'Captain Phillips', a filming on the high seas in the purest documentary style

75% of 'Captain Phillips' was shot in 60 days on the open sea. The decision to film on the high seas, using the same type of ships on which the real drama took place, led to a production full of logistical, technical, physical and psychological challenges that director Paul Greengrass and his team had not had to face before.

Captain Phillips is an analysis from several points of view that director Paul Greengrass makes about the hijacking of the American cargo ship Maersk Alabama, carried out by a group of Somali pirates in 2009. The film focuses on the relationship established between the commanding officer of the Alabama, Captain Richard Phillips, played by Tom Hanks, and the head of the Somali gang, Muse (Barkhad Abdi). Faced with each other in an irreversible clash of forces off the coast of Somalia, both men will find themselves at the mercy of forces beyond their control.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, the film was produced by Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, and Michael De Luca for Columbia Pictures. The script is by Billy Ray, based on the book A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty. Executive producers are Gregory Goodman, Eli Bush, and Kevin Spacey. Also collaborating with Greengrass were director of photography Barry Ackroyd, editor Christopher Rouse, production director Paul Kirby, costume designer Mark Bridges, and composer Henry Jackman.

At the center of the confrontation between Phillips and desperate Somali pirates, Greengrass reveals the chasm that exists between those who are part of the lucrative cycle of international trade, and those trapped outside it.

“En los últimos diez años hemos visto muchas películas, y muy buenas, sobre temas de seguridad nacional y terrorismo, pero yo quería que esta película tratara el conflicto más amplio que se da en nuestro mundo entre los que tienen riqueza y los que no” explica Greengrass. “La confrontación entre Phillips, quien forma parte del flujo de la economía global, y los piratas, que no, me resultó novedosa y de alguna manera, avanza lo que será nuestro futuro. El enfrentamiento entre Phillips y Muse es un emocionante asedio en alta mar pero nos habla de fuerzas mayores que operan en el mundo actualmente.” Prosigue Greengrass, “siempre he sentido que una historia debe contarse con emoción y fuerza, pero también debe hacerte pensar.”

As a documentary filmmaker, Greengrass has always been drawn to stories that delve into contemporary events, from Bloody Sunday, which is about a massacre by the British army in Northern Ireland, until United 93, about the hijacked flight during 9/11 in which the passengers prevented the hijackers from getting their way, passing through Green Zone: protected district, about the Iraq war. But Greengrasss is also known for being the innovative director of thrillers of refreshing realism such as The Bourne Ultimatum y The Bourne Myth.

Filming on the high seas

75% of Captain Phillips was shot in 60 days on the open sea. “For me it has been very important to shoot this film at sea, on a working ship,” says Greengrass. "I started the film with the conviction that we had to recreate the event in conditions as close as possible to those in which the events really happened. Everyone told me: 'You're crazy! Directors should not shoot on the high seas.' But that gives a veracity to the film that cannot be quantified."

La decisión de rodar en alta mar, utilizando la misma clase de buques en los que transcurrió el drama real, conllevó una producción repleta de retos logísticos, técnicos, físicos y psicológicos a los que Greengrass y su equipo no habían tenido que hacer frente antes. “La búsqueda de la veracidad plantea riesgos a la hora de realizar la película que afectan a todos: director, reparto y equipo técnico” explica Greengrass. “Como producción cinematográfica debo confesar que ésta ha sido la experiencia más ardua de mi carrera. Estar en el mar todo el día, día tras día, rodando en espacios confinados o en mar abierto, azotado por la marea, fue tortuoso. Pero lo hicimos y cumplimos la programación. En un día bueno tanto el equipo técnico como el artístico se llegó a sentir parte de una tripulación a borde de un barco, todos trabajando juntos” recuerda Greengrass. “Y además, cada responsabilidad en particular fue ejecutada maravillosamente. La interpretación es increíble, la iluminación es increíble, el diseño es increíble, el montaje es increíble. Y todo ello suma y culmina en un momento final en el que considero que Tom Hanks ofrece una interpretación de asombrosa humanidad. El recuerdo que siempre llevaré conmigo de esta película es ese momento final de Tom. Es, sencillamente humano.”

