building the prop. But that does not mean that chairs, carpets and cherubims were made 90% of the scale. You have the apple, cut a slice out from the middle and put the two pieces back together. The apple is 90% but the peel has the same thickness. Or the stock...

-- Dan Draghici (ddraghic@sprint.ca), October 28, 1998.

Nope the ship never sailed. Well at least the one for th movie didn't. I saw one of the models of the ship they used while filmind and I just have to say that was one MASSIVE model. It was over my HEAD and I stand around five seven!!! I also got to see the ring that Kate woreas her engagement ring....Jack was NOT kidding when he said she would have gone striaght to the bottom, it was huge to. It seems everything about this movie was done extra big. But I have to say it was well worth it:)

-- Miranda Swearingen (Kylen1@hotmail.com), October 30, 1998.