(around 2 hours 35 minutes) In the scene where water floods the Grand Staircase, the filmmakers had only one take because the entire set and its furniture would be destroyed.
The post-sinking scenes were shot in a 1,300,000-litre tank; the frozen corpses were created by applying a powder to the actors that crystallised when it came into contact with water. Wax was applied to hair and clothing to give them a wet look.
(around 1 hour 26 minutes) The hands that draw Rose do not belong to Leonardo DiCaprio but to director James Cameron. Because Cameron is left-handed, the drawing scenes were mirrored in post-production so that the artist would appear right-handed, like DiCaprio.
Most of the stunt performers in the engine room scenes were only 1.50 metres tall, to make the space look much larger than it was.
When James Cameron decided to use real footage of the Titanic on the seabed, he did not want to shoot only from inside a submersible, as in the IMAX documentary Titanica (1992). To be able to operate the camera from outside the submersible, Cameron's brother Mike Cameron and Panavision developed a deep-sea camera system capable of withstanding the 400 atmospheres of pressure at that depth.
When Jack and Rose stand at the bow of the ship and Rose shouts 'I'm flying, Jack!', the sunset looks real rather than CGI. The set had been deliberately built on a stretch of coastline to take advantage of natural light, and only 8 days were allotted for the bow kiss scene. Although they had only a few minutes to shoot each day, something went slightly wrong every time. The crew relied on rehearsal footage in the hope of better conditions the next day. On the final day, when overcast weather was expected to continue, the sky unexpectedly cleared just before sunset. James Cameron quickly organised the crew, Kate Winslet was hurriedly brought from make-up, and the scene was shot just before the clouds returned. Although it is slightly out of focus, Cameron felt this was the perfect sunset he had been waiting for. Even though Cameron champions computer effects, he admitted that the magic captured on film that day would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to replicate with CGI.
Most of the 'ocean' the extras jumped into was only 90 centimetres deep, except for a small area around the set that was much deeper. Pieces of 'debris' such as deckchairs and life jackets were placed in the water to mark where they could jump safely. After jumping, they would swim to the shallow section and crouch to create the illusion of deep water.
(around 2 hours 5 minutes) In the scene where Rose searches the corridors for Jack, the water footage was shot using real Pacific Ocean water brought in from Baja California, Mexico. The water was extremely cold, and the breathlessness in Rose's first plunge was her authentic reaction to the freezing ocean, captured naturally.
For Eric Braeden's final scene, around 120 tons of water (three times the amount originally planned) were released. Braeden, who plays John Jacob Astor, said he had never been so frightened in his life while preparing, because there was no opportunity for a physical rehearsal.
Kate Winslet suffered bruises so striking that the make-up artists later photographed them to use as reference. She also sustained a broken bone in her elbow.
While shooting the lifeboat scenes, James Cameron became famous for threatening to fire anyone who dared leave the tank for a toilet break, which led many actors, including Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, to urinate in the water.
The chiffon dress Rose wears in the second half of the film was designed to look as good wet as it does dry. Costume designer Deborah L. Scott had about 24 copies of this dress made.
(around 30 minutes) In the opening scene where the captain gives the order for full speed ahead and the shot descends into the boiler room, the set actually consisted of only three boilers, but the filmmakers installed giant mirrors to create the impression of an enormous, long room. (In this scene you can see the workers shovelling coal and, about 6 metres ahead, their mirror reflections). This is a trick production designer Peter Lamont had previously used on an earlier James Cameron film, Aliens (1986), in the scene aboard the Sulaco, to make four hypersleep chambers look like twelve.
