Hello and welcome to kongisking...
...the internet fan site for the movie we're making, the remake of King Kong.
And I'm here on the set, the first night of shooting.
This is a night shoot, we're just waiting for it to get dark...
and this is the Venture behind me.
I'm in front of blue screens, I'm here in the Wellington Studios.
So, well, it's exciting. About to get started making this movie.
Welcome onboard and I hope you're gonna be following our progress...
as we go through the next few months. Thank you.
So we're on Day 4 of shooting Kong, and we're just doing the scene in the diner...
where Denham is trying to convince Ann Darrow to be part of the voyage.
Very similar scene in the original film.
And so over here is the diner set.
Specials we've got meatloaf at 5 cents a slice.
Tasty.
Sound's rolling.
- Twenty one delta, take one. - Background.
And action.
Vaudeville, huh?
I worked vaudeville once. That's a tough audience.
If you don't kill them fast, they kill you.
I'd love to just introduce you to Naomi Watts and Jack Black...
playing Ann Darrow and Carl Denham.
- Hello. - Hello.
This is the kongisking website.
All right, I've heard a lot about you.
It's actually brand-new.
- But you're about to hear a lot. - It's good to meet you.
I can't believe they get to see me in costume and makeup.
Isn't that, like, forbidden?
Well, it normally is, but we want to let anyone that's interested...
know just a few little secrets.
- You lucky sons of guns. - I love this hat.
This is actually based on Fay Wray's hat from the original movie.
- Pretty cool, isn't it? - I think so.
I think that's probably just a little tribute to Fay.
- Little homage. - Yeah.
Many more to come.
So check in and...
we'll keep putting little snippets on this website from time to time.
Bye for now.
See you.
So this is Day 6 of the shoot, and here in Wellington it's raining...
but we're still gonna carry on shooting anyway.
We've got a scene on the Venture today.
As you can see, the boat's on the parking lot.
I couldn't face the idea of shooting on a ship at sea. I get terribly seasick.
So we built the ship here on the parking lot, on solid ground.
We've got blue screen surrounding it, so that anything we wanna do...
ocean, sky, can just be superimposed in later on.
The scene we're doing today involves Driscoll and Denham walking...
along the side of the ship, having a conversation.
Take the wind up. More wind, more wind.
A little less wind, Peter.
One of the really cool things, if you're a King Kong fan, is this.
Have a look at this.
Isn't that neat?
I've got a feeling this is gonna go on my office wall when the movie's finished...
so don't look for it on eBay...
'cause I think I've got my name down for that. Now that looks really cool.
Now, of course, one of the skills of being an actor on this film is...
to pretend that you're on a ship.
And so Adrien and Jack have been rehearsing their sea technique.
Okay... It's all figured out?
You want us to give you a taste?
Jack's gonna demonstrate for you.
- You're gonna demonstrate, too. - All right.
Okay, so come down here, and we'll just have a look at this.
You have to imagine that the boat's going up and down...
and it's rocking, and the horizon's going up and down.
These guys have got it worked out perfectly.
Okay? And action!
And fluid.
You feeling a bit... A little seasick?
Oh, no, don't expect to eat at all.
That was all right, but I think you need another drink.
- Yeah. - Agreed.
One more drink, and it'll be perfect.
I think that was all right. Okay.
So after the rain of yesterday...
here on Day 7 we're actually inside the studio...
although it's a perfectly sunny day outside. That's the way it always happens.
We're in Studio B, which is not so much of a studio...
as a rather grotty old shed that we use.
Actually, some quite well-known sets have been built here.
This is exactly where Bag End was built for Lord of the Rings.
Then we built the interior of the Venture.
The ship that you saw in the parking lot is just for the outside of the ship.
When you go into the cabins, we've got all of those inside the studio.
Here, it's really quite comfortable.
We're filming some scenes in very tiny rooms today.
It is a bit like being back in Bag End actually.
Doing some stuff in Ann Darrow's cabin, the corridors of the Venture...
people trying to get past each other.
We're deliberately making it narrow, pokey, the ship is kind of run-down.
It's not the most glamorous vessel in the world.
Not the most comfortable bed in the world.
We figured it will take about six weeks to go from New York to the South Seas.
