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Levinson assembled a world-class cast of established stars and exciting
newcomers to comprise the group of scientists and technicians crowded together
on the ocean floor inside the Habitat.
Joining Levinson for the fourth time, following his Oscar-winning role in
"Rain Man" and critically-praised roles in "Sleepers"
and "Wag the Dog," was Dustin Hoffman as psychologist Dr. Norman
Goodman. "I think we share a similar sensibility," notes Levinson
of Hoffman, "and a similar sense of humor as well. He's terrific to
work with, and a very giving actor to the other performers."
Responds Hoffman, "If Barry tells me that he's got a picture, I say
`If there's a part for me, I'll do it.' He's the only director that I'll
do that for. I always envied actors who had that kind of relationship with
a director, like De Niro and Scorsese, or Brando and Kazan. I never thought
I would find that kind of actor/director synthesis, but I did with Barry.
"Most directors have a vision, not only of the film but of each character,
before they start shooting. And then, as they're shooting, they want you
to fulfill that image. Barry is the only director I've worked with who
is fearless, in the sense that he doesn't know what you're going to do and
hopes that you will do something that he has not even thought of. That's
very rare."
Also eager to work with Levinson was Sharon Stone, who admits that she actively
pursued the role of Dr. Beth Halperin, the biochemist who is often in the
eye of the hurricane. "I tortured Barry," Stone says half-seriously.
"I called him. I came up to his house. I acted out scenes in his
living room. It was one of the two or three times in my career where I
felt that I had to do the movie."
For Samuel L. Jackson, cast as the brilliant, often sarcastic Dr. Harry
Adams, it was not only the lure of working with Barry Levinson, but with
Dustin Hoffman as well.
"Dustin is one of those people I've watched for a long time and wondered
what it would be like to work with him, and it's an honor and privilege
to be able to do that," he says.
The other members of the cast were also excited to be working with Levinson
and each other. "Barry's films have a spontaneous, improvisatory quality
that's refreshing and smart," notes Peter Coyote, cast as the hard-nosed
team leader, Barnes. "He's one of those directors who doesn't say
a lot, but when he does, everybody's ears prick up."
Liev Schreiber, chosen by Levinson to portray astrophysicist Dr. Ted Fielding,
says, "I was kind of reluctant at first, because what do I know about
action movies? I've mostly done small independent films about people sort
of looking at each other. But the opportunity to work with Dustin and Barry
was a huge lure. They're both incredible influences on my life."
Also joining the "Sphere" team were recording artist and actress
QUEEN LATIFAH and Bay Area comic performance artist MARGA GOMEZ as, respectively,
Fletcher and Edmunds, OSSA "grunts" assigned to the Habitat.
"Sphere" presented a number of huge challenges to the filmmakers,
beginning with the most basic of all...where to shoot the film? Most of
the story either takes place inside the undersea Habitat or in the murky
depths of the ocean itself. The company could have filmed in the open sea,
but past experiences suffered by other filmmaking companies convinced Levinson
and his colleagues that controlled circumstances in studio tanks were much
preferable.
"There wasn't any room left at Warner Bros. in Burbank," recalls
executive producer Peter Giuliano. "And since a number of military
bases had recently been closed in the San Francisco Bay Area, we thought
we'd take a look at a few of them."
"When we began scouting locations," adds producer Andrew Wald,
"we knew that the only places where they had interior tanks large enough
for what we needed were in either London or Malta, neither of which was
convenient for our purposes. So we looked at the various Bay Area bases,
including the Presidio, Treasure Island and Alameda in Oakland. The Presidio
had been converted into a national park; Treasure Island was occupied by
the TV show 'Nash Bridges'; and Alameda had active helicopter work going
on, which would have interfered with production."
"Then we were shown Mare Island," continues Giuliano, "which
is sort of a filmmaker's paradise. There's great space to build things
in. There's a good labor pool, huge hangars which could be converted into
soundstages, and fantastic cooperation from the City of Vallejo."
Mare Island Naval Shipyard, 142 years old, had only been closed down a year
before principal photography of "Sphere" started. But once the
decision was made to film "Sphere" there, activity thundered back
into the Island. Although parts of at least three movies had filmed on
Mare Island, "Sphere" would represent the first feature to shoot
there in its entirety.
Production designer Norman Reynolds has received six Academy Award nominations
and has twice won, for his work on George Lucas' "Star Wars" and
Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark." But "Sphere"
presented quite a different challenge from the world of pure science-fiction
fantasy. For Reynolds and his team of art directors, set designers, builders
and artisans had to create environments at once original and yet wedded
to some form of scientific reality, or scientific projection into the near
future.
