Unfilmable Location

As soon as he read the script, director Andrew Davis knew he would be up against a serious challenge. After all, how exactly does one make a film set in an utterly unfilmable location, such as the lethal waters of the Bering Sea I was very concerned about how we were going to simulate the Bering Sea and, at the same time, create a real, fascinating character out of the ocean, he says. That was the big question.

To get answers, Davis turned to two of his longtime collaborators: production designer Maher Ahmad, who would ultimately oversee the creation of the films unprecedented wave tank and submersed sets; and visual effects supervisor William Mesa, whose inventive work created some of the most realistic computer-generated images of storms ever seen.

Creating Realistic World of Water

William Mesa and Maher Ahmad were key to figuring out how to create a realistic world of water, says Davis. We looked at the most outrageous footage of real storms and rescue scenes, and amazingly, they delivered something just as powerful. Adds Peter Macgregor-Scott: William Mesa gave us the jet fighters in Under Siege, he gave us the train chase in 'The Fugitive and now he has given us the raging storms in 'The Guardian,' all with amazing reality.

For his part, Ahmad was thrilled to reunite once again with Davis but was especially excited to take on a design task that would ultimately combine innovative engineering with old-fashioned motion-picture artistry. It was great fun because we got to create all kinds of things you dont generally get to do in movies, muses Ahmad. Usually, youre designing kitchen and living-room interiors, but here we were designing vast water environmentscaves and boats and the open sea.

From New Orleans to Louisiana

The tank was just in the beginning stages when, as irony would have it, an all-too-real monster storm would impact the production. Originally slated to shoot in New Orleans in 2005, the film was forced to move to Shreveport, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina struck, shattering much of the city.

Despite having to roll with the changes, we still felt there could be no better place to shoot a movie about Rescue Swimmers than Louisiana, especially after Katrina, says Tripp Vinson. Now it fell to Ahmad to start to rebuild the wave tank in a state still reeling from its own need for rescue.

Under the gun, we had to hire new engineers, find new locations, engage new contractors and really start all over again from scratch under a great deal of stress and time pressureyet in the end, it turned out far better than any of our hopes, sums up Ahmad. It involved the skills of an enormous number of people.

Water Tank

At the center of the design would be the films most vital set: a water tank that would serve as a virtual ocean through the films most suspenseful action sequences. Creating the tank turned out to be an incredible adventure. Ive done a lot of big films, but this water tank is truly something spectacular and unique, says Macgregor-Scott. Its the only one of its kind in the world.

The foundation of the water tank was an eight-chambered, 100- x 80-foot concrete pool capable of holding 3/4 of a million gallons when fullbuilt in front of a 50-foot-tall blue-screen wall. To assure the utmost in technical safety and authenticity, Ahmad brought in a full panoply of engineersincluding soil engineers, civil engineers, structural engineers, mechanical engineers and electrical engineersto assure everything would work just right.

Then came the crux: generating the tanks surging, 6- to 9-foot waves, replete with bubbling foam and cresting white caps. To create the ultimate wave machine, the production brought in the New Yorkbased firm Aquatic Development Company (ADC), who designed a novel system utilizing three 150-horsepower engines, which drive fans capable of producing enough air pressure to knock out truly oceanic, rolling waves, one after another. The full effect of the waves emerges when they hit the rear end of the water tank, reflecting in a crashing motion to the next wave being generated, creating a perpetually undulating motion just like the ocean.

ADC has frequently made wave tanks for amusement parks, but theyd never done something like this where the waves had to become incredibly strong and hectic, so now they were working in unknown territory, says Ahmad. It was a gratifying day when we saw how wonderful the waves are. It looked just like an angry winters day in the Bering Seaand they were strong enough that they actually made some of the stunt guys nauseous!

The water tank exceeded everyones expectations. Recalls Davis: What was really exciting is that when Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Robert Watson saw the waves, he said, Im getting goose bumps because this is so real! Another amazing thing is that we were able to constantly fine-tune itwe could have rolling patterns of waves, diamond patterns, different heights, different frequencies. We were basically able to decide on the palette of waves we wanted in each scene.

Designing Caves and Boats

Once the water/wave tank was up and running, Maher Ahmad began to design three major sets that would sit inside the tank: the cave, the fishing boat and the engine room. One of Ahmads biggest challenges was creating the sea-cave, where one of the films most harrowing rescues unfolds. The cave had to be completely built outside the tank, then transported with two giant 150-ton cranes and dropped into the water, Ahmad explains. It also had to be able to withstand the pounding forces of six-foot waves hitting it. To keep it light but tough, we used very dense foam that was hand-carved like rock and then spray-coated it with a hard-coat plastic. It was very successful and turned out quite impressive looking.

