The AMCS Activities Newsletter 28, for 2005, had some stuff in the
"Mexico News" section about cave-divers' assisting in the making of
The Cave. (If you don't have that magazine and have read that, shame
on you.) I'm pasting it in below. I've also heard amusing stories from
one of the divers, such as watching the macho hero try to walk across
a stage in full cave-diving gear without falling over. -- Mixon
High Springs resident and filmmaker Wes Skiles knew he had a challenge
before him when he was asked to create sustained fire underwater.
And fellow scuba diver and High Springs resident Jill Heinerth knew
she was in for an interesting time when she was asked to pose as a
white man, a black man and an Asian man.
But she was able to pull off the multicultural transformation, and
Skiles was able to create fire where the laws of nature say it can't
exist as the two local residents helped create Sony Screen Gem's
upcoming movie, The Cave.
"This was much more intricate and involved than what we're used to,"
said Skiles, a world-renowned underwater cave diver and filmmaker.
"We're usually working with the environment and a small group of
people who are experts in their field."
But for Skiles and Heinerth, they were thrown into a whole new world—
known as Hollywood.
"I had originally been promised I'd have the entire cast for three
weeks," said Heinerth, who is believed to be the most experienced
female cave diver in the world. "I hardly got to train them at all."
The plot of the movie revolves around a group of expert divers who
decide to explore a cave in the Carpathian Mountains, in the land of
Count Dracula. But during their exploration, the cave collapses and
then, well, they learn they are "not at the top of the food chain,"
said Ross Ambrose, director of marketing for Karst Productions, which
is Skiles's movie production company.
Although the movie's plot centers around a cave dive in Mexico, almost
all the scenes in the movie come from inside a specially designed,
football field-sized aquarium built specifically for the movie in, of
all places, Romania. [The author has this backwards. See previous
paragraph above, or the following Mexico News item.]
Labor and other costs are far less in Romania than in the United
States, Skiles said.
After the aquarium was built, and before the water was put in, Skiles
and Heinerth got to help design the "caves" through which the actors
and stunt doubles would swim.
In one cave, Skiles had to direct an underwater avalanche, in which
boulders fall through the water, hitting the divers. Skiles used
hundreds of fiberglass boulders, filled with enough sand to give them
weight and a real look while falling underwater.
He even had people on top of the aquarium, dropping in sand and other
material to give the water the look it should have if an underwater
avalanche was occurring.
He also pumped special gas into the water so that when it hit the
surface, a pilot light would ignite the gas and cause a fire on top of
the water.
But creating fire on top of the water was relatively easy, according
to Skiles. Creating sustained fire underwater—now that was difficult,
Skiles said, if not downright impossible. But he was asked to do the
impossible by the movie-makers, who wanted to give the illusion that a
volcano was erupting underwater.
Skiles resorted to special effects to pull off the miracle, using a
combination of red lights, gas, and bubbles to give the illusion of
fire underwater. Skiles laughed out loud when he talked about pulling
off that special effect.
"Maybe I'll use that one back home," he said, referring to the
multiple springs around High Springs.
Skiles laughed again and said that in the aquarium, he did so many
things in the fake caves that he preaches locally not to do in
sinkholes—such as throwing debris down them (the avalanche) or putting
foreign substances in them (such as the gas and other material used to
create the "fire").
"All the things you're not supposed to do, I did," he said, laughing
about the fake caves.
Skiles and Heinerth said they enjoyed working with the actors, who
gave the two High Springs residents a lot of respect.
"They were very good with us," Skiles said.
In fact, many of the problems the actors run into in the movie are
problems that Skiles and Heinerth have faced in real cave dives.
"They knew we were the real thing," Skiles said.
Heinerth said that while she wasn't given much time to train the
actors and actresses, she was impressed with their ability to mimic her
—using diving lingo and acting like, well, divers.
"Their observation skills are amazing," Heinerth said.
The movie-makers continued to ask more of the actors in the underwater
scenes, and Heinerth regularly had to let them know that what they
were asking was dangerous or impossible without much more training.