On the final night of shooting in Nova Scotia, one or more culprits laced the clam chowder served to the cast and crew with the dissociative hallucinogen PCP (angel dust). Eighty people fell ill and more than 50 were hospitalised (87-year-old Gloria Stuart was lucky to escape because she ate elsewhere). Shellfish poisoning was initially suspected, but James Cameron realised the soup had been spiked with hallucinogenic drugs when he noticed that one crew member insisted on seeing a priest, the cinematographer was leading a conga line, and the assistant director was staring at him while talking to him over the radio (he even poked Cameron's cheek with a pen when Cameron mentioned it). Without a purgative, he forced himself to vomit before the drug took full effect; afterwards his bloodshot eyes frightened other crew members, who thought it was another side effect of the drug. Although the primary effects of PCP last only a few hours, the drug can take eight days or more to leave the body: Bill Paxton ultimately said he felt lethargic for two weeks. The culprit or culprits were never caught; some disgruntled crew members who had been fired were suspected, but Cameron always believed it was a former crew member who had argued with the catering company and then poisoned the soup in order to get the caterers fired as well.
The film features more than 100 speaking roles and more than 1000 extras, all of whom had to wear lavish period costumes.
Many cast and crew members, including Kate Winslet, came down with colds, flu or kidney infections after spending hours in cold water. Some crew members initially wore waist-high waterproof boots, but after several incidents in which they accidentally filled with water, they quickly switched to dry suits. Several people quit, three stunt performers broke bones, and both cast and crew were exhausted by all the danger and the long shooting days. Both Winslet and James Cameron admitted that they often woke up on shooting days thinking, 'God, please let me die.'
The original carpet manufacturers were persuaded to make a 1670-square-metre reproduction of the original upholstery on the ship.
When the scene in which a wall of water bursts through a doorway was first shot, James Cameron said the 40,000 gallons of water released into the corridor set was not enough and asked for three times that amount. The set had to be rebuilt to withstand the extra weight of the water.
Rather than constantly hiring new extras and repeatedly putting them through costume fittings and teaching them 1912 etiquette, a 'core extra' group of 150 people who would stay with the film throughout the production was hired. They and the other actors learned 1912 behaviour from the film's choreographer, Lynne Hockney, in a three-hour course. Hockney also prepared a video titled 'Titanic Etiquette: A Time Traveller's Guide', which was played continuously in the costume department.
Kate Winslet was one of the few actors not allowed to wear a dry suit in the water scenes. As a result, she suffered hypothermia and nearly left the production. However, James Cameron persuaded her to stay.
Only the starboard side of the exterior set was completed. In the scenes showing the ship at the Southampton dock, all the shots were flipped to give the appearance of the port side, as it would really have been in 1912. This required carefully building reversed costumes and signs to complete the illusion, which was achieved in post-production by flipping the image. One actor joked, 'I wasn't dyslexic before I started this job. I am now.'
(around 30 minutes) The chief engineer says 'Full speed ahead!' and we hear someone shout 'Full speed ahead!' in the background. That is actually the voice of director James Cameron.
(around 2 hours 55 minutes) As the lifeboats row towards the Carpathia, there is a brief scene in which Fifth Officer Lowe waves a green flare and shouts something, but for dramatic reasons the dialogue has been muted. If you read his lips, you can see he is saying, 'Come on, put your backs into it, men. We're saved! Row!'
According to the cast and crew commentary on the Special Edition DVD, the first scene shot between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet was the nude scene in which he draws Rose, while the film's final shot was the wheelhouse going underwater. This was a three-second sequence that required multiple cameras, a safety diver and a stunt performer to play Captain Smith.
The staircase is not technically accurate and is somewhat larger in the film than it was in reality. The reason was that people in 1997 were somewhat taller than those in 1912 and would have looked out of place on a staircase with the correct dimensions.
Kate Winslet nearly drowned in the scene in which she and Jack are trapped in front of a door and the water rises in the corridor around them. Her coat had caught on the door underwater and she was only able to free herself by slipping out of it. Director James Cameron did not understand what had happened and asked for a retake. Winslet carried on without telling anyone.
The 'sinking' coat was a size 38, while the other toilets were size 34. This was deliberately chosen to be larger in order to make Rose look more vulnerable in the sinking scenes.
For the safety of the stunt performers, most of the sets were made of sponge rubber.
Although the actors wore waterproof makeup for the post-sinking scenes, the chemicals in the tank where they were shooting wiped the makeup off, so it had to be constantly reapplied.
(around 2 hours 10 minutes) Leonardo DiCaprio and Jason Barry were injured while shooting the scene in third class in which they pull a wooden bench and use it to break down a locked door. DiCaprio dislocated his shoulder, while Barry struck his chin with the bench.