The first challenge the production faced was finding the multiple ships that are part of the story: a working cargo ship, two US Navy destroyers, and an aircraft carrier. Finding ships similar to those involved in the actual incident, a direct mandate from Greengrass, represented a major problem, despite the willingness of Maersk Line and the US Navy to assist with production. “These ships are made to work, and an active ship is either transporting merchandise 24 hours a day, or, in the case of the navy, it is waiting in case of military intervention and you can't just put them out of service,” explains producer Dana Brunetti. When Maersk Line identified a freighter that was seeing relatively little use, production was sprung into action and moved to Malta to take advantage of its availability. "Fortunately this ship, the Maersk Alexander, was an exact copy of the hijacked ship, the Alabama. A great stroke of luck for us!" Brunetti smiles.

Additionally, the production was able to arrange for the Alexander's crew of 22 merchant mariners to continue operating the ship during the two and a half months of filming. The captain of the Alexander became a vital resource for Greengrass and Hanks, showing the reality of both the operation and the human issues that make up the ship's daily life. “Being on a real boat and having access to a real crew was an essential part of our process,” says Greengrass. “We could ask them questions: what would you do, what would you say, where would you go, with what team if situation A, B, or C occurred.”

Greengrass's commitment to verisimilitude posed major challenges for the cast and crew. Many times the weather was not good, making the task of filming on the high seas almost impossible. De Luca remembers those days of filming aboard the Alexander: "Huge waves hit the boat. The sea changes moment by moment: from the most absolute calm to an impressive swell, so you never know what you will get. How do you plan your sequences or harmonize shots with such a changing landscape?" Every morning the production team had to have the agility to decide if they could film at sea or if they would have to stay in the port and film inside the ship.

Daniel Franey Malone, the film's naval coordinator, remembers that it was not easy for the production to maneuver a 150-meter freighter. "It's not like being on a tourist ship. This ship can only sail in certain areas, and we needed a maritime pilot and a tugboat every time we had to move it. And of course, the ship is made for containers, so it was extremely difficult to get the filmmaking team on board," says Malone. "It's incredibly claustrophobic. The hallways and stairs are very narrow and the team had to be very conservative in choosing what they brought on board. The constant movement from one part of the ship to another, from the lower levels to the bridge, believe me, it was not easy to move the equipment up those stairs."

In addition to the claustrophobia and limitations of working on a boat, the production challenge of coordinating and filming on multiple boats in the open sea was added. “The production team includes hundreds of people and equipment: actors, costumes, makeup, cameras and sets,” explains Greengrass. "Locating all that on the high seas is a logistical adventure. It involves dozens and dozens of ships, and you also need security ones. The production was like a flotilla, and I felt like the commander of the crew."

One of the most dramatic scenes in the film is the boarding of the Alabama. This scene was shot without the use of computer animation. "One of the most important milestones of the entire filming was the technical and safety aspect of bringing a skiff closer to a cargo ship. There are four actors on board the skiff and the ship's undertow is considerable," says Greengrass. "Getting close enough to support a ladder and execute the boarding maneuver was an arduous and slow process. Safety was the top priority. But in the movie it feels like they are really there, that they are next to the ship and they are going to board, because that's really what happened."

To prepare for the sequence, the four men who play the Somali pirates: Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, and Mahat M. Ali, began a rigorous training regimen. “Paul told us he wasn't looking for actors – he wanted us to become pirates,” says Abdi. "I didn't know how to swim and I learned to climb. Fear was not an option. When I climbed that ladder 30 meters from the water, I thought: I have to get to the top!"

Abdi, Abdirahman, Ahmed and Ali also had to learn to crew the pirate skiffs as if they had done so since they were children. "We spent weeks taking the kids out on the skiffs to learn how to crew them and, believe me, it's not easy at all. Those boats are complicated," says Greengrass. "Next we moved out to sea to teach them how to stand on a moving boat. And you can imagine how those little boats move when the sea is rough. The challenge was to do it all safely. And then, figure out how to roll it, of course."

That responsibility was assumed by cinematographer Barry Ackroyed, BSC, who explains: “For the skiff scenes we had to build a small crane with scaffolding to tie down the camera, because when the waves came up those skiffs would jump violently and we couldn't take the risk of the camera jumping overboard.”