"I had to constantly draw the line," she said.
She joked that at one point the movie-makers wanted an actor to use a
particular diving mask because his eyes could be better seen. But
Heinerth pointed out that the mask didn't fit the actor's head and was
leaking water.
But that didn't matter to the make-believe world of Hollywood. Style,
not functionality, was important, she said.
"Functionality always lost," she said. "The debate always boiled down
to safety and style."
Because the actors had so little time to prepare, stunt doubles had to
be used regularly, and Heinerth was one of them. She laughed out loud
when she said that she had to play three men—a white man, a black man,
and an Asian man.
There was even a scene where she had to wear a wig to better look like
one of the men during her stunt scenes.
"Ugh!" she said of the wig.
Working on the movie was a great learning experience, Skiles said.
While he has produced several National Geographic-type movies, his
experience with Hollywood was limited.
He said he learned a lot about detailed production and realized how
far he could go on his own with special effects, such as the "fire"
underwater.
And he said he was particularly proud of his team of divers.
"We had an incredibly resourceful team," Skiles said. "They came
together and made it happen." Source: Ronald Dupont, Jr., in High
Springs (Florida) Herald, January 1, 2005.
Hidden Worlds Dive Shop in Quintana Roo, Mexico, recently supported
the filming of a new Hollywood feature film The Cave, which is due to
hit theaters this August.
The film’s executive producers contacted Wes Skiles and Jill Heinerth
to assist them in a Herculean task: to bring the underwater cave world
to the big screen. But in the end, it took far more help than they
alone could offer. Skiles and Heinerth had to get the support of over
fifty of their closest friends to fill out the Underwater Unit in
Mexico. At times, more than eighteen people were underwater, wrangling
cables, setting lights, acting as doubles, and ensuring the safety of
the entire team.
“We knew that we had to go to a place where we had worked intensively
in the past. Few people can handle the logistics and demands of a
Hollywood crew, and Buddy Quattlebaum and his Hidden Worlds Dive Shop
was the only operation that could fill the bill,” said Heinerth.
“We needed to work in a community with lots of local expertise, with
caves that had enough flow to clean up quickly, and in an environment
that was stunning.”
The film traces the journey of a team of rebreather sump-divers
through an adventure in the caves of Romania. During their
exploration, a collapse traps the entire crew, who are left to fend
for themselves while being pursued by a frightening presence.
The bulk of the film was shot in Romania on a series of wet sets that
allowed for spectacular stunts, many of which were coordinated by the
underwater team. Location shooting took place in two cenotes within
Hidden Worlds and in the open water on the island of Cozumel.
Principal actors were trained to use rebreathers in a limited capacity
by Jill Heinerth, but the bulk of underwater action was covered by a
team of stunt doubles trained by Mark Meadows. Brian Kakuk, Matt
Matthes, Jitka Hyniova, Jakub Rehacek, Joel Tower, Jill Heinerth, and
Mark Meadows doubled for the cast of nine actors: Cole Hauser, Morris
Chestnut, Eddie Cibrian, Rick Ravanello, Marcel Iures, Lena Headey,
Piper Perabo, Daniel Dae-Kim, and Kieran Darcy-Smith.
The film is due to be released by Sony Screen Gems on August 19, 2005.
A trailer for the film can be viewed at HYPERLINK "http://www.enterthecave.com
" www.enterthecave.com. Source: Karst Productions.
Jill Heinerth adds: As Technical Advisor for The Cave, I should
prepare myself for years of Internet abuse. It is going to be a really
fun film to watch, but there will be tons that the caving community
will groan and laugh at. Despite all of my objections in many areas,
there will be lots of inappropriate gear and techniques that were
implemented for lots of great reasons, like “We like the looks of this
better.” It’s a good thing I have a thick hide, but I still am
practicing my line: “It’s only fiction.”
---------------------------------------------
He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest
benefactor the world has yet known. - Sir Richard Burton
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