James Cameron personally supervised all of the underwater shooting for Titanic.
(around 2 hours 5 minutes) The scenes in which Thomas Andrews scolds Second Officer Charles Lightoller for sending the lifeboats away without filling them to full capacity are the only scenes in the entire film in which the actors' breath was not added digitally afterwards.
The famous drawing of Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) by Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) that is filmed and shown in the film was actually drawn by James Cameron.
The deep-sea camera could only film 12 minutes of footage, but each dive to the real Titanic took about 11 hours. To make the best use of his resources, James Cameron had a 1/33-scale model of the wreck built and used it to rehearse each dive and memorise the ship's layout. The Russian submersible operators would walk around the model ship with model submersibles in their hands while Cameron described the shots he wanted.
Most of the decor on the ship was rebuilt by, or under the supervision of, researchers from White Star Line, the original company that built and furnished Titanic.
(around 1 hour 55 minutes) Egg white was used for the first spitting scene, but KY jelly was used in the scene in which Rose spits in Caledon's face.
In 2012, Entertainment Weekly reported that when the film was re-released in 3D, James Cameron updated no effects and corrected no errors except for one mistake. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, noticed when he first saw the film during its original theatrical run that the star configuration in the sky throughout the night Rose spends in the water looked nothing like how it would actually have appeared over that location on that night (the same incorrect set of stars had even been copied in post-production). Tyson wrote Cameron a letter explaining the error; a few years later, when he met Cameron in person, he repeated his complaint; and then, at an event held at the Hayden Planetarium, Tyson brought it up with Cameron a third time. Eventually, a post-production technician working on the re-release called Tyson and asked him to provide an image of how the sky would actually look, and Tyson's star image was used to correct that shot. Before the shot was corrected, the stars had been arranged to resemble the Heart of the Ocean necklace.
After filming, the remains of the full-size set were sold as scrap metal.
The process of capturing Leonardo DiCaprio's and Kate Winslet's underwater close-ups was quite uncomfortable for the actors, as they were secured to a step ladder at the bottom of the tank. Kate Winslet in particular found the experience frightening, since her respirator and mask were removed and she could not see. Even so, DiCaprio stayed beside her and gently stroked her legs in sync with his breathing to keep her from worrying.
To submerge the Grand Staircase in the specially built 19-million-liter tank, 340,000 liters of water were drained from it as the staircase was lowered in. The volume was so great that the staircase was torn from its steel-reinforced foundations. This is what may actually have happened to the Grand Staircase during the real sinking in 1912. When the wreck was searched after its discovery in 1985, nothing remained of the staircase.
Steven Spielberg was so impressed by the film's 3D conversion that he hired the same enhancement company for the 3D conversion of Jurassic Park (1993).
(around 51 minutes) Jack's portrait of the one-legged prostitute, the sketch of 'Madame Bijoux,' is actually visible for two frames as the page is turned. James Cameron decided not to show the portrait because he thought the audience would imagine something better.
James Cameron met his fifth wife, Suzy Amis, on the set of this film. Technically he was still married to Linda Hamilton, but they had been living apart for some time. Of all his marriages, his marriage to Amis is the longest-lasting.
The detached stern section of the full-size set was moved onto a separate tilting platform that allowed it to be brought rapidly to a vertical position for the final stage of the sinking. Ten takes were shot, each requiring 100 stunt performers to fall from or across the set and 1,000 extras to be secured to the railings with safety harnesses.
At around 2 hours 15 minutes, the shot in which Jack and Rose embrace after Rose jumps from the lifeboat was the final attempt. After countless takes, Leonardo DiCaprio convinced James Cameron to shoot it once more 'for the actors.' During this take, DiCaprio picked Kate Winslet up in his arms, which surprised Winslet but helped her give a more emotional performance.
(around 1 hour 2 minutes) Real Beluga caviar was used in the first-class dining saloon scene. After tasting it, Jonathan Hyde said he 'instantly made an acting decision that Ismay was a glutton.'