But without a doubt the most complicated scene to organize was the decisive scene in which the navy rescues Phillips. Greengrass calls it "the most complex and difficult sequence" of his career: "There were multiple navy ships swarming around, several helicopters, and a lot of security risks. How do you direct a set of this size and represent the action that is covered: a small aircraft carrier, several destroyer ships, and multiple helicopters bombing a small lifeboat in the dark, at high speed, and over the water? Any director would tell you that when you have a helicopter in the air, your stress level multiplies. And on top of that we were going against the clock because we could only have the resources of the navy for a limited time.”

The US Navy was as willing as Maersk to participate in the film. But, as with Maersk merchant ships, to find the ships they needed they had to begin a long and delicate negotiation. Brunetti notes: "The navy wanted to participate from the first moment because the film reflects them as serious professionals, and I think they consider it to be a faithful representation of their way of working. But, like the Maersk, their commissioned ships have functions to fulfill. The navy ships have to be in reserve to be able to respond to situations that may occur in the world, and that is a more priority responsibility than supporting a film. They did not want us to make the film without them, without their support; our representation of the body It would not be so robust. The question was to adapt to its understandable limitations and, in turn, achieve what we needed.”

La solución fue posible una vez más, gracias a la flexibilidad y adaptabilidad del equipo de producción. “Un almirante de alto rango se reunió con nosotros en Los Ángeles y me hizo una promesa: ‘Si trasladáis la producción a Norfolk, Virginia, conseguiré todo lo que necesitáis.’ Esas fueron sus palabras,” dice el productor ejecutivo Gregory Goodman, quien coordinó muchos de los retos logísticos del rodaje. “No se nos había ocurrido ir a Norfolk porque no es un centro de producción cinematográfica… todo lo necesario para rodar tendríamos que traerlo desde fuera y, debido a la distancia, no puedes contar con proveedores de la zona. Pero, tras analizar nuestras opciones, lo vimos claro: ¡nos íbamos a Norfolk! Les llamé y le dije: ‘¡Os voy a tomar la palabra! Y no defraudaron. Sí que diré que, una vez establecidos en Norfolk, que fue una tarea de enormes proporciones, resultó ser un lugar maravilloso para rodar.”

To represent the USS Bainbridge, the filmmakers were given access to the USS Truxtun, a 155-meter-long Arleigh Burke-class destroyer equipped with missiles. Brunetti relates: "The Truxtun had recently been renovated and had to pass several nautical tests, including minor maneuvers, over a period of two months. We were assigned to that mission." Throughout filming the destroyer remained active, prepared to respond to emergency missions. The two additional ships that provided support to the Bainbridge during the real-life mission – the USS Boxer, an amphibious operations assault ship that is part of the Navy's anti-piracy task force, and the USS Halyburton, were represented, respectively, by the USS Wasp, a multi-purpose amphibious assault ship, and the Halyburton itself. Both ships were destined for Naval Station Norfolk.

Moving these navy ships is a complicated, dangerous and difficult task. And for a production team, destroyers are an even more inhospitable home than the cargo ship. Explains Brunetti: "The navy ships have to operate 11 kilometers from the port and the maneuver in and out of the port is very difficult and takes hours. That is why we chose to transport our team in small boats: about fifteen to twenty people in seven or eight boats. We embarked in a port in Norfolk and went out to meet the navy ships, which were waiting for us kilometers from the coast. We had to board one by one. The process was arduous: we were rocked by the waves and one “We climbed the stairs with all the necessary equipment for the day on our backs. We had to make that trip every day after finishing the work day, we embarked our small boats towards Norfolk in the darkness of the night.”

Greengrass is grateful that the navy "was involved heart and soul in the film. From the captain of the Halyburton and his second, through the entire crew, they put their ship and resources at our disposal. They understood what we wanted to do and some member of the crew was always present to tell us: 'you have to know that... in this situation we would do...' those are the thousands of decisions that make the film work and maintain reality. Those sets are real: the combat information center, the sections interiors – they are all part of a true destroyer.”

Getting the support of the navy was only the first step in filming the rescue sequence. Adds producer Dana Brunetti: "In that scene we had a lot of movement: two destroyers, an aircraft carrier, and a helicopter that shines light on the lifeboat. We had to place both the ships and our cameras in their respective positions, the helicopter had to hit the lifeboat at the right moment and the actors inside the lifeboat had to deal with the fact that the ships were creating an international wake to make waves on the ship. They were stuck there for hours while we do to them what the navy did to the real kidnappers.”