And it's not exactly the sort of place I'd like to spend six weeks in.
But we're trying to get the day finished.
It's 6:25...
and we're supposed to be wrapping at about 8:30.
We've got one more scene to shoot, haven't we, Caro?
- We have got one more scene to shoot. - Caro's our first AD.
And we're starting to get a little stretched about trying to get this done.
But we're going with hand-held cameras.
Come and just have a look at the preparation that we're doing.
Lift it up a tad more, will you?
Lift that roof up a bit.
- Which one? The one I'm standing on? - Yeah, the one you're standing on.
Everyone's kind of going crazy in here. We're taking out ceiling panels...
and trying to get lights to poke through...
because we're going to have the actors down here.
We can pop the ceiling down and get lights in all this sort of stuff...
and everyone's a bit stressed and busy at the moment.
But let's come on through and have a bit of a look.
There's Andrew, our DP, and Reg, our gaffer.
There's Giles.
Everybody's busy trying to get this scene shot. So, anyway...
We'll hopefully get it done.
I need a black up there, too, to stop all this blue light getting in here.
Thank you.
So you just want one of those 650s up?
They walked in there, chat, chat, chat, yap, and then slams the door in his face...
and we're left on Preston.
Here we go please. And action.
Just strike straight ahead, sir.
And cut.
So we got the master shot of that scene done.
We got a couple of close-ups, to do later on...
but at least we got the main choreography nailed.
Very, very difficult little scene to shoot...
but it gives it the mood, working in a confined space.
- Andrew, wouldn't you agree? - Yes, absolutely, Pete.
Rather claustrophobic actually.
It's like the old days at Bag End.
Except the ceilings are a touch higher.
Hey, here it is. Day 105 at Miniatures.
We're shooting mostly trees for the jungle scenes.
This 20th-scale tree would be about 30 feet high in the real world.
- And though we've had to scale down... - Sorry, Alex, we have to go to Main Unit.
It's down the street.
Let's go down to Main Unit, where they're shooting on Day 8...
and see how Carl Denham is handling his movie camera.
And action!
Here we are...
getting ready to shoot an actual shot with this very ancient camera...
a Bell and Howell 2709 from 1916...
which we've resurrected for the movie.
It's exactly the same kind of camera that was in the film.
Mr. Denham here is operating his own camera, as he often did.
Had to learn this magic "three turns a second" trick...
of turning the crank, so he gets a constant speed.
And the trick of it is to do it without shaking the camera itself...
which is really difficult.
If I slow it down I can make it really smooth, but it has to be fast, like this.
It has to be three revolutions per second, or else the characters I film...
are gonna be moving too fast, like Babe Ruth around the bases:
At the speed of light.
Cut! Great.
Hi, my name's Ngaire. I'm the plane spotter.
I sit on top of the hill above Wellington Airport...
and let Caro know if there's any planes coming.
That way, we know when to roll.
Occasionally, we get it wrong.
But not too much.
So the problem is, is that we're speaking, but we got Air New Zealand...
and Air Qantas...
messing us up. I'm gonna have to come back to New Zealand...
in May next year, to do all this again.
That's got that little sucker.
So if the planes weren't enough, tonight we're getting soaked...
by these things.
They're going to spray us with water from a great height...
and we've taken all precautions.
Which means we've got a plastic bag over the camera.
We're on the Venture and we're supposed to be...
in the middle of a storm...
so we're trying to create a feeling of boat movement.
Everyone's having to move like the old Star Trek days...
falling sideways.
But once you get fans and wind and...
We're doing it with handheld cameras, trying to keep it a very busy time.
The actors, unfortunately, are having to get drenched.
So they're spending the entire night being wet, freezing, and cold.
I'm sure it can't be much fun.
I'm so cold right now.
At least I get to go into the dry cabin and...
I don't get wet at all.
I told you so. Know what I mean?
It's fun to watch. You cut the stuff up, and you put it with these...
All the visual effects, we're gonna have crashing waves and big ocean...
Stormy seas outside here, and it's gonna... I'm sure it'll look pretty good.
Are you cold?
I think I peed in the wetsuit.
You peed in the wetsuit? Well, don't tell anybody.
