'Pirates' Of Singapore? Details From Un-Caribbean 'At World's
End' Set
Behind-the-scenes masterminds talk about sequel's Asian influence,
shaking Keith Richards' hand.
by Larry Carroll
BURBANK, California When last we saw the Pirates of the
Caribbean, things weren't looking too good. Captain Jack Sparrow
had been swallowed whole by a giant sea monster, Will Turner and
Elizabeth Swann's romance was on the rocks, and the evil Captain
Barbossa had once again risen from the dead.
But judging from a stunning visit to the set of the third movie,
"At World's End," things are about to start looking much, much
better (see "Keira Knightley Could Tell You About 'Pirates 3,' But
She'd Have To Kill You"). "I think you'll notice right away that
we're not in the Caribbean any longer," Rick Heinrichs, the
production designer for all three movies, beamed last year from the
set, which doubled for Singapore. "We're on the other side of the
world."
"Welcome to Singapore!" chimed in visual-effects supervisor
John Knoll, looking over the small fishing town of cobblestone
roads, precarious bridges and wares-selling huts. "This is a set
that we spent two-and-a-half months building."
The wicker-and-water set is the primary location for "World's End,"
which sails into theaters May 25. In the film, the pirates travel
to Singapore in their quest to find the literal end of the world,
save Captain Jack and reclaim the Black Pearl. First, however,
they'll need to grapple with Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), the
Pirate Lord of Singapore.
"It was a lot of fun for us to research and come up with a new way
of telling the story of pirates and what a pirate looks like in
1720s Singapore," Heinrichs said. "There's not much documentation
about it. It's different shrubberies, Chinese and southeast Asian
architecture, and so we came up with this Chinese/Malaysian
mélange."
"Although we didn't have a direct reference from Singapore in the
early part of the 18th century, we did have other stuff from the
19th century, the early 1800s, photographic-type research," Knoll
added. "Singapore, anyway, is kind of at a crossroads in Southeast
Asia, with many different cultural references. So we have
Indonesian, Malaysian and Chinese it's a melting
pot."
But when most people think pirates, they imagine peg legs, parrots
and pointy hats not rainforests, roundhouse kicks and sticky
rice. It goes without saying, then, that the new locale will result
in a decidedly different pirate tale.
"This set is designed for an action scene right here, when all heck
breaks loose," Knoll grinned like a proud papa, looking at the
3-foot-deep water and the narrow bridges hanging over it. "The
Chinese pirates, our pirates, and the East India Trading Company
troops all converge and fight, and people fall in the water and
things get blown up."
Looking over at a small shanty, he added: "That's a fireworks hut
right there, so I don't even need to tell you what happens to
that."
The set was reinforced more than any of Knoll and Heinrichs'
previous "Pirates" structures, in order to contain the
quasi-kung-fu fighting that breaks out when all these enemies
engage in their 17th-century Mexican standoff.
"We're not doing the Hong Kong high-wire stuff," Heinrichs
cautioned. "There's no 'Crouching Tiger,' but we have a lot of
Chinese influence in there ... that dictated how the sets were
built. ... Our sets were built to withstand quite a bit of
violence."
Once the sets were constructed, the stars came to play. On the
afternoon we visited, director's chairs could be seen for all the
major stars except Depp; Keira Knightley and Chow-Yun Fat shot
scenes in a closed-off "bathhouse" just a few feet away. But,
according to Heinrichs, even the on-set A-listers had stars in
their eyes when a rock legend showed up to film his cameo.
"Everybody wanted to meet Keith Richards," he remembered. "But
there was a policy thing. It would have been a big distraction.
Still, everybody was trying to walk past his trailer, and I
actually got to shake his hand the guy is such an icon."
Heinrichs didn't get to speak with the Rolling Stones guitarist,
but he said that's just as well because he wouldn't know how to
begin the conversation. "I wouldn't really know what to say to
him," he shrugged. "When you actually meet a hero, it's a little
difficult to just say, 'How's it going there, Keith?' "
The production designer was thrilled to create several "period"
guitars for Richards to play (including one with a sea turtle's
shell) and said that the crew was in awe while watching Johnny Depp
and his "dad" play pirates.
"They're very talented, these pirates," Heinrichs grinned.
This report is from MTV News.
Link