Goodman elaborates on the logistical challenges associated with that decisive scene: "The lifeboat is moving very slowly, at about two or three knots. That speed is below the safe operational limit for navy ships. If they go at that speed the engine can stall, so we had to play cat and mouse to find the necessary synchronization so that all the ships coincide. That was really complicated – it was a mathematical problem." What the filmmakers didn't know is that in this case art imitated reality as the USS Bainbridge experienced the same problem during the real-life rescue of Captain Phillips: the destroyer was overtaking the lifeboat.

El momento culminante del filme (ambientado en el mar, en noche cerrada) también supuso un enorme reto para Ackroyd, el director de fotografía. Conseguir estas secuencias requirió una planificación previa, coordinación, sincronización y profesionalidad extraordinarias, y también un poco de suerte. En palabras de Ackroyed: “Rodamos estas secuencias nocturnas en noche americana, al anochecer y por la noche. Cada escena es una combinación de estas tres técnicas unidas en una. Teníamos una cámara en el bote salvavidas, yo estaba en un bote inflable con otra, la tercera estaba en el destructor, y la cuarta cámara en el segundo helicóptero, ubicada para captar al primer helicóptero. El destructor de la armada se aproxima al bote salvavidas y tiene que girar y frenar bruscamente frente al salvavidas, y tenemos que rodar eso simultáneamente desde mi cámara, desde el destructor, desde el aire, y desde el interior del bote salvavidas, donde la cámara mira hacia afuera desde un espacio que mide medio metro de ancho por metro de largo. Todo esto se hizo al anochecer- que dura veinte minutos. Teníamos veinte minutos para captar la máxima cantidad de material. Y no puedes detenerte porque el crepúsculo cambia y de repente estás rodando de noche. Esos planos no llevan gráficos por ordenador – todo eso ocurrió en vivo y en directo. La gente siempre me preguntaba: ‘¿Cómo vamos a hacerlo?’ Pues lo vamos a hacer. Vivo para esto.”

Although the production had to face great challenges and overcome technical difficulties, everyone did it hand in hand, encouraged by a group spirit inspired by Paul Greengrass and Tom Hanks. Producer De Luca notes: "Tom was up for anything. He never wavered from anything we asked of him. For example, he was in that lifeboat in the open sea for hours, for days. It was exhausting and required a great deal of perseverance from all parties involved. And Tom didn't complain once, despite the inevitable and constant seasickness that he and other cast members suffered aboard that unwieldy vessel. I think that attitude, that spirit rubbed off on us all and all of us. accompanied during production.”

"This is filmmaking in its purest state. I have been very, very lucky to participate. I will always carry this memory with me," says Goodman. “We were all focused on the same goal.” Ackroyd agrees: "As a director of photography, when you see a script that says 'Night - dead night - on the high seas' you think twice before saying yes to the project - unless it's Paul Greengrass who asks you. When you sign for a Greengrass film it's because you know that the effort will be worth it, that the plot will be impactful and the work recognized. By this I mean that viewers take away something that no other film has given them. And I hope that's the case with Captain Phillips.”

Fotografía y diseño

Para dotar a Captain Phillips de la intensidad y el realismo que caracterizan las películas de Paul Greengrass, el director incorporó un equipo de fotografía encabezado por el director de fotografía Barry Ackroyd, BSC. Ackroyd es un colaborador de Greengrass y fue su director de fotografía en United 93 and in Green Zone: Distrito protegido, as well as in In hostile land de Kathryn Bigelow, por la que fue nominado a un Oscar.

Greengrass and Ackroyd come from the documentary tradition and both agree that there are certain habits of non-fiction cinema that they have not yet been able to abandon – and that has proven useful in the production of their feature films. Ackroyd says that "In a feature film you have many more takes and many more opportunities to capture a scene than in documentaries," "so you are always reminding yourself of the urgency and importance of each frame. If you repeat to yourself that each frame is the only chance that this will happen, and that it will be the most important frame in the film - and if you can maintain that concentration for up to 300 kilometers of film - then you will give the editor the best material that is in your hands to let him edit the best film.”

