“We dropped different numbers of balls at different rates, different heights. We had a ramp. The ramps were at different angles, trying to get the most out of the balls as they hit the actors. After doing the tests, we figured out 35 feet above the deck of the ship was the height we needed our nets. We had these three big nets that held almost 80,000 per net. The balls dropped 35 feet into ramps that projected them towards the stunt guys. It just knocked them over. It was pretty spectacular.”
“It’s amazing to see a bunch of 40 and 50-year-olds turn into three-year-olds all of a sudden. Everybody had to pick up blue balls, hit the other guy in the head. It was like, ’Is it time for the parents to come pick up the kids?’”
Shame on me for not clarifying from the beginning, but this set up was not meant to simulate water. This was to help the SFX team animate the part where the sea goddess, Calypso, turns giant in visual call-back to ancient Greek pottery, and then escapes her human body by exploding into a quarter million crabs.
On Pirates 1-3 if they wanted a big wave to go over the boat, they just straight up dumped giant bucket-tanks of water over the actors (they did this to Kevin McNally and Orlando Bloom in the first movie) or blasted the hull of the ship with water cannons ❤
(Some of the white is smoke from the debris mortars firing too)