- Okay. - And nobody here will... Just...
So, here we are on Day 14...
and we're inside some animal cages.
And, unfortunately, because they're animals...
we have to deal with the very unfortunate subject...
of waste matter.
And I'm very sorry to introduce the toilet aspect to this video diary.
I feel very embarrassed to do that...
because obviously we want to keep this as artistic and highbrow as possible.
Nonetheless, the art department have had...
a very difficult mission to accomplish this week...
to prepare for this scene.
Try this quick quiz.
What do camels eat?
To make sure that we got good-looking poo...
we went and did some research.
So I've got the Various Animal Manure reference folder.
So we just headed round and researched up at the zoo...
and got a whole lot of references of animal droppings and things.
So, yeah, this really is doing what our idea is of some camel poo.
I'll probably get the job to do the Kong poo now, if they like this stuff...
which'll be huge.
So, this is Tony's fabulous poos...
that I'm butchering.
Could do with a bit more salt.
All right, so outside the other day, you saw a camel poo.
We've moved on.
Now on to the big cats.
A bit of tiger poo going on here.
I just had Jan, the producer, around with some kids...
and they were all gagging.
I thought, if I can make the producer gag, then I'm not doing too bad, am I?
What on earth have we got here?
Look at this crap.
Oh, yuck!
I'll have the doggy doos.
Or shall I have the mouse poops...
or the big turdy bits...
or the really sloppy muddy turds?
No, thanks.
Andrew, you haven't got a shot, have you?
Yeah, I've got a shot of the poo.
We should make it, kind of, go all of the way into the cage...
like it sort of dribbles out the side of the cage here...
not the edge of it, because of the thing.
I think we should, obviously, leave a bit of a clear space around here...
Just kind of have it around here, but this is going to work, Simon.
There's little bits of straw and stuff, make it look like it's old.
It'll look good in 3D, actually.
3D. 3D poo.
Smellavision.
- Hello, fans. - Hi.
We're gonna be dumped on by the dump tanks.
What are these dump tanks?
Those ones over here mate. See those...
The derricks got water in them. See what I mean?
Oh, right. And so?
When the water comes down and comes and lands on top of you...
and makes you quite a lot shorter. And wetter.
Shorter and wetter.
I can't really get where you're going. Who do I talk to?
So it's day 16 and we're continuing the storm scene that you may have...
seen a little bit of the other night.
But the difference tonight is that we have dump tanks.
These are these things that are behind me which contain...
I don't know, hundreds, thousands, of gallons of water.
They're basically big buckets that we release...
and they drop this huge slew of water over the ship.
And, of course, over the actors.
The idea is to simulate the storm.
This is a little bit further than just the rain that we were doing the other night.
This is kind of the sea smashing against the side of the Venture.
So we're gonna have these things going and instead of using stunt people...
we're actually gonna use our actors tonight.
They're all standing around, I think, terrified...
'cause they don't quite know what's gonna happen.
Anybody feels worried about anything at any time, simply yell out...
to me. Call my name very loudly.
Sorry about that plane.
And safety at all times.
Danger's my second name. Stephen "Danger" Hall.
I live in danger, fear, and pain.
I say, "Come in, danger, sit down, put your feet up, have a cup of tea.
"Relax. Stay a while."
- So, Jack? - Yes.
The idea here is, we're gonna dump water on a couple of stunt guys...
so you can watch and see what the damage is.
- Okay. - So you know what to expect.
All right, cool.
I don't understand this dump tank thing that you keep talking about.
Action!
Looks like Mr. Jackson's mounting a one-man invasion.
Damn!
I got hit right in the...
Have you ever had so much fun in water with your clothes on?
I can think of a couple of times.
- Yes, I know. I'm sure. You're young. - Yeah.
We're into Day 18 today on the shoot and it's the second day for our dump tanks...
putting the waves up over the boat.
The dump tank's basically consisting of huge boxes of water on pivoting cradles...
at the top, that we can release from ropes at the bottom...
or even up on the tables.
These are their firing mechanisms.
We have a safety pin in all the time when the tank's full.
When we're ready to shoot the safety will come out.
The pin will come out when it's ready to fire.
