James Cameron says he cast short extras to save money on Titanic
Cameron: "Anybody above 5’8”, we didn’t cast them. It’s like we got an extra million dollars of value out of casting.”
Aux News Titanic
Defying, once and for all, Randy Newman’s infamous pronouncement that “Short people got no reason to live,” James Cameron has revealed at least one: Appearing as extras in his movies, to make his sets look extra big and fancy.
That’s per an interview Cameron gave to the L.A. Times this week, as he makes the rounds promoting the new 4K remaster of Titanic. (You can read Cameron’s conversation with our own Matt Schimkowitz, discussing his thoughts on cinematic historical accuracy, Kate Winslet’s ax work, and Barbie, right here.) In the Times piece, Cameron reveals some of his money-saving ideas for Titanic (which he did have, despite the film being famously expensive), including, hilariously, setting a height limit for the movie’s extras.
“We only cast short extras so it made our set look bigger,” Cameron says. “Anybody above 5’8”, we didn’t cast them. It’s like we got an extra million dollars of value out of casting.”
Other cost-cutting measures: Only building one tilted version of the ship’s set, instead of multiple angles—and, out of obvious necessity, waiting until last to film the actual sinking, a massive effects shot the studio apparently fought him on. “The smartest thing we did was do the sinking last,” he says in the piece. “It wasn’t because of strategy — it was simply because you sink the set last because otherwise it doesn’t look so good the next morning when you bring it back up.”
(Also, if you think Cameron is above loaning out his priceless treasures to famous friends or spending time and money proving haters on the internet wrong, the interview includes both the reveal that he let singer Adele borrow the movie’s Heart Of The Ocean prop for a birthday party in 2018, and the fact that the upcoming box set of Titanic will include 2023 NatGeo special Titanic: 25 Years Later With James Cameron, a TV special that seems to have been ordered, at least in part, specifically so that Cameron could grab some scientists and prove, once and for all, that there was no room for Jack to fit on that damn door at the end of the movie.)
91 Comments
Nah. Mythbusters took a fairly good crack at it and they likely would have been able to survive – not that Cameron accepted the results then, either.Simple answer has always been that it’s dramatically stronger for Jack to drown. End of story.
Pedantry corner: did not drown. Died of hypothermia.
Pretty sure you would pass out from hypothermia while still breathing, meaning that Jack did indeed drown.However, my real reason for replying was to add my own pedantic rant to your corner; the one about misusing Randy Newman’s paean against racism/prejudice/discrimination as if it were a sincere criticism of the altitude-challenged. Mr. Hughes, just because a lot of short people were too stupid to catch the obvious satire and protested the song at the time — although, to be fair, I would imagine that the vast majority of those objecting did so because they had been told by others that the song was bad, and not because they had actually listened to it — doesn’t mean that you have to be equally obtuse.
Hypothermia can cause your heart to stop so Jack could have been dead before sinking into the water. His chest was submerged in the water.
“Pretty sure you would pass out from hypothermia while still breathing, meaning that Jack did indeed drown.”You could, but he didn’t. He froze to the door with his head still above water. He didn’t sink until Rose detached and dropped him.
Ah. I guess I would’ve known that if I’d watched the movie.
Weird, then, that you made a statement as unequivocally certain as “Jack did indeed drown.” But that’s the internet for you.
Just wait until he incorporates Newman’s Good Old Boys into an article.
More realistically, he probably lost consciousness due to hypothermia and then drowned rather than dying directly of hypothermia.
His face was above water the entire time.
We don’t know when he died, though. Rose thinks he’s dead, but she’s not a doctor — people without training commonly think unconscious people are dead — that’s why fear of premature burial was a thing before the 20th century and scientific medicine — and even today you occasionally see news reports of people waking up in the morgue often only minutes before they were going to be autopsied.
This is reaching. He was literally frozen to the door, his entire face was white, and he had been in that frozen water for hours. There’s absolutely no reason to believe he was still alive at that point. There’s certainly no reason to think that was more likely than his already being dead.
We’ve said that exact same thing about Jason Voorhees
Counterpoint: We don’t know Rose isn’t a doctor and that she doesn’t have training to recognize that a frozen, unresponsive body is, in fact, dead.