Reynolds worked closely with Levinson on the film's designs, making a crucial
decision early on: the Habitat would be built in one complete "practical"
piece, rather than be comprised of small sections scattered throughout a
soundstage. This meant that the claustrophobic interior of the Habitat,
as described in both book and script, would be truly claustrophobic, not
only for the actors, but also for director of photography Adam Greenberg
and his camera crew. However, it would create an authentic milieu in which
to create the tense human drama and psychological suspense of "Sphere."
Because there were relatively few "flyaway" walls, the director
would often have to work from wooden platforms on either side of the set
with his bank of video-assist monitors, then climb through the labyrinthine
Habitat to work directly with his actors between takes.
Another major set piece was the crashed spacecraft, which was built in two
sections on Mare Island soundstages. One set held the flight deck and the
other contained the mysterious, eerie catwalk that leads into the cargo
bay where the Sphere is discovered.
Reynolds chose to design a vessel both vaguely familiar and otherworldly.
"The catwalk is all very spooky and threatening. I went for big,
simple shapes, odd pipes and ballast, and Barry shot it in such a way that
you don't know where it begins and ends."
The art department was also involved with the design and construction of
the underwater tanks, and particularly the huge Habitat exterior sets built
inside of them, including the "moon pool" that leads in and out
of the facility, the mini-submarine hangar dome and the 50-foot long coral
cave and working airlock that leads into the spacecraft entrance, as well
as ocean floor seascapes.
"We had to build sets that were tolerant of the type of water in the
tanks," explains art director MARK MANSBRIDGE, "which was somewhat
corrosive to aluminum. We used fiberglass, some vacuum form, metal and
paint, which we had to seal carefully to keep the water as clean and clear
as possible."
Reynolds and company also designed two submarines, one for the descent and
another for the ascent, the first a work of pure imagination, and the second
based on a working prototype but "Normanized" for its "Sphere"
usage.
Costumes and Underwater Suits: Form and Function
"I have always felt that I've done my best work with Barry," says
costume designer Gloria Gresham, "and part of it is because he does
interesting projects and allows creative people to do what they do. If
he sees you making a mistake, he'll pull you back, but in general he waits
and lets you bring your ideas to him."
But even Gresham's multiple collaborations with Levinson couldn't have prepared
her for the creative and technical challenges of designing the costumes
for "Sphere," including diving suits and helmets that needed to
be not only aesthetically pleasing and suitable for filming, but totally
functional as well.
To accomplish this considerable task, Gresham turned to BEV MORGAN, probably
the world's most celebrated designer of underwater suits and equipment.
Head of the famed Kirby Morgan Corporation, chairman of the board of Diving
Systems International and creator of the Body Glove line of wetsuits, Morgan
spent six months developing helmets with Gresham and the filmmakers.
In the process, Gresham and Morgan actually revolutionized dive technology
by creating a new type of underwater suit and, particularly, a dive helmet
with enlarged front and side ports. This allowed greater visibility for
both actors and the cameras than any underwater helmet previously developed
for either motion picture or commercial usage. (In fact, before "Sphere"
had even wrapped, Gresham and Morgan were already being approached by several
international navies interested in the new invention).
"We knew the technical end of it and how to make it work underwater,"
says Bev Morgan, "and Gloria had the eye for design and how to tie
it in to what everyone wanted for the film. So between us we came up with
a design, which then went through four or five changes."
In fact, the technological advancements made in the helmet's breathing and
communications systems were a quantum leap over what was previously available,
allowing the actors quieter breathing and easy conversation with Barry Levinson
and other personnel topside, as well as dialogue that could be directly
recorded during the actual filming rather than looped in at a later date.
The entire underwater suit, with the weighted boots, specially designed
backpacks for the oxygen and helmet (which in itself weighed 35 pounds each)
came in at a staggering 175 pounds, a burden which had to be shouldered
by each of the film's stars until relieved by the effect of being in the
water.
It's not every film that requires all of its stars to become certified
divers, but for "Sphere" it was absolutely necessary. Thus, the
cast was charged with becoming expert divers, and doing so in the new helmets
and underwater suits designed by Gloria Gresham and Bev Morgan, under the
tutelage of dive master KRIS NEWMAN and his partner, JEAN PIERCE, overseen
by stunt coordinator Ronnie Rondell.
"We took the cast first through scuba and then helmet training,"
recalls Newman. "We modeled the helmet training on a progressive evolutionary
type of session, first in the Mare Island recreation building swimming pool,
and then in the giant tanks where we would actually be filming."