The ropes pull back and it fires the tank.
The wave's created by a kicker at the bottom of the dump tank...
which we alter the angle on to either make a wave coming out steep...
or at a shallow angle.
Set the kicker up and you got a higher wave that will go right up over the boat.
Flatter angle for not so much. So it's all totally adjustable.
We have three dump tanks at the moment. We're running around about 8,500 liters...
on three platforms ranging from nine meters down to six meters.
It takes about three minutes to fill each tank.
The least one of these tanks is 1,000 liters, so that's a ton.
And we've got bigger ones below us, and they're about a ton and a half.
We're running fairly small dump tanks compared to...
a lot of the overseas movies which are able to build them in the studios...
with big, fixed steel towers. We have to keep ours on portable towers...
'cause we're moving them around all the time.
We have in the past used tanks the size of shipping containers...
where we've dumped 120,000 liters of water in one hit.
So there's... If you've got the facilities, no limit to what you can do.
So basically that's the anatomy of the dump tanks.
And hope we get in another successful night of wave-making. Cheers.
So here we are on Day 20.
We're finishing off our dump tank sequence tonight.
So I thought today would be quite fun to give you an overview...
of other things that are happening on the production...
because, of course, while we're here shooting this sequence...
the art department have to prepare...
for scenes that are coming up in the near future.
There's a huge number of people working very hard at the moment...
to get ready ahead of us.
It's like laying the rails in front of a steam train...
that's bearing down behind them.
And we're basically building sets, big sets...
for the next three, four weeks worth of shooting.
We're at the village wall on Skull Island.
In the old movie, you may recall, the gates through to the jungle...
where Kong comes bursting through. So...
That set in there with the steps and gap...
that's where we're putting our gates. That's where Kong's going to...
come in to the village.
We're forging it here under extreme pressure.
We'll have it ready for shooting in five weeks.
The real pressure was just the time.
The set that we're building for some of the jungle...
with some cliffs' faces that we need, is gonna be shooting in about two weeks...
two-and-a-half weeks, I think it is.
Today, it's not looking remotely finished.
So we have 14 days to finish this set.
It's a huge action scene here...
lots of business on Skull Island...
and we'll be working 24 hours a day for the next 14 days...
to get the set finished. So, it's gonna be a bit of fun.
We're having a few problems.
There's a shortage of containers in New Zealand...
and containers are the building blocks...
of these big structures that we make...
and for some reason, there doesn't seem to be any left in the country.
This boat here, which is a fake boat...
is being replicated on a real boat.
The Louis here is a boat that we purchased six to eight months ago...
and we designed The Venture to fit on that superstructure.
So the design of this boat is actually based on the real boat...
that we bought first.
It's like putting the cart before the horse. And then, we are now...
turning our real boat back into a fake boat.
And then, when we've secured the whole thing and painted it up...
we'll take it to sea as The Venture.
We've had to build a huge new concrete sound stage that...
We've actually just been building the sound stage...
and building a set inside the sound stage at the same time in order to get it ready.
This is Kong stage.
We're building this specifically for the Kong movie.
We're building a set inside because we can't wait for the studio to be finished.
We're shooting in here in a week and a half. So...
You know, it's just... Even after your film-making...
There's all these pressures everywhere.
Here on the set, we're just waiting for our actors to arrive...
trying to get this finished tonight. There's one form of pressure but...
there's a lot of other people who are desperately working...
trying hard to get their departments sorted out, ready for us...
to arrive on the day that we're supposed to be shooting.
And action!
So here we are on day 22.
We're inside our tiny little sets on the ship.
And we've got John Sumner, over here, playing Herb, the cameraman.
Kyle Chandler's playing Bruce Baxter.
Hello.
And this is the mess in the galley of the ship, The Venture.
The best person to give you a tour of the galley...
would actually be Lumpy the Cook.
Well, I hope Lumpy gives a better tour of the galley...
than he does preparing the food.
Hello. What are you doing here? Who said you could come in here?
What're you doing here? This is my galley.
This is my private galley, my domain...
and if anybody wants to come in here, they have to ask me.
So what do you want?
Oh, I see. You want a little tour, do you? Right, okay, come on in.