He was blue and not breathing (you could see their breath), then sank like a stone when she pulled his frozen hand off hers! DEAD
Amazing article. Thanks for sharing this
They should have looked at that scene and decided to use a smaller door. They severely underestimated the audience’s attachment to Jack. lol
No, Mythbusters found that the only way that the door could have kept them both dry was if they stuck a bunch of life vests underneath the door for extra buoyancy.
Ohhh, so that’s why the subplot with the Chicago Bulls was cut.
Weird to think the game of basketball had only been invented 21 years earlier.
Only after Cameron tried replacing them all with Muggsy Bogues…turns out, he can’t act.
Should’ve just watched Space Jam and saved some time.(there is only one Space Jam, the hideous, soulless husk pretending to be a movie that bore its name recently doesn’t count)
I mean they got the Quad City DJs to do the theme song, it fuckin slaps!
“It wasn’t because of strategy — it was simply because you sink the set
last because otherwise it doesn’t look so good the next morning when
you bring it back up.”
That does sound a lot like strategy, tho. If I wait to cook my pasta after I’ve made my sauce, because otherwise the pasta will be cold and dry, I feel like I’ve made a strategic decision to not needlessly sabotage dinner.
I was confused on that whole discussion in the article. I mean it’s certainly a cost-saving “strategy,” but it’s also just common sense. I’m surprised it even got a mention because anyone would have already assumed that they filmed the sinking last because why would you destroy your entire set on the first day of filming just to have to re-build it again?
I expect Cameron could actually come up with a good answer for that. Mostly because it costs more.
If you do the big expensive scene early, the money people will get scared about how much they’re spending, and they’ll tighten the purse strings for the rest of the shoot. Shooting the cheaper stuff first means most of the film looks good, then the bean counters are more likely to fall for the sunk-cost argument when you tell them that sinking the boat will cost umpty million, but they have to spend it because it’s all anyone will remember.Also your point about building the set twice.
Scott did the same thing on Alien. From Wiki: For scenes showing the exterior of the Nostromo, a 58-foot (18 m) landing leg was constructed to give a sense of the ship’s size. Scott was not convinced that it looked large enough, so he had his two young sons and the son of Derek Vanlint (the film’s cinematographer) stand in for the regular actors, wearing smaller space suits to make the set pieces seem larger. The same technique was used for the scene in which the crew members encounter the dead alien creature in the derelict spacecraft.
He wasn’t involved with Alien.
Yeah, that was stupid of me, it was Scott not Cameron. Fixed!
Whereas I saw “Scott” and thought “Wait — wasn’t that Cameron?”
Spielberg did it on Jaws. That poor fucking little person.
Casablanca used people with Dwarfism in the last scenes so they could use a scale model of the plane Ilsa and Viktor leave on instead of a full sized one.
No wonder Ingrid had no idea what was going on; “who am I in love with? who am I leaving with? what’s with the little people?”
“One of us! One of us!” they were chanting.
“What the fuck is the Lollipop Guild??”
For every clever Hollywood story about using short people, kids, etc there’s a lot of people behind the scenes that need to make their costuming, hair, and makeup work to fool audiences into thinking these are taller people or adults. Those aren’t free dollars. A lot of movies are saved by the unsung heroes in costuming, hair, and makeup.I remember watching a behind the scenes of a Britney video and she dictates the costume she wants, which took place either in the evening or much later in the day, and the designer/tailor she’s working with promises it to her by 6am the next day, which mean they were working nights or overnight making it. I suspect the union protections for these people aren’t as strong as, say, carpentry for set building where the idea of working all night is less socially acceptable.I don’t have a huge bone to pick with this, but I do wonder if costuming, tailoring, hair, and makeup (often pink or queer coded work thus often underpaid) had more competitive wages then this calculus wouldn’t make sense. Alien is probably an interesting case to analyze through an intersectional and labor lens. It was a bit chaotic, actors complained about overheating wearing these spacesuits in the desert, and according to a Collider article these two children actually passed out, and its only then that ventilation was built into the suits. The famous chest scene was partly surprise to some actors because Ridley wanted “authentic reactions” and didn’t reveal all the details of how big it would pop nor what the xenomoph looked like. Worse, it was covered in real animal parts, that were starting to smell under the hot lights. That set sounds wholly unpleasant.
> I suspect the union protections for these people aren’t as strong as,
say, carpentry for set building where the idea of working all night is
less socially acceptable.
