Also, sharks' jaws actually float in their skulls, giving them a specific kind of motion. So probably our biggest challenge was replicating that speed and energy for those lunges. In that way, most of the time, sharks are somewhat lethargic. “They're always cruising kind of slowly, then they snap and just go with this incredible burst of energy. “The number one thing about capturing sharks is getting their energy,” Conti said in the film’s production notes. The special effects team, headed by Walt Conti-who built Willy in Free Willy and the snakes in Anaconda-spent eight months on the animatronic sharks. We know what they look like, so our sharks had to be totally convincing.” We’ve seen sharks on the Discovery Channel. "This time you’re going to really see them. “My whole approach to this movie was, no more hiding sharks,” Harlin said in DVD special features. The animatronic sharks in Deep Blue Sea were really believable.ĭeep Blue Sea’s filmmakers created its monstrous makos with a combination of visual effects and animatronic sharks. In real life, shortfin mako sharks reach 10 feet on average (although specimens as large as 12 feet have been caught), and longfin makos reach as long as 13.7 feet. "The problem with approaching a shark movie," Kennedy told the Los Angeles Times, "is how do you do it without repeating Jaws?" Kennedy said that in order to “do Spielberg one better,” Harlin made Deep Blue Sea’s makos 26 feet long. Deep Blue Sea director Renny Harlin made tweaks to the sharks to take on Jaws. It was so terrifying that I don't want to remember it." 3. Then this guy yanks the breather off me and the water's churning with blood and guts and stuff. Jane later recounted the experience for Entertainment Weekly : "The first day, I was in a cage, but the next day, they swam me 30 feet down. Thomas Jane, who played shark wrangler Carter, was not thrilled: “I’ve been scared of sharks all my life, ever since I saw Jaws," Jane said in a DVD special feature. But after the shoot at Baja wrapped, director Renny Harlin insisted that the cast head to the Bahamas to shoot with real sharks. There, the cast worked with animatronic sharks and used their imaginations to sub in for CG sharks that would be filled in later. The video posted to Twitter by marine biologist Gavin Naylor of the University of Florida isn't the tagged shark, but a huge female the team encountered on Saturday, June 29.Īttracted by the bait, she is clearly visible in the lights of the submersible as she circles, stirring up silt on the seafloor and nosing the vessel.Most of Deep Blue Sea was shot at Baja Studios in Mexico, where the team constructed sets above the massive tanks that James Cameron built to make Titanic. This sequence was taken by Lee Frey, our multi-talented sub pilot/engineer/inventor who designed the solenoid triggered spear guns for sub-based tagging. More footage of six-gill at 528 meters from inside the sub last saturday. So we may have grouper tag info in a couple of months, unless a sixgill eats it)."įinally, on the fourth night, they succeeded, tagging a large male. Night three: The sharks were back, and we were very excited to deploy the tag, but unfortunately a large grouper came and tagged itself (exactly in the correct tagging position. "On night two, we made the relevant adjustments… but no sharks showed up. Unlike its more evolved relatives, which have five gills, the sixgill's, er, six gills are more primitive - a relic of the Early Jurassic, when the sharks ancestors first evolved. The shark is actually something of a marvel. So a team of scientists sought to do something that's never been accomplished before: tag a sixgill shark in its natural habitat.Ī team of marine biologists led by Florida State University took a trip out to the Bahamas aboard the OceanX research vessel Alucia, to dive in a submersible to meet the bluntnose sixgill on its own turf.Ī blow-by-blow of our evening as we took our (literal) last shot at tagging an animal from a submersible for the first time ever. Since being brought up to the surface can disorient and discombobulate the sharks, the data collected afterwards may not be a true representation of their normal movements. But under normal circumstances, they prefer the darker waters of the meso- and bathypelagic zones (up to 2,500 metres or 8,200 feet deep), coming into shallower waters only under the cover of night to feed. Scientists have managed to bring them up to the surface to tag them for tracking in the past.
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