James Cameron persuaded production designer Peter Lamont, with whom he had previously worked on Aliens (1986) and True Lies (1994), to come out of retirement and work on the film. To create the newness of everything aboard the ship, all the props were created from scratch by Lamont's team. Because few photographs of the Titanic survive, images of its identical sister ship, the RMS Olympic, were used as reference. At one point Lamont had four separate art departments working on the film. His efforts earned him the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.
During the real Titanic's sinking, there was concern that the davits might not be strong enough to lower fully loaded lifeboats, but in real life they had been tested under such a weight. In the film, the davits, which can be seen flexing under the weight, were built to the same dimensions as those originally designed by the White Star Line.
Director James Cameron made a total of 12 dives to the wreck of the real Titanic in a special submersible. The third trip (which he later nicknamed the 'bottom storm') nearly ended in tragedy: while approaching the Titanic, a powerful underwater current pushed the submersible off course. Because each dive to the wreck took about 11 hours and cost an estimated $40,000, Cameron wanted to make the most of it and began filming while the crew tried to hold the submersible steady with thrusters. But when they wanted to ascend again, this maneuvering had severely drained the engines. The only way to get back and avoid fatal hypothermia was to periodically shut down and restart the engines and let the submersible drift slowly upward during the shutdowns (while trying to avoid a current that frequently pulled them back down). The return journey actually took far longer than it should have because, halfway back, the crew finally remembered to jettison the ballast still in the tanks.
James Cameron was learning editing during his previous film True Lies (1994), and on Titanic he was a full-fledged part of the editing team alongside his longtime collaborators Conrad Buff IV and Richard A. Harris. Three editors were needed because nearly twice the usual amount of footage was shot for a three-hour epic. Cameron had turned one of the rooms in his house into an editing suite; during the day he supervised the special effects, and at night he edited. The three men worked separately on sections of the film, then checked each other's work and re-edited it if necessary. They shared the Academy Award for Best Editing for their efforts.
(around 2 hours 30 minutes) The scene in which Captain Smith (Bernard Hill) is swallowed as the cabin floods was the last scene shot. It was part of an all-night shoot to make up for lost time. Although the stunt performer was equipped with a breathing regulator, director James Cameron was himself in the cabin in a diving suit during the stunt in case he needed to supply the performer with emergency oxygen. Everything went well, and afterwards Cameron had a short wrap party with the remaining crew members, at which he finished half a bottle of tequila. He was eventually taken home and was already asleep before the van left the studio.
The 'full-size' ship exterior set was built in a brand-new tank on a beach south of Rosarito in the Mexican state of Baja California. Construction began on the 85th anniversary of the real Titanic's launch - 31 May 1996 (see also A Night to Remember (1958)). To reduce costs, the number of some repeating sections (such as the middle windows) was reduced (and they were later added with CGI), and other parts (such as the funnels and lifeboats) were built at 90% scale to achieve the correct visual appearance. The set was oriented to face the prevailing wind so that the smoke from the funnels would blow in the right direction. Because the studio was also newly built, the sets were often constructed at the same time as the studio building around them. Some sets were so large that crew members frequently got lost inside them, which required a zone system to be implemented so they could find their way back.
The climactic scene featuring the ship breaking apart just before sinking and its final plunge to the bottom of the Atlantic involved a tilting full-size set, 150 extras and 100 stunt performers. James Cameron criticized earlier Titanic films for depicting the ship sliding gracefully beneath the water. 'He wanted to portray it as the horrifically chaotic event it actually was.' In performing the sequence, people had to fall from the increasingly tilting deck, plunge hundreds of feet down, and bounce off railings and propellers as they descended. The sequence was rehearsed for weeks, the stunt performers were suspended with harnesses and wires, and although the set was covered with sponge rubber, the actual shooting of the scene resulted in one stunt performer breaking a leg and a female stunt performer cracking a rib. Cameron halted the more dangerous stunts and asked special effects supervisor Robert Legato whether computer-generated people could be used for the more dangerous falls. Legato agreed, even though using this technique was still in its early stages. In the end it worked, but the amount of digital doubles was deliberately kept limited, since they could not always withstand close scrutiny (clothing textures and faces still looked a bit fake). The filming of Titanic's final moments featured prominently in the trailer, and Cameron later remarked, 'that shot alone brought in our opening weekend audience.'
