Interesting TITANIC trivia  

Good job! Some interesting things about Titanic which I never heard before.

What do you mean by

5. The Titanic was never christened.

Awesome job on this info.

Imagine what it would have been like without celine dion's my heart will go on...
great job!! :-)

I'm glad that My heart will go on was choosen for titanic. I love that song. And every time I hear it I want to cry.....but in a good way lol

The studios wanted Matthew McConaughey, but James Cameron insisted on Leonardo DiCaprio.

Before announcing development of this film, director James Cameron shot footage of icebergs off Nova Scotia under the pretense of making a film called "Planet Ice".

When James Cameron decided to include real footage of the Titanic's remains on the seabed, he did not want to simply shoot from inside a submersible as had been done for the IMAX documentary Titanica (1995). To allow filming from outside the sub, Cameron's brother Mike Cameron and Panavision developed a deep-sea camera system capable of withstanding the 400 atmospheres of pressure at that depth.

The deep-sea camera held only 12 minutes' worth of film, but each dive took many hours. To make the best use of his resources, James Cameron had a 1/33 scale model of the wreck constructed and used it to rehearse each dive. The Russian sub operators would walk around the model ship holding model subs in their hands as Cameron explained the shots he wanted.

12 dives were necessary. On the last two dives, shots were taken by sending a remotely operated vehicle into the wreck; James Cameron had intended using this device only as a prop.

For some wreck interior shots, a set was constructed and submerged.

James Cameron went on the dives to the real Titanic himself, and found it an overwhelming emotional experience to actually see it. He ended up spending more time with the ship than its living passengers did.

Most of the decor on the ship - from the carpet to the chandeliers - was reconstructed by, or under the supervision of, the original companies which furnished the Titanic.

When Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) is preparing to draw Rose (Kate Winslet), he tells her to "Lie on that bed, uh I mean couch." The line was scripted "Lie on that couch", but DiCaprio made an honest mistake and James Cameron liked it so much he kept it in.

In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #83 Greatest Movie of All Time. This was one of the newest entries on the list (from films which were released between 1997 and 2005).

[June 2008] Ranked #6 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic".

The movie's line "I'm the king of the world!" was voted as the #4 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.

Jack Davenport was considered for the role of Caledon 'Cal' Hockley but was deemed too young.

The movie's line "I'm the king of the world" was voted as the #100 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

The scenes during which Thomas Andrews chastises Second Office Charles Lightoller for sending the boats away without filling them to capacity is the only scene in the entire film in which the actors' breath was not digitally added in later.

Was the highest-grossing film in Japan until Hayao Miyazaki's Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001) opened.

First movie to have a budget of $200,000,000.

The engine room scenes were partially filmed aboard the WWII ship SS Jeremiah O'Brien. Smaller railings and catwalks were installed to make the engines appear bigger.

In real life there was concern that the davits might not be strong enough to lower the boats fully loaded, although they had in fact been tested under such a weight. The davits in the film, which can be seen flexing under the weight, were made by the same company as the real-life ones.

Production of the film began in 1995 when Cameron shot footage of the real wreck of the Titanic. He was able to persuade 20th Century Fox to invest in the film by convincing them that the publicity surrounding a real-life dive to the wreck would be really beneficial to the production.

The staircase is not actually technically accurate being slightly larger in the film than it was in real life. This is because people these days are actually a bit taller than they were in 1912 so they would have looked out of place on a staircase that fit the correct dimensions.

The scene in which Rose meets Jack to thank him for saving her life was improvised by the two actors at James Cameron's request, and the spitting scene was almost all ad-lib. Cameron also credits Kate Winslet with writing the heart-wrenching "This is where we first met" line during the final sinking, as well as suggesting Rose spit in Cal's face rather than (as scripted) jab him with a hairpin.

At the departure scene the extras were filmed on a green screen in a parking lot.

A model was used for the ship in the background during the poker scene so the onlookers are missing.

Most of the ocean which extras were jumping into was 3 feet deep.

When the scene where a wall of water bursts through a doorway was first shot, James Cameron said that the 40,000 gallons of water dumped into the corridor set were not enough, and asked for triple that amount. The set had to be rebuilt to stand up under the additional weight of water.

James Cameron was adamant about not including any song in the movie, even over the closing credits. Composer James Horner secretly arranged with lyricist Will Jennings and singer Céline Dion to write "My Heart Will Go On" and record a demo tape, which he then presented to Cameron. The song won an Oscar.