> I don’t have a huge bone to pick with this, but I do wonder if
costuming, tailoring, hair, and makeup (often pink or queer coded work
thus often underpaid) had more competitive wages then this calculus wouldn’t make sense.
I suspect the restrictions on OT for carpentry/etc have more to do with safety than not being “pink-coded”
Short extras don’t eat as much from craft services – this is a no brainer.
And you save fabric because their pants aren’t so long.
And you set your movie in 1970 so you can save fabric by putting women in miniskirts.
But wide ones do.
… cuz they can’t reach the lids of the chafing dishes.
As a short person I can assure you this is untrue.
Still don’t care I’ve never seen this movie. Wish I hadn’t seen Avatar.The Abyss is his ocean movie I prefer.
I watched The Abyss way back when it first came out and found it interminably boring. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for it at the time, but I really can’t be arsed to go back and find out.
I had a girlfriend at the time so seeing Titanic was mandatory. The Abyss is definitely better than Avatar because it has a plot that’s not extremely generic and it doesn’t look like a long video game cutscene.
“I had a girlfriend” is the reason I saw footloose and dirty dancing. Movies your girlfriend/boyfriend made you watch could be an AV club slideshow if not already done.
Seriously!Though also: Jennifer Grey
I had a girlfriend too. She gave zero shits about Titanic, as did I. #notallchicksdigchickflixI’m with you on Avatar vs The Abyss.
Lucky duck!I was happy she only wanted to see it once and wasn’t obsessed about it.
technically speaking you can’t ‘prefer’ the abyss over a movie you haven’t seen. i held off on titanic until last year and was blown away. it’s ready when you are.
I watched Titanic for the first time this year having held your stance for decades. Your assumptions are wrong. It’s as perfect a movie as has ever been made.
This is the correct take. Movies are not novels. The novelty or uniqueness of story isn’t everything. As a piece of pure filmmaking, it’s perfection. I like 348562 movies better than Titanic, but cannot deny the reality of its achievement.
Exactly this. It’ll never make my top 10, but I can’t deny that it’s probably the greatest movie ever made.
First half is a silly romance novel. Once you get to the fireworks factory / iceberg it transitions to a kick-ass disaster movie that actually makes the first half worth it (esp since that half does feature Kate Winslet’s boobs).
This is the correct take.
Plus I left out Billy Zane as one of the best heel villains ever.
The only thing weirder than making your personality the things you watch or listen to or read… is making your personality things that you DIDN’T watch or listen to or read
Everyone who knows their French & Saunders, knows all the extras were ants. They’re VERY short.
Zoolander also use ants as kids for the Center For Kids Who Can’t Read
“Who wrote kinky boots?”
I’m curious how this actually saves money. Did they purposefully build the sets smaller knowing they were going to cast shorties? I don’t think I buy that. Was he otherwise planning to digitally enhance every scene to make the sets look bigger? That seems like it would cost significantly more than a million dollars for a movie that long. My guess is it just “looked like a million bucks,” not that it literally improved their balance sheet somehow.
I’m guessing that they could’ve built the sets bigger to look impressive on film, or build the sets a little smaller and cast smaller actors to make the sets look just as good.
I believe the sets were 85 or 90% of the original full scale plans.
I don’t know about the main levels of the Titanic set, but I’m sure I’ve read before that he cast all short people for the engine room scenes to build that particular set much smaller. That makes sense to me, especially since those rooms weren’t shown nearly as much throughout the movie. A lot to spend on rooms not seen much.
“knowing they were going to cast shorties”Excuse me we prefer to be called People of Extraordinary Height.
Can a person sitting in a movie theater really tell the difference between an extra who is 5’8″ and an extra who is 5’10”? These aren’t scenes with two main characters sharing dialogue. These are background extras with no lines or lingering shots. I just don’t think all of our eyes are that good. This tactic sounds dumb.
People were also generally shorter back then too, right Jim?
Maybe gravity was stronger then, both making the ship sink AND squishing people so that they were shorter?
That explains why the Wright Brothers were only able to fly their plane for 12 seconds like a decade earlier. The Kaiser must have been responsible for global lightening!
The Truth Is Out There! Waayyyy out there!
As a 5’7″ man, I feel like my 21-year-old self missed an opportunity to be in a movie.
I don’t think they’d have let you watch filming of the stateroom sketch scene, so you didn’t miss much.