On the Titanic set, Leonardo DiCaprio's pet lizard was run over by a truck, but with a little love and care DiCaprio nursed it back to health.
Kate Winslet's first day on set was difficult - being naked in front of the entire crew - but James Cameron had little choice because the set was not ready for many other scenes. The actress approached this delicate moment with an extremely get-it-done attitude. She came to the set wearing only a shawl dress and gave her stunned co-star a preview before undressing in front of the rest of the crew. Despite her courage she was nervous, and Cameron felt lucky that the scheduling allowed them to capture the reality of the pair's vulnerability together.
To create Rose's nude drawing, James Cameron did a photo session with Kate Winslet, photographing her in different positions to use as reference. At the time Cameron and Winslet did not know each other well enough for her to pose nude for Cameron, so she posed in a bikini. Cameron had to use his imagination to draw her nude.
(around 23 minutes) The male third-class passenger having his beard checked for lice as Rose, Caledon and Ruth board the Titanic is director James Cameron. He also plays the black-bearded third-class passenger in a bowler hat as Jack and Fabrizio search for their cabin.
The scale model of the underwater wreck was displayed at the Titanic museum in Branson, MO, for several years. In August 2011 it was removed, taken back to Hollywood and used to shoot the new Titanic 3-D film.
(around 1 hour 28 minutes) Jack Dawson's signature is based on the way James Cameron signs his own drawings.
The 'beer' at the below-decks party was actually root beer.
The scene showing Second Officer Charles Lightoller clinging to an overturned lifeboat is historically accurate. The collapsible boat, designated Collapsible B, fell from the roof of the officers' quarters and landed upside down on the deck, and was carried in that position by the rising water. According to Walter Lord's book 'A Night to Remember', the forward funnel fell and narrowly missed Collapsible B, and the wave that followed swept the ship 27 metres away from the sinking vessel. The other two lifeboats went to Collapsible B's aid at dawn as it began to sink, bringing all the survivors back to the Carpathia. Because the bodies of Captain Edward J. Smith and First Officer William Murdoch were never found, Charles Herbert Lightoller was the most senior officer to survive the sinking.
Only the starboard side of the set below the superstructure was fully built and riveted. When the time came to shoot the Southampton scenes, everything down to the buttons on people's clothing had to be reversed so that it could easily be mirrored in post-production.
(around 2 hours 5 minutes) When Jack leaves the Master-at-Arms' office, his reaction to the cold water was genuine, and James Cameron kept the swearing, thinking it was very realistic as to how people would react in cold water.
All scenes involving exterior sunset shots were filmed at Fox Studios in the Mexican state of Baja California, south of Playas de Rosarito. The set was built specifically for the film because no studio was large enough to accommodate a nearly full-scale replica of the ship. James Cameron actually brought in a large model of the Titanic and drove it around the recently purchased 16-hectare plot to determine which spot would have the best natural lighting conditions. When he finally found the spot he preferred, he was told that that particular piece of land was not part of the lot. He simply replied, 'Then we'll have to buy that too.'
(around 1 hour 9 minutes) During the Irish party below decks, directly below Lovejoy, with the grey beard. He later stands behind Fabrizio while waiting for a lifeboat on deck when Murdoch starts shooting.
After the ship splits in two, the bow section sinks rapidly. To film this, the full-size set was actually divided into sections, but the bow section did not sink fast enough because of its own buoyancy and the narrow gap between the set and the tank. James Cameron observed that they would have to wait until the next night when 'God's 10,000,000 kW light' was born, and suggested sinking the set, allowing the air gap between the two decks to fill with water, then raising the set again and sinking it rapidly before the water drained out. It worked.
The long shots showing the entire exterior of the ship were produced by Digital Domain. A 1/20-scale model was filmed and computer-generated images of people, ocean and smoke were added. For one scene, James Cameron instructed them, 'Imagine we're making a commercial for the White Star Line and we need beautiful shots circling the ship from a helicopter.'
