Clockwise from left: filming
against blue screens at Warner
Bros studios; gimballed deck on a
model of The Phoenix; actor
Cillian Murphy; Ron Howard
directs below decks; a mast
section; Chris Hemsworth (centre) PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF WARNER BROSWarner Bros’ studios at Leavesden in northwest
London, as well as on location in the Canary Islands. A
former boatyard owner in San Francisco, Virok rigged
the real and mock Tall Ships, taught lead actor Chris
Hemsworth to sail and doubled for him in key scenes,
during which he wore a muscle-suit to match
Hemsworth’s impressive physique.
Charleston-based, two-masted Tall Ship The Phoenix,
built in 1929, was used as the three-masted Essex for the
on-location filming out of the Canaries, but work started
long before that, by recreating sections of The Phoenix’s
rig and planting them into a field at Leavesden. This
allowed filming to take place in the loftier parts of the
topmasts, while only a few feet above the ground. Virok
worked for years as professional crew on square-riggers
and is a stickler for authenticity.
“Every lashing, every knot, the buntlines, how people
worked in the rig, even how we laid out the belaying
pins, is how you’d find it on a ship of that period. The
guys in the rig were professional Tall Ship crew. We were
screaming for authenticity all the time and I think that
really makes a difference in the film.”
The open boats in the film were clinker-built double-
enders, based on 1820s Nantucket whalers, created for
Warner Bros by Square Sail, which owns The Phoenix.
Virok says: “They had spritsail rigs. We had a sail which
had a grommet at the peak. We used one of the oars
upside down and shoved it through the grommet with a
hitch on the mast. That’s how they sailed the boats and
that’s how we did it in the film.”
The open boats took some knocks in filming and at
times new rudders were being built daily. Virok and
Callahan handled the main sailing scenes in the open
boats, including one particularly tricky scene with an
underwater cameraman filming from below as they
circled within a small area, miles out at sea.
Warner Bros also brought in shipwreck survivor Steve
Callahan, whose book Adrift, 76 Days Lost at Sea told
of his survival in a drifting liferaft. Callahan advised the
actors on his own deteriorating mental and physical
condition during his ordeal. The actors endured a lean
diet, overseen by a nutritionist, to ensure they appeared
suitably gaunt in the film’s final stages.
In the Heart of the Sea was released on 26 December.In the Heart of
the Sea is
reissued this
month by
HarperCollins,
priced £8.99