Newman was surprised by how easily all of the cast members slid into their
underwater roles. "Some of the cast had had previous scuba experience,"
he says, "including Sharon Stone, Liev Schreiber and Queen Latifah.
Samuel Jackson was a champion swimmer in college and was a fish in the
water, as was Peter Coyote.
"And Dustin Hoffman absolutely blew me away from the first day of training.
After two or three hours of working out in the water, which can be very
tiring, he gets out of the pool and pops off about 20 straight-arm pull-ups.
This guy's in fantastic shape!"
Samuel L. Jackson has always had almost as much of a passion for swimming
as he has for acting. "I love swimming and always have," he enthuses.
It's a total blast for me to be able to go down and stay underwater for
45 minutes. And once we were inside the tanks, with the helmets and suits,
I felt totally at ease -- so much so that I think I slept down there one
day for about half an hour!"
Peter Coyote also admits to having fallen asleep in the water during the
filming of the underwater sequences. "We were so surrounded by safety
divers and teams that while the lights and cameras were being changed, there
wasn't much to do. You can't read a book, so, since I spent a long time
in a Zen monastery, I either meditated or fell asleep."
"Sphere" began production on its only "practical"
(i.e. real) location: inside the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, the last of the
World War II-era "Liberty Ships." Built in 1943, her wartime
activities included supporting the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. Now restored
and maintained as a living museum by a volunteer organization, the Jeremiah
O'Brien was sailed across the San Francisco Bay from her usual berth in
the city's Pier 32 to a Mare Island dock. Parts of her interior were temporarily
re-designed by Norman Reynolds to function as the set of the ship that carries
the team of scientists to their Pacific Ocean destination.
Next, the company entered the three Mare Island buildings serving as soundstages
and remained there for nearly the entire length of the shoot.
To the greatest extent possible, Barry Levinson tried to shoot the story
in sequence, building incident upon incident for the sake of dramatic integrity.
"I try to hang on to those little moments that I find very human,"
says the director. "You don't want to lose the humanity amidst the
hardware."
Certainly, the tight surroundings in the Habitat affected everyone's performance,
and how Levinson worked with the actors. "It was very claustrophobic
and difficult," says the filmmaker. "You do get a little nuts,
but that containment was essential to the story we were telling."
At every turn, the filmmakers worked hard to prevent any undue discomfort
to the cast and crew. "One thing that helped a lot was the fact that
for the water filtration, we were using a very sophisticated ozonation process
rather than chlorine," notes Peter Giuliano. "We knew that on
previous underwater films, chlorine proved to be very irritating to the
eyes, hair and skin, and we were able to avoid any of those problems."
Although their work started well before the start of principal photography,
the majority of visual-effects supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun and visual effects
producer TOM BOLAND's efforts were required after the main unit completed
its jobs. Working on the cutting edge of CGI (computer generated imagery)
technology, Okun and Boland were charged to create "virtual sets."
"Had the cargo bay of the spacecraft been built as a 'practical' set,"
says Okun, "it would have been bigger than three football fields.
So, working closely with Norman Reynolds, we created a virtual cargo bay,
as well as digitally creating the sphere itself. That way, we could keep
designing and re-designing right up until the very end, changing the concept
according to the way the story developed while the film was being made."
"Sphere" is also filled with underwater creatures that were created
by the visual-effects team with a combination of CGI and animatronics.
Says Okun, "What Barry did -- and he was very strong on this point
-- was to throw out anything that isn't in nature. What he wanted was to
take natural things and have them act or look slightly unnatural, like the
jellyfish that only has five tentacles. If we tried to sell him on some
supernatural stuff, he'd throw books of deep-sea-dwelling creatures on the
table and say 'They're scarier than any movie monster I've ever seen.'
And he was right."
Warner Bros. Presents A Baltimore Pictures/constant c Production, In Association
with Punch Productions, Inc., of A Barry Levinson Film: Dustin Hoffman,
Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson in "Sphere," starring Peter
Coyote and Liev Schreiber. The music is by Elliot Goldenthal; the film
is edited by Stu Linder; the production designer is Norman Reynolds; and
the director of photography is Adam Greenberg, A.S.C. The executive producer
is Peter Giuliano. "Sphere" is based on the novel by Michael
Crichton; the screenplay is by Stephen Hauser and Paul Attanasio, from an
adaptation by Kurt Wimmer. "Sphere" is produced by Barry Levinson,
Michael Crichton and Andrew Wald and directed by Barry Levinson. It is
distributed worldwide by Warner Bros., A Time Warner Entertainment Company.
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