Several cross-dissolves from the Titanic on the seabed to the Titanic of the past, and a cross-dissolve from young Rose to old Rose.
The shot of water tearing through the lower deck corridors was achieved with a miniature model in which all the doors and wall panels were broken apart and then loosely reassembled with glue, then sprayed with multiple hoses. According to James Cameron, the shot did not look convincing until he tilted the camera angle in post.
The crew felt that James Cameron had a demonic alter ego and nicknamed him 'Mij' (Jim spelled backwards).
After an investigation, the Screen Actors Guild decided that there was nothing inherently unsafe about the set. Leonardo DiCaprio also said there was never a moment during filming when he felt he was in danger.
The specially built Baja water tank alone cost 40 million dollars.
While accepting the Best Director Oscar, James Cameron quoted Jack Dawson, saying 'I'm the King of the World!'
(around 1 hour 30 minutes) The car in which Jack and Rose make love was a Renault belonging to the Carter family.
The name of the band playing at the Third Class party is Gaelic Storm.
1,000 extras were employed for the opening scene of the Titanic leaving Southampton.
Danny Nucci (Fabrizio) stated that one of the hardest scenes to shoot was ironically the joyful 'King of the world' scene. The bow section where the scene takes place was a separate piece of the set; the rest of the ship was not there and would later be created with computer imagery. This meant that he and Leonardo DiCaprio had to be lifted to the top of the bow by crane and were stuck up there for a long time. Because they were afraid of incurring the wrath of director James Cameron, they did not dare ask to be brought down for lunch or a bathroom break, so the hard part was constantly acting enthusiastic while hungry and desperately needing to go to the toilet between takes.
A 49-metre crane originally designed for construction and lighting was mounted on railway tracks instead of expensive helicopters and was used for most high-level exterior shots. The camera platform was large enough for a gyro-stabilised Wescam, a Steadicam and a handheld camera. James Cameron directed from the top of it so he could see the entire set.
Several scenes show all four funnels emitting smoke, but the smoke from the fourth funnel is thinner and cleaner. All of White Star Line's rivals had four funnels and they did not want to lose prestige. The fourth funnel was therefore designed as additional storage space, used on the maiden voyage for live animals and to provide ventilation.
Lighting the massive set was a huge task, so cinematographer Russell Carpenter made a list of the thousands of set and prop lights he thought he would need, along with 64 kilometres of cable. But the studio objected to this large request, claiming he was not managing its resources effectively, and sent its own experts to assess the situation. The experts concluded that the initial estimates had been modest and that even more lights and cable were needed.
12 dives were required. On the last two dives, footage was shot by sending a remotely operated vehicle down to the wreck; James Cameron had intended to use this device only as a prop.
WILHELM SCREAM: (around 1 hour 40 minutes) After Titanic hits the iceberg, water splashes onto the ship and strikes crew members.
According to Walter Lord's book 'A Night to Remember', the water temperature was -2 degrees Celsius, well below freezing point.
When Caledon becomes enraged by Rose's nude drawing, look at the wardrobe mirror and you will see Lovejoy secretly glancing at the drawing several times.
The only real decks were the boat deck and A deck, with completed plating and a lit porthole facade only on the starboard side. So much light was needed that cinematographer Russell Carpenter commented: 'And you walk in, and there's 112 kilometres of one kind of cable and 112 kilometres of another, all forming this Terry Gilliam vision of a 1950s telephone company.'
In the departure scene, the extras were filmed in front of a green screen inside a parking lot.
The engine room scenes were shot partly aboard the World War II ship SS Jeremiah O'Brien. Smaller railings and walkways were installed to make the engines appear larger.
Mark Lindsay Chapman was fired and rehired twice and survived an accident in which a boat struck him and he had to be pulled from the water.
During the poker scene, a model was used for the ship in the background, which is why onlookers are missing.
(around 21 minutes) Before young Rose, her mother and Caledon board Titanic, a red car is seen being loaded onto the ship. This is the car in which Jack and Rose famously make love in the cargo hold before the ship hits the iceberg.
The entire set was mounted on hydraulic jacks and could tilt up to 6° without distortion within the depth of the tank.
