“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)
fireflies lighting up a rural Pennsylvania field at dusk
As a european i sometimes forget furefkied are actually real and not american folklore/cryptids. Like you’ve got friendly little bugs that glow in the dark….. b r uh
(There are fireflies in some parts of Europe but more excitingly there are glow worms in Europe, which are like somebody broke open a green glow stick and spattered lumps of the material on the grass. That solid, artificial-looking green glow is very, very exciting if you grew up with fireflies. Like, it seems reasonable to have little bugs that flash - who hasn’t flashed on a warm summer night? I ask you unanswerably - so it’s cool to witness OMINOUS GLOW DROPS. They look like a dropped magical item.)
(Conversely: If you grew up with glow worms, then bright yellow flashy guys are very exciting. They’re making little patterns! They’re like magical little sprites! Like sparks, going the wrong way! Like a CGI effect!)
There is something here about being glad (not sanctimonious) when visitors and pilgrims are pleased by your local glow.
If this has made you think about your own local glow, you may find this article about firefly tourism interesting. I just ate it all up in one gulp and had a very good time.
I wanted to point out that Nurse Hadley, the woman in this video, is a hospice nurse. This is what people say to and about patients who don’t have long left to live. The fear of addiction and dependence on pain medication is so strong that people deny their literally dying family members proper pain management. You’re never going to please the “but what about addiction” people, ignore them and take the meds you need to function.
Hot queer spaces tip: never trust any spot that has fewer than 2 fat and hairy people present!! You have no idea what other problems the space has if they can’t even meet the bear minimum