Right.
Well, we've been at sea for quite a while now.
We're running out of veggies. This is kind of what we've got left.
I'm probably gonna have to make something like a fricassee...
or something out of these.
As you can see, they're a bit dodgy, but...
but we'll sort them out, don't worry.
Yeah, I'm saving that for, you know, a special occasion.
I mean, the thing is, the secret about cooking on board...
you can get away with anything, right? You just gotta make it taste nice.
So I always add things whenever I can...
and the crew...
most of the time can't tell the difference between good or bad food.
So I take differences with cheese...
like, they're used to the consistency of cheese, so I...
tend to get a piece of soap...
and mix it up with egg whites, put it out in the sun...
add a little bit of prune juice to it, soak it...
marinate it out in the sun...
and it comes up this nice kind of smoky flavor.
It was rather beautiful.
Well, no, that's the secret of the job, really.
'Cause you don't have the best things to cook with.
However, now I've collected these spices from all over the world.
These come from Africa, India, Asia, Mexico...
Bolivia, and of course... I met this bloke in Mexico...
and he gave me a whole stack of walnuts and I've got hundreds of them.
So, at the moment, I tend to be quite walnut based with my cooking.
Yeah, see, Choy hasn't done his washing up.
Someone hasn't finished their dinner.
I mean, see, that's a waste. That's what I call waste, you know?
I mean, this ain't all that bad. That's a lot of vitamins in there. So...
I'll have that.
See, that's one of the nicest... That's a swordfish pie with walnut.
And...
That's really... Do you want some?
Jim is our medical officer.
So, a lot of the young sailors, when they first come on board...
haven't got a clue. They stand in the wrong place...
they get the ropes strapped round their legs...
and, of course, you know, sometimes these come in handy for a quick amputation.
Other things, yeah.
We did have a couple of sailors obviously die on trips and all that.
I'd do the embalming...
of the bodies and we give them a nice burial, we chuck them off the side...
and all that. So, that's all right.
And, that's about it, really, innit?
I'm gonna have to relieve myself. So I'm gonna head over to the...
to the little boys' room.
So, this is the sacrosanct place of the entire vessel...
where you can pamper yourself, make yourself feel a little bit jolly.
Take a nice relaxing bath.
If you shut the door and turn on all the taps, you can get a little bit steam going and...
get yourself clean. And people do that every month or two.
This doesn't actually work at the moment. The flush doesn't work very well.
So it does get a little bit on the smelly side...
but we all grew up with that.
This soap is something that I made again with raisins and...
odd bits and pieces. People wash themselves with that.
They like to clean themselves up every now and then.
I don't know why, though.
And if people want to fancy a little bit of entertainment...
we've got a big stash of these.
I sell these as well...
which I'll get when I go on shore. I find out all the local shops...
that sell this kind of literature.
There's some very... There's some quite nifty stories in here.
And...
Very nifty stories, actually. Very nifty indeed.
And so, I'm gonna actually have to...
say goodbye to you at this point...
and I'll see you later on.
This is a slate that we're using in the movie.
And as you can see, it's a Denham picture.
It may be a Peter Jackson film...
but it's a Carl Denham picture.
So this is the slate we're using for King Kong...
and it's an important part of the production.
It syncs up our sound and our vision.
And roll sound.
Speed.
Shot speed.
62 Alpha, take two, "A" marker, guide track.
The part of the slate that's important for the sound department is...
the verbal ID of what actually, what shot it is...
so that when it comes down to editing...
they can actually sync up the correct sound slate with the correct picture tape.
The clap is because, it's maybe the only bit of applause...
that the actors will get for their takes.
So they give them the clap before so they don't have to get it afterwards.
In case they don't.
- "E" Camera is on a 20 mil. - Yeah.
- Roll number E283. - Yeah.
"B" camera on 40 mil, roll number B152.
Okay, so we'll go to Bravo.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
See you.
That's a daily occurrence...
times 100.
They'll come and tell me they've changed lenses or they've changed rolls.
Usually they may have changed lenses with regard to a new shot...
so then I give them a new slate number.
Basically, I get the slate information from Victoria...
which is the scene number...
which I log onto the board with a marker pen.
Very simple technology.