Greengrass está de acuerdo, destacando que este estilo de rodaje va de la mano con el tipo de interacción que él desea que los actores tengan con el material. “El instinto de lo que es urgente, lo que es real, nunca se pierde. Trabajamos arduamente con los actores para lograr que no sólo interpreten el guión; el guión es importante pero también queremos que los actores estén en armonía con – y que examinen por sí mismos – cada situación y las motivaciones inherentes de los personajes en cada escena. Y al conducir a los actores hasta ese lugar, donde están interpretando y habitando la inmediatez de la escena, tenemos que captar esa intensidad, las miradas, los momentos”.

Producer Dana Brunetti says Ackroyd's shooting style not only lends itself perfectly to Greengrass' direction, but it also lends itself to this film in particular because of its exteriors. “Paul and Barry shot in a style in which the present moment prevails, the urgent and real – a lot of hand-held cameras, without moving platforms – all of this is extremely appropriate to tell the story of a hostage crisis and especially adapted to filming on a container ship” highlights Brunetti. "The spaces on the ship are very small and limited and the hallways and stairs are incredibly narrow. Barry placed that camera on his shoulders and ran from end to end following the actors, holding the camera in all directions, from top to bottom and from left to right. In the case of the lifeboat, of even smaller dimensions, the important thing was to find the details and intensity of that space."

Greengrass adds that filming in these spaces was a huge challenge both visually and physically – requiring Ackroyd to be extremely flexible. “Before production began, Barry and I had a long discussion about creating an aesthetic for Captain Phillips that was very sober and character-driven,” says the director. "As the film progresses you inhabit a smaller and smaller space – so the visual challenge is to maintain the vitality and interest of those small spaces. That sometimes means that Barry has to adopt awkward and awkward positions to maneuver with very little space. I don't think he would have been able to make this film if he didn't practice yoga."

It was common for Ackroyd to have two or three cameras running in each scene. On the container ship Ackroyd the camera was placed on his shoulders while another camera operator, Cosmo Campbell, manipulated a special short-arm fixed camera that allowed him to pass between bulkheads and small spaces. Greengrass and Ackroyd do not limit the space where the scenes take place, so the actors have the freedom to move wherever they want and the handheld cameras follow them. That is why it is very normal for actors to go up and down stairs and enter and leave rooms with the camera crew at their heels.

Ackroyd has observed that this way of working liberates the actors. "Once you stop asking the actors to perform for the camera, you give them a kind of freedom. Even in a small space like the lifeboat we told them, 'Go where you want and we will follow you.' It's a challenge, but it has a powerful effect on their performances. As a result, the actors end up giving more of themselves and what you capture contributes to the film's ability to move people. If something exciting happens in a scene, the camera is happy. And when the "The atmosphere is sad, the camera becomes sad. In this film in a special way, the camera work is linked to unexpected emotional moments not contemplated in the script."

En su colaboración en United 93, Greengrass and Ackroyd experimented with various techniques aimed at making both the actors working on the set and the spectators in the cinema forget about the presence of the camera. They took those methods a step further in Captain Phillips. “Both Paul and I felt that if we did our job well, our presence would hardly be noticed by the actors,” notes Ackroyd. "Our goal in this film was for the camera to simply be an observer and as faithful as possible. At the same time, we were not making a documentary. Rather, the style is a kind of extreme realism that allows the audience to see many perspectives in each moment and in the decisions that the characters are making. We looked for the humanity in the shot."

Hanks says he was inspired by the authenticity and immediacy of Greengrass and Ackroyd's shooting style, and the result has been one of the most enriching experiences of his career. “One of the questions I asked Paul on this set was ‘where is the camera?’ because I never saw it,” says Hanks. “They're committed to capturing the behavior of real people at specific moments, and I think Paul's willingness to discover the film as we made it allowed him to capture the full reality of the story.”

Ackroyd's cinematography in the film also makes optimal use of natural light. He explains: "Whenever I can I shoot in natural light because you can shoot in 360 degrees. Having to light shot by shot is like putting a straitjacket on the camera and the camera operator. Instead we planned our scenes like a sundial, following the movement of the sun. We had a narrow loading lane to move along, so, unlike shooting in a fixed location, we could alter course, turn and get sunlight in the same direction on the ship, regardless of the It was like turning in navigation. Chris Carreras, who is Paul's first assistant director, became the captain's representative, setting the ship's course - 'Let's go five degrees to port now' - to keep the light as constant as possible. It's the same principle you use on land, but because we could move the ship we took advantage of the opportunity and Chris became a real expert.