For the fishing boat, the production had initially purchased a 72-foot trawler just south of New Orleansand was stunned to find later that the very location where they had bought the boat was wiped off the map during Katrina. Now they had to find a way to transport the boat, trapped by Katrinas debris in Lake Pontchartrain, to Shreveport. This was no mean featinvolving an 800-mile trip up the Mississippi by tow-bargeand that was just the beginning. Once we got it to Shreveport, there was a lot of work still to be done, Ahmad recalls. We had to rebuild a lot of it and redo all of the rigging to accommodate the stunt work, and then it got a complete paint and aging job.

Then came the most important touch: the boat was mounted on a pneumatic gimbal that rocked and rolled the structure to replicate the pitching of huge waves. In these sequences, huge drums of water were dropped down 35-foot chutes to form additional rogue waves that would douse both the sets and the actors. To further add to the water-logged atmosphere, Ahmad used gargantuan fans to create gale-force winds and misting rains.

Flooding the Engine Room

Another intricate set design involved the flooded engine room where Jake becomes terrifyingly trapped. This entire set had to be built so that it could still function while soaked in water, explains Ahmad. That presented a lot of challenges in ways you wouldnt even think about at firstlike the lighting, which all had to be completely waterproofed because you wouldnt want to electrocute anybody!

Ultimately, the water tank provided the cast and crew with their own personal sense of what it would be like to work at high intensity in cold, wet conditions for hours on end. It also brought back haunting memories for some of the real Rescue Swimmers on the set. One of the hardest scenes to watch was when Randall is caught in the net in his dream, admits Butch Flythe. That was a really spooky scene because every Rescue Swimmers biggest fear is, Am I going to jump into something that I cant get out of It gave me a real chill.

Thats exactly what the filmmakers were hoping for. Theres never been a movie made in the Bering Sea, because its not somewhere you can afford to go and get in trouble, notes Scott. But when all our Coast Guard instructors and consultants told us that we re-created it amazingly well, that meant a lot to us.

Cinematography

A sense of adventure was required for all members of the crew, especially cinematographer Stephen St. John, whose cameras were intentionally placed as close to the action as possible to give the audience a sense of being right in the water with the films characters. The bottom line was that we wanted everything to feel real, says Vinson. If the movie has some grit, thats OK, if theres water drops on the lenses, thats OK, because thats the way things really are in a rescue situation.

Oregon Rescue Swimmers

To further add to the authenticity of the film, the second unit traveled to the choppy coast of Oregon to shoot actual Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers in actionjumping out of helicopters and into the waves. They then went north to Alaska, to capture soaring aerials of Kodiak Island, where a recent volcanic explosion created more challenges.

On dry land, Ahmad created detailed mock-ups of the Coast Guards Jay Hawk helicopters, from which the Rescue Swimmers jump and conduct their rescues. He also designed the A School itself inside several empty buildings on a National Guard basestarting from scratch but trying to match the precise atmosphere of the Coast Guards premiere school in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Another few days of filming took place in Elizabeth City, to capture the ambiance of a large Coast Guard air station.

Testing the Characters

But the heart of the film remains the water scenes, because it is in these moments that the characters are tested right down to their very souls. In post-production, the water sequences truly came alive due to the creative work of visual effects supervisor William Mesa. The challenge was creating realistic oceans that could be integrated with both the real and digital environments of the film, Mesa says. You have scenes that are very layered and complicated with boats sinking, objects exploding and big seas breaking over everything.

Water as Digital Nightmare

Mesa worked extensively with the wave tank, so that he could take footage of the waves created inside and literally morph them into the menacing 30-foot seas into which the Rescue Swimmers venture. Working with water can be a digital nightmare, Mesa admits, but he took a very original approach that brought astonishing results. Water is probably the most difficult of all computer-generated objects because its organic, he explains. A real storm is so complex, it really cant be programmed, so most storm footage youve seen in recent movies just repeats the same patterns over and over. But what weve done thats unique is actually animate over the top of the surface of real storms to make our footage appear much more real.

The challenges may never have stopped, but no matter what the cast and crew faced, they knew it would never compare to what real Rescue Swimmers go through to save those in dire need. The hope was simply to capture some of that human strength and compassion in action. We had a number of people on the set who rescued people during Katrina, and when you hear their stories, it just brings tears to your eyes, sums up Davis. These guys are the real thing and they have so much humility and loyalty to each otherthats what its really all about.