As we move through a scene...
And action!
And cut!
...each shot will be nominated an alphabet letter...
which will just basically differentiate which part of a scene we're shooting.
We'll start off with "A," Alpha...
as it's conventionally called.
Assassin, take two.
62 Bizotten, take one.
57 Catchier, take six.
Delinquent, take one.
Denial. Derelict. Diablo.
Decomposed. Destruction. Decay, take six, "A" and "B" markers.
And the main difference between this and the ones that they have now...
is that now, you clap it up here. Clap! You know?
But here, you, like...
It's really primitive technology 'cause you clap it like that...
but you could easily get your fingers caught in the...
The other information that I've put on this slate...
which is mainly for people who watch at rushes and the editors, is...
a lens tag.
Say for example I'm on the 20 mil for this shot.
So I'll put a 20 mil tag on there.
It's a visual effects shot...
which means there's gonna be something done during post-production later.
I'll have a visual effects sticker on it...
and that just makes it easier again for the editors to compile this stuff.
We've been shooting a lot of wet-weather stuff, so...
it's really hard to write in marker pen...
or to write anything basically when your hand is wet all the time.
So we've devised a system where...
we put numbers and letters on a slate.
Another thing we use also is...
a little tag to just, to indicate which stock we're on.
Also the roll number.
Our "A" camera at the moment, which is what I'm on is...
in shot five...
on 285.
This is where we generate the information.
So if it's wrong, it's wrong all the way down the line...
and that's problematic.
Because we're here to make it right.
When they've got the clapper there...
it is a great time to make faces at the camera.
To make everybody laugh in the dailies.
So here we are on Day 27, and we're on the deck of the Venture...
in the middle of some fog.
And those of you that know the story of King Kong will have some idea...
what the significance of the fog is.
We're actually doing a scene that we did an animatic of.
That's an interesting experience because I've lived with this animatic...
for two or three months now and it's really kind of ingrained in my head.
Today Peter's gonna be shooting...
Jack and Ann on the Venture set.
And before he can go and shoot them...
we have to do a previsualization so that we can work out what needs to happen.
Let's just copy what these little guys do.
You know, it's like you've got an acting teacher here on the screen.
Right.
The basic concept behind previs...
is a small group of people working very hard...
to help Pete plan out his film.
He turns over the feeling of the action and the choreography he wants from the scene...
and we'll go through several revisions, blocking it out in 3D animation...
and then he'll start asking for shots.
All right, well, let's just experiment with it and try it.
We go through that process until we have an animatic...
and it basically gives everyone a really good bedrock...
for the sequences that are going to be in the film.
That's that crane shot we took of that building...
and that's the over-the-shoulder we took of that building.
And they fall into each other's arms.
It's been just a terrifically powerful tool for Pete...
and has actually replaced storyboarding.
- And that's exactly what you want? - Exactly what we want.
I mean, yeah. You just don't want too much emotion.
This little tug, I love the squeals, I love it.
When we're working on previs...
we don't want to spend too much time working on the human characters...
because they're gonna be either acted out on the scene or animated later.
And they don't define the cameras a great deal...
which is what we're really focused on with previs.
So we tend to keep them really simple.
You put the emotion in later, like, in a computer?
Well, yeah, the computers can do anything. We can do anything later.
So don't... No reactions?
I mean, just see that... I mean, just show me that face.
The incredibly strong tools for us has been motion capture...
It's a good look.
...and we're all dressing up in spandex suits...
and putting little balls all over us with a bunch of infrared cameras around...
and put it into the computer in 3D so we can go out and act out scenes.
Pull the handle!
That's a lot of hard work.
But it's fun, though. Pete's been giving us a lot of flexibility.
And in fact, in some ways we've actually designed this film for him.
Okay, now blank it out. Blank, robotic...
You can copy this, here we go, and action!
Good, the jerkiness. Yes, it's good.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
It's good. Excellent. That brought tears to my eyes.
Exactly like this. It's fantastic.
- Really? - Yes, thanks, guys.
- Feels a little stiff to me. - No, but it's the modern world.
- Yeah. - You gotta get used to it.
- I mean, this is the future of filmmaking. - Really.