En las primeras fases de preproducción Ackroyd decidió emplear cámaras de 35 milímetros, principalmente usando la Aaton Penelope, deseada por aquellos que quieren trabajar cámara en mano y empleada en muchos documentales. La Aaton le permitió a Ackroyd moverse ágilmente a través de las angostas escalerillas y pasadizos del buque. “Cuando ruedas en formato digital en la mayoría de los casos únicamente intentas reproducir la estética de la película. Además, cuando vimos las condiciones en las que tendríamos que rodar: te subes a un esquife piratas con cuerdas elásticas, te salpican las olas del buque mercante, las cámaras digitales no tenían mucho sentido en este contexto”, dice Ackroyd. “Las cámaras de película fotográfica tienen más de cien años. Es una tecnología simple y clásica. Por eso los coches aún usan motores de combustión – porque funcionan”.

Ackroyd also used 16 millimeter photographic film cameras for scenes focusing on Somali pirates. “I thought the grain and texture of 16mm would work well and it did, but the real reason I chose it was because in a 16mm format I could choose a 12:1 zoom,” he enthuses. “With the 12:1 zoom I could get a wide shot inside the skiff with the four Somalis, or I could frame each of them individually or in groups and I could use the same lens to zoom in on the bridge of the container ship and find Captain Phillips with binoculars on the bridge or someone running along the deck and I would be able to link the two shots, with a fluid movement from one to the other.”

But we must not forget the small lifeboat, in which Richard Phillips descends alone with his four captors. The production used several replicas of the Alabama's 28-foot-long lifeboat, all equally uncomfortable. “That kind of lifeboat sails like a bowl of spaghetti,” explains naval coordinator Daniel Franey Malone. "It moves a lot. It's unstable and easily rocks. It's incredibly difficult to roll in there."

Greengrass and Ackroyd say the lifeboat was one of the most unforgiving filming spaces they've ever experienced. “The lifeboat is incredibly narrow,” says the director. "The heat is intense. The dizziness is intense. The thing tilts in each axis. We had to get those inside out quite frequently."

Ackroyd operated the camera himself in the lifeboat, as he did in most of the scenes, putting his body at the forefront of the film. But he doesn't mind the fight, in fact he likes it. “That's how I know I'm alive,” he says. "All the physical aspects, the aches and pains...I like fighting or the feeling of fighting. If things were easier, I think we might not be achieving what we could achieve. If there is no struggle, I don't feel satisfied."

“Barry is brave like few others,” says Greengrass. "Straining his eyes through that lens made him constantly dizzy, but watching the film you wouldn't even know it. I have no idea how he maintained the stability and coherence of the image."

The work of production director Paul Kirby, who worked with Greengrass and Ackroyd on Green Zone: Protected District, added another twist to the aesthetic and feel of Captain Phillips. “Paul Kirby's production on this film was supposed to be 'invisible.' He provided an environment as close to the real world as possible in which the actors could act and Barry could film,” says Gregory Goodman. "But the 'invisible' style is extremely difficult. The audience knows when they see something fake, even if they can't point it out. Additionally, Paul faced immense logistical problems, not the least of which was finding, producing and building the Somali village where the film opens. He did that and more, making it fit perfectly with the rest of the film."

Greengrass tasked Kirby with producing four distinct worlds for the film: the Somali village, the container ship, the lifeboat, and the navy ship. “I tried to produce scenarios that seamlessly brought together the real world and the imaginary world,” Kirby explains. He adds, “in this feature film we go from the broadest – the enormous container ship seen from the highest point, so high that it looks like a point in the middle of the sea – passing through increasingly claustrophobic spaces, to focusing on the gaze of Tom Hanks as he thinks that his life is about to end in a lifeboat just over 8 meters long in the sights of the US Navy,” says Kirby.

"We wanted the audience to feel that journey that leads us to the soul of Captain Phillips. Even if they are not aware of it, they will feel it and remember it the next day. And I hope it stays with them."

Otro reto para Kirby fue diseñar los esquifes que los piratas somalíes usan para atacar al Alabama. “Los esquifes tenían que parecer botes de una aldea somalí, pero tenían que ser completamente aptos para navegar y seguros para los actores en todos los sentidos, inclusive bajo condiciones muy adversas”, dice Kirby. Dentro del bote, Kirby y el equipo de especialistas prepararon el esquife con correas y puntos de apoyo diseñados para ayudar a los actores a maniobrar en un bote azotado por el oleaje. También exageró la proa de los botes, una manera sutil de realzar la tensión. “Queríamos que el esquife pirata luciera y se sintiera como un arma al cortar el agua”.

