We go behind the scenes at the
filming of the new Warner Bros
movie In the Heart of the Sea W
e all know Moby Dick, but not so many
people, today at least, know that
Herman Melville’s classic novel was
based on a real incident.
The demise of the New England whaling ship Essex,
rammed by a massive sperm whale in the Pacific in 1820,
and the subsequent grisly fate of its crew, was well
known in the years following the sinking.
Now the story is about to become so again, with the
UK release last week of a major Warner Bros film
directed by Ron Howard.
In the Heart of the Sea is based on the gripping book
by Nathaniel Philbrick of the same name, published in
2000, and the screenplay brings in Melville himself as a
new facet to the story.
After the whale attack, Essex’s crew took to open
boats and survived for months, sailing and drifting for
hundreds of miles around the Pacific, until they began to
die from hunger or dehydration. A handful survived by
eating their dead colleagues and were eventually rescued.
Boatbuilder Jason Virok, of Exeter, Devon, was
marine co-ordinator on the film, which was shot atON SET WITH
MOBY DICK