“so that Cameron could grab some scientists and prove, once and for all, that there was no room for Jack to fit on that damn door at the end of the movie”Then I’ve suddenly become a science denier because THE HELL THERE WASN’T, ROSE.
Noted Door Expert James Cameron says it so it must be true.
Diabolical Canadian James Cameron
How are two people going to fit on that door and stay out of the water?Everyone who has your opinion seems to think it’s a pool floaty in a heated pool. The real thing you’re worried about in that scenario is hypothermia – not drowning.So again… how are they both floating on that door and staying dry?
If she scooted her ass over? That’s all it would have taken. It was wide enough for two people. They didn’t put him on because it tilted when he tried to get on, but, like a pool floaty, it could have righted itself once they both got settled and their weight distributed and they didn’t give that a chance to happen.
Wide enough, yes. Buoyant enough? Unlikely as their combined weight would probably be over 300 lbs. And very unstable, especially given the weight difference laying side by side.
They didn’t try, though, is the thing. The other thing is that there wasn’t that big of a weight difference. Leo was still pretty skinny at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if their weight difference was maybe 30 lbs. Anyway, Mythbusters tackled this and said they could have tied Rose’s life jacket underneath to shore up the door’s buoyancy.Anyway, the claim from the article that was apparently being proven was that there was room on the door, which their clearly was.
A good point, however, that assumes they won’t both get soaked just trying to tie the vest to the bottom in a place that doesn’t capsize the door. Say they try and fail and they both become soaking wet. Fair chance they both freeze. I think the question of “would they fit” leaves out a whole lot of other factors. They do one thing wrong trying and they both get frozen to the door. And with no one to peal them off and let them drift to the bottom of the sea in dramatic slo-mo.
They were already soaking wet. They both went into the water when the boat went down. Remember as it’s sinking Jack tells her when the boat goes under the suction is going to pull them with it, and she should kick for the surface and keep kicking, and “DO NOT let go of my hand.” But she did let go of his hand! They got disconnected for a few frantic moments under water but then found each other back on the surface. So they were both already wet, but because Jack spent all those hours actually submerged in the freezing water it was impossible for him to keep his body temperature up. Rose would have succumbed to hypothermia eventually if left out there indefinitely, but she was able to survive long enough for rescue because she wasn’t in the water.
Ahhh, Ok. I didn’t realize they both fell in the water. I’ve actually never seen Titanic, but I have heard about this debate a bunch. In the context of the movie, it makes much more sense. I would point out though that falling into the ocean in the North Atlantic in the dead of night and lying on a floating door would be just as much a death sentence given that death by hypothermia can occur in as warm as 50 F, dry as a bone. Wet clothes make it far worse. That’s what I was going off of, but obviously a movie is a movie.
Well the next time you have 8 hours to kill, you should check it out. lolI really do think the main thing that bothers most people is that they didn’t even make an effort to get him up there. We’ve spent three hours at this point becoming despairingly invested in their love story, just to get to the end and have Rose be like ope it tilted 2 degrees you better just freeze to death. lol And not just in the movie—there were survivors even in wet clothes in the real life incident, but yeah most of them died because of how long it took help to arrive and it was so cold (the water itself was below freezing). But they didn’t even give poor Jack a chance.
lol – I’m not too cool for school, but it’s just a movie that never once, not even for a minute, held any appeal for me. I was never even curious. I love Terminator and Aliens, though. Also The Abyss isn’t bad.Almost no one who fell in the water survived. It’s pretty well documented that the vast majority of survivors were loaded into the lifeboats before the boat sank. They were all dry as a bone with blankets and other humans to huddle with, etc. Plus it took an hour and half for rescue to arrive. Sure, there were a hand full that fell in and made it, but at those temps, in those conditions it was very slim odds of not dying within a few minutes of falling in, much less finding a nice buoyant hardwood door to cling to.I’d like think if it were me in Jack’s life vest, I would have let Rose have the door, but people don’t really know what they’re made of until something like that actually happens.
we should debate this on Joe Rogan
CGI a mustache on a toddler and, boom, movie magic, baby!
James Cameron invented a shrink ray, made those extras short, then made them pay him to return them to full size after filming wrapped.
You really have to hand it to short people, because they can’t reach it themselves. Hi-ooooooooooo
One of the most boring movies ever, imho.