Costume designer Mark Bridges, Oscar® winner for The Artist, began his work by conducting a tremendous amount of research, not only delving deeply into the original news of the kidnapping, but also exploring both Somali and American maritime traditions. I wanted costumes that managed to reflect the verisimilitude that Greengrass was pursuing.

Eyl, the Somali village we see at the beginning of the film is traditionally a fishing port; The men there usually wear shorts or rolled-up pants that leave their ankles exposed and a specific type of sandals. Bridges and his team created twelve copies of the costumes for each pirate. “It took a month for all the sandals, shorts, T-shirts and jackets in each costume to be worn enough from use,” he explains. During production, Bridges and his team had to remain in a state of constant vigilance, or their month of work would literally be washed away. "We underestimated the strength of seawater, it removed a lot of the dirt and wear that we already thought was permanent on the clothes. I could see it. I would look at a piece of clothing and stop: 'That has changed color. Let's take it back to the workshop.' We had kept four perfect costumes, without any wear and tear for each of the pirates, we were going to use them after Malta to shoot the first scene of the film (in the Somali village) and they were useful as a point of reference when renovating the costumes that had lost its worn appearance.”

“As for the Maersk crew's wardrobe, we interviewed Richard Phillips and Maersk officers to determine what Phillips would wear upon arrival in port versus what he would wear after boarding,” Bridges recalls. When we first see Phillips taking command of the Alabama, he is wearing his captain's uniform (the same merchant marine uniform, indicating his rank, that Phillips would have been wearing). Research into the clothing provided by Maersk in the 2009 period revealed a technical but important detail: the Maersk coveralls that the Alabama crew wore in 2009 were 100 percent cotton but they recently began making them in a cotton-polyester blend – a significant difference because cotton-polyester does not age well, making it difficult to give the uniforms the worn appearance that the period required. "We were lucky to find a contact at Maersk with cotton stock. The coveralls back then were cotton and those age well, allowing us to give the costume a real worn-in feel that was authentic to workwear on the ship at that time."
For filming, the film crew used cameras Eve (Penelope y XTR Prod), ARRI Alexa, ARRIFlex (235 y 435), y Canon EOS C300.

Mounting

Paul Greengrass's work with his editor, co-producer and longtime collaborator Christopher Rouse began long before a single take was shot, as the director was working with screenwriter Billy Ray to shape the script. Winner of an Oscar award for his work in The Bourne Ultimatum, Rouse says: "Paul and I spent more time together during script development and in pre-production processes on Captain Phillips than ever before. We had regular story discussion sessions as the script evolved; we spent months talking about every aspect of every scene in the film. For the action scenes we created storyboards and animatics, so that Paul had pre-visualized scenes before production. But other than that our process is the same: we distinguish between action sequences and dialogue sequences," says Rouse. "It's not just about the kinetics of an action scene, we also analyze how the action supports the story and the character. We get into the integral details: who the characters are, what they are like, what their goals are, and what their obstacles. Before going to shoot, Paul had examined the script in depth for several months. He was able to analyze it at every level - examine it and reexamine it - and many problems that might have arisen during filming were resolved before the cameras even started rolling."

As an example, Rouse cites the structure of the first part of the film, which balances the perspectives of Phillips and Muse. It was important to Greengrass to weave together their stories. Rouse explains: "The film depicts each man as a victim of circumstance. It was essential to strike an appropriate balance between the perspectives of the two characters and it took a long discussion between Paul, Billy and I to find the right balance." Adds screenwriter Billy Ray: "It was important to all of us not to let Muse end up as a caricature of a villain; despite Muse's aggression and potential for violence, Paul continually sought moments of genuine vulnerability."