The davits on set were made by the same company that built the davits for RMS Titanic.
For some interior wreck shots, a set was built and submerged in water.
The chiffon dress Rose wears as the ship sinks made it very difficult for Kate Winslet to run and swim, because the fabric gathered and tangled around her legs, tripping her. James Cameron eventually took a pair of scissors and cut away the lower layers, leaving only the top part of the dress and the bloomers beneath. Winslet referred to it as 'my Bo-Peep dress' and said Leonardo DiCaprio found it extremely funny.
Some of James Horner's music was recycled from the score he wrote for Braveheart (1995). For example, the music playing just before the lookouts spot the iceberg is almost identical to the music playing just before the Battle of Falkirk.
In the film and in several paintings, all of the ship's funnels emit smoke, whereas in reality only the front three were real. The rear one was fake.
While Jack and Fabrizio are at the bow of the ship, they see a pod of dolphins racing along. Examined closely, these are short-beaked common dolphins, which can be found off the coast of Ireland.
Among the special effects companies involved, VIFX was responsible for the icy, visible breath of the passengers floating in the water after the ship sinks. They also worked on the engine room sequence and the many workers seen there. POP Film handled digital face replacement and matte paintings, Banned from the Ranch dealt with some underwater shots, CIS Hollywood was responsible for sky replacement and blue screen composites, and Digital Domain - James Cameron's own company - took on most of the major showcase special effects.
20th Century Fox bought 16 hectares of coastal land south of Playas de Rosarito in Mexico and began building a brand-new studio on 31 May 1996. A 64-million-litre tank was built for the exterior of the reconstructed ship and provided a 270-degree ocean view. The ship was built at full scale, but the production design removed unnecessary sections of the superstructure and foredeck so it would fit in the tank. The remaining sections were filled in digitally. The lifeboats and funnels were reduced by 10%. While the boat deck and A deck were fully working sets, the rest of the ship was steel plating. Inside this was a 15-metre lifting platform to tilt the ship during the sinking sequences, and above it rose a 49-metre-high tower crane on 600 metres of track. This was used as a construction, lighting and camera platform.
Interior shooting also involved sets that tilted hydraulically inside tanks (on various studio sound stages).
The film's first cinematographer was Caleb Deschanel, because of his experience with period films. However, he clashed with James Cameron over lighting; Cameron wanted to be involved at every stage, while Deschanel was used to working independently. He was replaced by Russell Carpenter, who had also worked on Cameron's True Lies and T2 3-D. Interestingly, Carpenter had watched Deschanel's The Natural for inspiration.
In the 1958 film A Night to Remember, the sinking scenes of Titanic are mostly shown from the ship's port (left) side. In James Cameron's film, however, the majority of the sinking scenes were shot from the starboard (right) side.
The special effects were initially going to be handled by Cameron's company, Digital Domain. But after delays and a postponed premiere, it became clear they could not handle the workload. To finish on time, a total of 17 different effects companies were brought in.
James Cameron did not use any extras taller than 1.73 metres so that the set would look larger. This choice also increased historical accuracy, because in 1912 the average height of men really was around 1.73 metres.
The cast's favourite lunch was shrimp mayonnaise sandwiches. Leonardo DiCaprio asked for them to be taken off the menu, saying they had been invented in 1932 and were preventing him from getting into character. After the sandwiches were removed, the chemistry among the actors visibly improved.
For the interior sinking scenes, an enclosed tank holding 19 million litres was used; the entire set could tilt into the water. To sink the Grand Staircase, 340,000 litres of water were dumped onto the set. At an unexpected moment, the cascade tore the staircase from its steel foundations, but no one was injured. While the first half of the 227-metre ship's exterior was lowered into the tank, it acted as a buffer against the water because it was the heaviest part; Cameron had to drain the set and break some of the deck windows with his own hands.
The entire set could tilt hydraulically to simulate the Titanic sinking bow-first; however, moving it to a new angle took hours. To make up for lost time, in some shots the camera and the horizon were tilted and the actors leaned forward to create the illusion of a steeper angle.