Welcome to Windy Bay. Pete's nice and warm and dry in the studio.
The guys are out here trying to get ready for him.
This is the man-made part of Skull Island.
Man-made 3,000 or 4,000 years ago by an ancient culture who've since died out.
As you can see from the rock forms...
not natural rock forms but hand-hewn and placed.
So, pretty much a part of the culture of Skull Island.
What we've got here...
these are our polystyrene paving slabs.
What we did was we poured concrete, we laid in layers of polystyrene...
thin layers of polystyrene, shaped them to get the rock shapes.
The idea here is to lay a slurry down with cutouts of pavers and 40-nil poly.
The reason we're going over it with a blow torch...
is to take away the hard edges so they don't break when people trample over them.
And basically just get a movement on each individual paver.
And then a coat of concrete to get enough strength.
And then a little paint, and the sand, a bit of dressing.
What I'm doing here is making the base parts of the rocks...
which are going up on the walls outside.
This part is just the polystyrene carving.
Once the rock is carved with a saber saw and knives...
shaped up, which is then all glued, cut back...
then that goes up on the wall.
And that's really the sort of...
the basic building block of what we're doing here.
This is our stunt rock.
What we do is we take a cast of real rock, we use that as our mold...
and then we pour or spray foam rubber in...
and when it sets, we're left with a softer rock...
but very much true to the original rock form.
So, rock shape, rock form...
but you can roll on it and you don't break your elbows.
Well, here we are at Whidbey Point.
It's great to be outdoors.
We've got a view of the ocean...
grass underfoot.
We've got the sky.
It's really good for all of the crew and cast...
to get away from Stone Street.
People were starting to get...
a little bit crazy.
So here we are on Shoot Day 33.
Interesting number because the original Kong was made in 1933.
And, after 32 days of shooting...
it's the very first time we've shot anything outside of our studio lot.
The construction boys have been...
surviving out here for weeks and weeks...
building these sets in the wind.
Just about every day it's been blowing.
And the film crew came out here, and it's...
serenity.
We're on a set, but we're also outside in the real world.
- I know, the first time you're out. - Combo.
We had no room in our back lot to actually put a set like this...
so, this was a convenient space.
As you've seen on these video diaries...
everyone's been working around-the-clock over the last week or two...
to get the set built.
It turned out to be a little bit more elaborate, I think, than what we quite imagined it to be.
Just doing a bit more finessing.
Trying to get the mosses and dangly things off the vines...
Just trying to break those up. They're not quite convincing.
Just general detail.
We've got dripping water here to give a dripping look on the set.
We're doing wet-downs and everything prior to shooting, as well.
Of course, one of the problems with locations...
is that you're at the mercy of the weather.
Which is why they're actually quite scary.
Ten minutes ago, we were here in the sun.
I was thinking of getting my jersey off.
Now, I'm thinking of getting my raincoat on.
There's a southerly front about to hit us.
I won't need my drippers.
It's all going to happen naturally.
I'll be out of loot, but I don't mind.
There's some serious rain in those clouds.
It was a beautiful morning...
about five seconds ago, wasn't it?
Hold me close, Scotty.
Hold me close.
I'll protect you.
It's sunny over there.
That's right. Why don't we go over to Stone Street and shoot?
There you go. There's no rain over there, is there?
And within half an hour of arriving, it started to pour with rain.
But fortunately, it was just a brief shower...
and we managed to get most of our shooting done okay today.
Beautiful. Beautiful.
Yeah, that's it. That's the money.
Oh, yeah.
It was good to get outside...
good to get a bit of UV rays.
I'm sure we're all going to be a bit healthier at the end of today...
after being stuck in the studio for nearly a month.
And I look forward to carrying on, on the set.
The art department have done a fantastic job.
A lot of people have worked very hard.
You know, it's a real credit that it's going to look so good on film.
Action!
Today is day 36 here on the set...
and it's not a very happy day for us.
It's disturbing.
There's a guy named Gandalf...
who's been taking unauthorized photographs...
of the set and the people, and it's just freaky.
I can't believe that Gandalf would do that to me...
not after everything I've done for him.
Motion pictures like to have a level of secrecy...
but with Kong is King, as you've seen...
we've shot a bit of behind-the-scenes stuff...
