 Pirates of the Caribbean Posters
|
 Chapter 15 - Props: Weapons, Maps, Rings or Whatever Whether it's the weaponry of all nations, drooping telescopes, Jack Sparrow's rings, pieces of eight which actually resemble pieces of junk, a Pirate Code book or practically anything else one can imagine being handled in the pirate world, property master Kris Peck and his merry band could be relied upon to, by hook or by crook, come up with the goods. With the aide of armourer Harry Lu and historical adviser Peter Twist, Peck either found or fabricated a multitude of weaponry for pirates of all nations, the crusty Flying Dutchman crewmen and East India Trading Company troops.
As Gore Verbinski himself is the first to point out, filmmaking is a collaborative art. And for the past dozen years, one of the director's closest collaborators has been James Ward Byrkit, a true jack-of-all-trades who, though unseen and (for the time being, anyway) fairly unknown by the millions of “Pirates” trilogy fans, has made indelible contributions to the films on several levels. Byrkit's end roll title is the rather enigmatic “conceptual consultant.”
He explains, “We had to come up with our own credit, because what I was doing sort of became a lot more expansive than just storyboards. Gore and I started working together when he was directing commercials, and I would storyboard for him. Then, when he started making movies, he would bring me in from time to time and my work expanded. For “Pirates,” we would talk about the script, story, themes, character beats, things that go beyond traditional storyboarding. The best part about films like Pirates of the Caribbean is that there's lots of room for creative enhancement.”
In addition to the more than 3,000 storyboards for “Dead Man's Chest” and “At World's End” that Byrkit created (he also did three weeks of consultancy work on “The Curse of the Black Pearl,” doing the very first drawing of the Black Pearl and other ships), he also bounced back and forth between departments, such as production design, props and the pre-visualization team, helping with simplified animatics of the overwhelmingly complex action sequences that were a blueprint for Verbinski on set, and later, for Industrial Light + Magic's visual effects.
One project that truly demonstrates synergy between behind-the-scenes artists is the magical map to uncharted realms that our anti-heroes acquire from Singapore pirate lord, Captain Sao Feng, in “At World's End” that will take them to…well…not only World's End, but places beyond, around, and upside-down. “We had this big meeting back in July 2005 for which Gore called everybody in,” recalls Byrkit. “He knew that he needed this great map, but wasn't sure what form it would take. He just knew that he wanted it to be very special, and something we hadn't seen before. He also wanted there to be secrets to the map: perhaps it changed form and revealed things. We came up with things as varied as something like a pop-up book in which you grab the center of the map and pull it out like a Chinese lantern, or the idea that if you shone a light underneath the map it would project this whole universe, like a planetarium, on the ceiling or the walls. I actually bought a bunch of Chinese lanterns and tried to paint a globe on them, and spent about a week of research and development trying to see if it would work. And after a week, I just knew that it wasn't going to work.
“So I went back to an earlier idea that I had about a circular map with rings that represented metaphorical places to which you could travel, which I thought tied into the whole “Pirates” theme. Gore and I had been talking about the notion that “Pirates of the Caribbean” takes place during a time in history in which the maps weren't yet filled in, which means that anything is possible in the world. There are all these places in the world that are Terra Incognita-lands that are unknown-so they could have monsters, they could have magic, they could have new civilizations. I loved the idea that this map was very old, made before the Enlightenment, before people got so scientific about mapmaking, when they still blurred the geographical realities with metaphorical inner journeys which are as important as physical journeys.
“When I showed the mockup of the circular map to Gore,” Byrkit continues, “he said `That's it! Now, not only do the rings move, but you need shapes to start appearing, and land masses that become shapes.' I went back and, based upon several conversations and input from Gore, painted a final map which took several months, because it kept evolving. The rings can line up in infinitely different ways, like a combination lock, and each way reveals some new secret, some unknown territory, some unexplored place, some metaphysical place, some parallel universe.
“It took seven or eight months of putting all the elements together, testing them, and making them right. I had several hundred phrases and names of places which I needed to be translated into Chinese calligraphy, so propmaster Kris Peck brought in an expert named J.C. Brown who's worked on films like “The Last Samurai” and “Memoirs of a Geisha,” to make sure the brushstrokes were right. The original painting was done on washi-handmade Japanese rice paper-that I treated with layer upon layer of transparent washes of watercolors, some acrylic and artist inks. It has a really amazing, transluscent quality to it, and you can tell that there's a history to it. Over the centuries, pirates have added their own secrets, scribbled notes to each other, just unlimited mysteries that it holds within.”
The final map, burnished with the patina of time, was converted by Peck into an actual prop and created the mechanics that make the rings turn in an entirely “practical” manner, with no CGI enhancements. “The inner workings of the map underneath are really beautiful,” enthuses Byrkit, “like a grandfather clock.”
In addition to such poetic places on the map, depicted in Chinese characters, as “Ghosts of Lost Souls at Sea to be Shepherded Through the Watery Passageway,” “Forgotten Sailors Sleep with Eyes Open Dreaming of a Salt Water Death” and “The Rich Man Finds No More Hope of Continued Life-Death Will Always Be A Stairway Behind,” there are also paintings of several creatures both real and mythological on the map, including a dragon, a tiger and another small creature who looks curiously like an early version of a certain undeniably cute little animal who was to become the world's most legendary mouse. But when asked about it, Byrkit just mischievously smiles, and says “There are some secrets on the map that are beyond even my understanding!”
As costume designer Penny Rose is the first to point out, Captain Jack Sparrow's indelible, pirate-bohemian look never, ever changes from “The Curse of the Black Pearl” to “At World's End.” Well, almost never. Because if one looks at Captain Jack's expressive, ever in motion hands, one will notice that in between the first and second films, the rings on his fingers (if not on his toes) grew from one to four.
In conversations between Johnny Depp and Penny Rose, the two decided that Captain Jack has had a few ladies in his day, sometimes very rich, sometimes widowed, sometimes with husbands far away. So every now and then, Witty Jack (as Tia Dalma aptly dubs him) gets into their jewelry boxes and helps himself to, shall we say, a souvenir of their romantic encounter. Then it was up to Kris Peck to supply the actual items, which were carefully chosen by Depp according to what he most felt Captain Jack would care to show off as part of his overall couture.
“The original ring that I wore in “The Curse of the Black Pearl” with the little skulls was one that I found about 17 years ago in a thrift store or something,” recalls Depp of the piece of jewelry which Captain Jack wears on his right index finger. On the wedding finger of his left hand, the good Captain sports a black and gold ring with three diamonds and a floral design, decidedly feminine and undoubtedly one of the pieces of memorabilia of a one night, or two hour stand with an elegant lady of high or low quality (Johnny Depp decided that she was, in fact, a Spanish widow). What Peck calls the “dragon ring,” a large item with a graceful gold dragon, wings outstretched, embedded in jade, is worn on Jack's left index finger. However, in “Dead Man's Chest,” while perusing Tia Dalma's treasures in her swampland shack, Captain Jack considers exchanging the dragon ring for one with a large purple stone in a solid gold base…then decides to stealthily nick it instead, slipping it onto his left index finger, and moving the dragon ring to his left thumb, thus gracing four of his ten digits with elegant adornments.
This purple ring was artfully re-created by Kris Peck from a 2,400 year old original that was actually owned by Johnny Depp until the Fates had their way, and it tragically went missing during the filming of Dead Man's Chest. Seems as if it wasn't only Captain Jack who had a light-fingered touch!
|
   |
Sitemaps, RSS Feeds & Social Networks
|
|||||||
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Check out Feed Central