To achieve tilt angles greater than 6 degrees, the 'underwater' sections of the exterior were removed from the set and the support structure was adjusted accordingly.
Although the scenes in which the ship tilts to 90 degrees were shot with safety harnesses, they were still frightening for Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio because of the height and the many takes. To distract themselves, they hid cigarettes in their costumes and held on to each other. Before one take, as the platform rose, Winslet said, 'Hey Jack, I feel like I'm flying,' and DiCaprio burst out laughing.
Many cinemas turned the air conditioning up full during the film's final hour and cooled the auditorium so that audiences could experience the chill of the sinking scene for themselves.
In a Vanity Fair interview, Kate Winslet described shooting the kissing scene at the ship's bow. Because reaching the bow required climbing a rotten ladder, the hair and makeup team could not come with them. Winslet had hidden her own makeup on one side of the front of her navy blue dress and DiCaprio's bronzing makeup on the other. Between takes, she touched up the makeup that smeared on each other while kissing; the lower part of her face looked as if she had eaten caramel chocolate because of DiCaprio's bronzer.
During an exhausting scene that required staying in ice-cold water for hours, Kate Winslet whispered to Leonardo DiCaprio that it was her 21st birthday. DiCaprio replied, half-jokingly, 'Sweetheart, I don't care.'
James Cameron said that the choreography of Jack and Rose's first kiss was worked out down to every lip movement. DiCaprio and Winslet, both meticulous actors, had preferred this method.
A 1/8-scale model was also used for the ship's stern.
Although the film was shot in Super 35 format, the credits carry the phrase 'Filmed in Panavision'.
In the scene where Jack draws Rose, a portrait of Kate Winslet actually drawn by James Cameron was used.
When the helmsman is given the order 'hard a-starboard', he actually turns to port. Later, when 'hard a-port' is called, he turns to starboard. This is due to the maritime rules of the period; a port order meant turning to starboard, and a starboard order meant turning to port.
Firing a white flare was a mistake. These mean 'Danger! Stay away!' and were used to warn of boilers about to explode in port. Ships at sea could have interpreted it as an ice hazard.
At 31:21 of the film, the people on the Titanic are briefly computer-generated. While the officer's cap has not even slipped to the middle of the back of his head, at 31:24, when the shot returns to the actors, the same officer's cap covers almost the entire back of his head.
In an interview, David Warner said that he and James Cameron were both big Monty Python fans and that during the long waits between takes they told each other Monty Python sketches. Warner stated that he got along very well with Cameron throughout the shoot.
After three takes in the water, the actors were warmed up in hot tubs for 10-15 minutes. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet talked to each other in funny accents to forget the pain.
Kate Winslet explained that in the famous 'door scene' the water was only waist-high and that Leonardo DiCaprio played it kneeling.
James Cameron did not cast anyone taller than 1.73 metres so that the extras would look in proportion to the ship. The Titanic model, meanwhile, was at seven-eighths scale of the real thing and more than 213 metres long.
The largest set on Titanic was the 236-metre structure that was an almost exact replica of the real ship. The set could tilt at varying degrees across different sections of the ship.
The film shows the Titanic's electricity being cut just before it splits in two. This is historically accurate; according to eyewitness accounts, while the boiler rooms were taking on water, the crew in those still working kept going without stopping, because on a moonless night the ship itself was the only source of light. A 2025 digital examination confirmed that the chief engineer engaged the emergency generator just before the last boiler rooms were flooded, supplying electricity until the ship's final moments.
In the famous 'door' scene, while Rose sees the lifeboat, there is frost in the foreground beneath Jack's nose, but in the profile shots no frost is visible.
For Titanic's wreck scenes, the ship model was hung upside down so that the lights and the heavy motion-control rig could stay on the floor.
At about 1 hour 4 minutes, after Jack Dawson hands Rose the note and turns away, what looks like a modern hearing aid appears behind his ear; it is only his hair catching around his ear.
Natural Smoke: The shooting location in Rosarito, Mexico, was chosen in part because the predictable winds naturally blew the smoke from the funnel generators across the deck, creating a realistic 'at sea' look without the need for giant fans.