In reference to the screenwriter's process - from the script, to the set, to the editing room: Greengrass adds: "Billy devised the fundamental markers of the film: the characters, the narrative, the meaning of the set pieces - he conveyed the essence of it all. But at a certain point we had to go to sea to film and involve the actors. By filming at sea, in real boats, representing the event in the most faithful way we could, we gave the feature film a "I like to shoot a lot of material because then you get the unplanned moments and make people experience the story as a reality," adds Greengrass. "It's not just a movie, it's something that's actually happening in front of them, and that's when you have that sense of urgency, that sense of excitement. And then Chris can take the material that I shoot and create the right tempo, balance the points of view, make sure that Phillips remains at the center of the story...he creates the template that ties it all together. The relationship between script, shooting, and editing is the magic of cinema."

Having worked with Greengrass on United 93, Green Zone: Distrito protegido and the movies Bourne, Rouse has become accustomed to intuiting the constant movements of Greengrass's camera and creating, from those movements, an editing rhythm that catches you; that plays a big role in the architecture of Captain Phillips.

“Paul and Barry's style of moving the camera instantly provides a scene with emotion and rawness,” says Rouse. "The moving camera creates tension, gives great dynamism to the action sequences and also supports the way Paul works with the actors by infusing sometimes improvised scenes with visual immediacy. In editing, I consider the movement of the camera as another element that sets the rhythm of the scene, trying to feel it and shape it in each cut as I would the rhythms of the dialogue. In terms of rhythm, Paul and I do not usually talk in great detail. If I have properly anchored myself in the story, the characters and theme, everything flows naturally.”

In the editing room, Rouse and Greengrass were able to relentlessly ramp up the film's tension, despite the fact that the action continues to be compressed into increasingly narrower spaces. “It's inherently tense, the power of the US Navy is closing in step by step on this tiny lifeboat in the middle of the ocean,” Rouse says. "We spent a lot of time with these scenes, both on paper and in the editing room. Particularly the decisive sequence at the end of the film, which ends with the SEAL group snipers. That scene took months to put together."

Rouse explains in more detail: "In the final reel the action reaches a climax: the lifeboat has just been hit by the waves of the massive warships, putting Phillips and the pirates on a knife's edge, while the commander of the SEAL group is trying to assess the line of sight for his gunners and manipulate Najee into allowing the Bainbridge to close in on the boat. In the midst of all this the scene hits an emotional tone as Phillips believes that the confrontation is coming to an end. end and that he is going to die – and consequently decides to write a letter to his family.

"Constructing this was complicated because several threads had to be tied together. We had worked the entire movie to get to this point and then we asked ourselves, how do we tie together all the converging elements to create a powerful and exciting climax that in turn retains the most characterful and the deepest and most nuanced themes of the film?

"Paul wanted Phillips to be desperate and active in this sequence to build the emotion as strongly as possible in the writing of Phillips' letter. My goal was to keep Phillips at the center of events, squeezing out every moment of Tom's performance (realizing that the lifeboat was close to sniper range, seeing the pen, deciding to write the letter, hitting Najee, picking up the pen then searching for paper). At the same time, thinking about the audience, I wanted to balance those moments with everything. everything else that was happening, keeping all the characters present throughout the sequence: the SEAL group commander monitoring the snipers' changing lines of sight from the deck of the Bainbridge, Najee arguing with Elmi and the SEAL group commander, Bilal beginning to realize that the writing of Phillips' letter foreshadowed something significant.

“Durante todo esto, era crucial mostrar la enorme escala y alcance de las maniobras del buque de guerra e, igual de importante, sus efectos sobre los personajes, especialmente Phillips, quien se percata de que la armada está llevando la situación a un desenlace y en consecuencia decide escribir la carta. También teníamos que transmitir que el comandante del grupo SEAL ha engañado a Najee (esto es, permitiendo a la armada que le remolcase hasta el alcance de los francotiradores), con una promesa falsa que, una vez aceptada, conduce a la secuencia a su final. Finalmente, intenté construir un pequeño crescendo que culmina en varias acciones seguidas: Najee accediendo al comandante del grupo SEAL, Phillips teniendo éxito en encontrar bolígrafo y papel y el cable de remolque comenzando a ser arrastrado.

"We were trying to find the right balance. It wasn't an easy proposition, but I think we were able to do it, build up the tension while staying true to the deeper dramatic elements that support the sequence."

As the film intensified, layer by layer, toward its final catharsis, Grenngrass felt that he and Rouse were in perfect sync. "Chris did an incredible job. The sense of emotion he cultivated and the way he brought out the characters makes his editing work really beautiful," says Greengrass.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg-z22xuMRM[/youtube]