After a sizable publicity campaign was prepared, release was delayed from summer to Christmas 1997 while postproduction (especially special effects) took longer than anticipated.

Production began on September 1st, 1995.

As a result of the additional financing, this became the second co-production between Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox to win the Best Picture Oscar, after Braveheart (1995).

The "full-size" ship exterior set was constructed in a tank on a beach south of Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico. Construction started on the 85th anniversary of the real Titanic's launch - May 31, 1996 (see also A Night to Remember (1958)). To reduce costs, the number of instances of some repeated components (such as windows) was reduced, and other parts (such as the funnels and lifeboats) were built at 90% scale to produce the correct visual appearance. The set was oriented to face into the prevailing wind so that the smoke from the funnels would blow the right way.

20th Century Fox acquired 40 acres of waterfront south of Playas de Rosarito in Mexico and started building a brand new studio in May 31 1996. A 17 million gallon tank was built for the exterior of the reconstructed ship, providing 270 degrees of ocean view. The ship was built to full scale but production design removed redundant sections on the superstructure and the forward well deck so that it would fit the tank. The remaining sections were filled in digitally. The lifeboats and funnels were shrunk by 10%. While the boat deck and the A-deck were full working sets, the rest of the ship was steel plating. Contained within that was a 50 foot lifting platform for the ship to tilt during the sinking sequences, whilst towering above that was a 162 feet tall tower crane on 600 feet of railtrack. This was used as a construction, lighting and camera platform.

All the scenes where there is an exterior sunset shot were filmed at the set in the Baja California, Mexico set.

In the scene where the water comes crashing into the Grand Staircase room, the film makers only had one shot at it because the entire set and furnishings were going to be destroyed in the shot.

In the scene in the beginning where the captain orders full-speed ahead and the shot moves down into the boiler room, the set was really just about three boilers but the film makers had huge mirrors installed to visualize a great big long room. (In this scene you can see workers shoving in coal, and about 20 feet down the room you can see the mirror image of the workers).

The only real decks were the boat deck and A deck, with a facade of plating and lighted portholes completed only on the starboard side. So many lights were required that cinematographer 'Russell Carpenter' commented: "And you walk inside, and 70 miles of one kind of cable and 70 miles of another kind all add up to this Terry Gilliam vision of the telephone company of the 1950s."

Only the starboard side of the exterior set was completed. In the scenes portraying the ship at the Southampton dock, all shots were reversed to give the appearance of the port side of the ship, as it was actually docked in 1912. This required the painstaking construction of reversed costumes and signage to complete the illusion, which was achieved by reversing the image in post-production. One cast member joked, "I wasn't dyslexic before starting this show. I am now."

The entire set was mounted on hydraulic jacks and could be tilted up to 6° intact within the depth of the tank.

To achieve tilt angles beyond 6°, the "underwater" parts of the facade were simply detached from the set and the support structure adjusted accordingly.

After the ship breaks in half, the bow section sinks rapidly. To film this, the full-size set was in fact divided into sections. But the bow section would not sink fast enough, due to its own buoyancy and the narrow clearance between it and the tank. James Cameron observed that once "God's 10,000,000 kW light" had risen they would have to wait until the next night, and suggested sinking the set, letting the air space between the two decks fill with water, then raising the set again and quickly sinking it before the water ran out. This worked.

The detached stern section of the full-size set was moved onto a separate tilting platform which would allow it to be rapidly turned vertical for the final phase of sinking. There were 10 takes, each requiring 100 stunt players to fall from or along the set while 1,000 extras were attached to the railings by safety harnesses.

In some shots the apparent tilt angle was steepened using various tricks such as tilting the camera and horizon.

Interior shots also involved hydraulically tilted sets

I see that this discussion is pretty old but I just ran into it and was fascinated! I knew some of these facts but most are new to me. It's going to make me look into the history of all passengers on any cruise ship I ever get on (if ever) to see if any of them has been involved in multiple other accidents/disasters while on cruise ships. They would obviously be bad luck!

I was born on the anniversary of the day Titanic hit the iceburg so I've naturally been drawn to it. The movie (1997) was awesome and I cried through the entire thing, even though I'm not normally a crier. But, what has me most intrigued is any documentary done about this ship.

Most of what you've posted here, I've never heard before. The part about the novel written 14 years before Titanic's sinking and the striking similarities is kind of spooky.

Thanks for posting this interesting discussion!