Hello. What are you doing? Who said you could come in here?
That doesn't seem to be good enough for one guy in particular...
who's going by the name of Gandalf.
And he still feels the need...
to scurry through the bushes and creep along in the dirt.
We're gonna go find...
Can you just sort that out?
- Yes, I can. - Thanks.
We've got a spy.
Gandalf is his name, and he's...
I just wanted to know, where do you reckon...
he's taken these photos from?
He stood right here.
There it is.
Sorry, I'm just a bit paranoid today, Andrew.
More so than normal.
I'm gonna go hide under the tent.
Go. Go. Go.
Jack's very concerned about this intrusion into privacy...
I think we all should be, and I'm just a little bit worried, too.
It's hard to concentrate.
I mean, you could be scratching your bottom...
or picking your nose, or doing something unpleasant...
when he's taking photos, and that's not a good look.
Be careful, Pete.
Be careful!
He's right there. We've got him. We've got him. Let's roll.
Get down! Get down!
When we got here, he was gone.
Just like that. This guy's quick.
Bloody Gandalf!
Do you see him?
I don't know. It's hard to say. He could be hiding in the bushes.
Blast his eyes. Blast his eyes!
At the quarry... The hill.
Gentleman in a white skier...
taking pictures.
He's raising his staff!
- What? - He's raising his staff.
He's raising his staff?
- Is he going to blast us? - I think he's got a telephoto lens.
I wonder if this is how the Balrog felt.
This is pretty freaky.
Okay. We're going to have to go across to the set now, Jack...
and I want you to go as fast as you can, okay?
- Okay. - Have you got any...
I'm gonna serpentine.
All right. Three, two, one.
Go! Go! Go! Run! Run! Run! Run!
Gandalf the White.
Follow that.
Go get him.
No way.
Not this time, you big gray...
Sam, look!
You can't get away this time.
Did you see?
You have gotta be kidding me.
Why do they always use their powers for evil?
You know what I mean?
And action!
No!
Stop!
Gandalf!
Pete's gonna be pissed.
So here we are on day 40.
This is the parking lot where we had The Venture...
way back at the beginning of shooting a few weeks ago.
We've now taken the ship away and built what's effectively a big swimming pool.
This particular scene is a swamp scene...
and the guys are building rafts and pedaling along.
Fans of King Kong will remember a very similar scene in the first film...
and we're doing something along those lines.
We're shooting in the swamp today, yeah.
And, I think we've got everything ready.
It was sort of based on some concept art work which had been going on...
for quite a long time.
It's really... Gus' work actually that sort of we honed in on mostly.
Big close up thumbs-up.
It's been a very difficult one to make because it's just got so many elements to it.
We're in the wet set. We'll have the best part of a meter of water in here.
We used gabion technology...
which is what they use for shoring up river banks basically.
I mean, the thing's sitting on a car park.
Gabions, they're wire baskets full of rocks.
That's the base that we used for our pond.
And as you can see, it's relatively watertight...
and holding the 1.8 million liters of water...
that we've got in the pond. So...
hopefully, it'll all stay together.
We want this to look like a swamp, and so before we start rolling today...
we're gonna be putting a lot of scum and slime...
and duckweed along the surface of it.
I'm the scum god.
It's just like a polystyrene swath, like...
just scraped off and ground off. A couple of guys just went hard out...
for a couple of days. Just turned themselves into snowmen.
Basically end up with, yeah, bags of it.
And then we had to color it all in concrete mixers.
It does take a while for the color to come through, but eventually, you get...
beautiful pond scum.
Beautiful.
All the scummy goodness of pond scum.
And, of course, we couldn't just go and get dirt and make it into mud.
We had to make hygienic mud.
This is wallpaper paste and sterilized peat, basically.
It's good for footprints, you know, you can make shapes with it.
So we've had to sort of develop our mud that's not going to stain the water.
And yet still, sort of have all the other physical attributes of mud.
I intend to take this tree here...
and you see where we got all the roots, all these interesting roots here...
just rotate it round and bring it in a bit and so it'll tangle all these roots.
We've designed this gigantic big swamp tree in the middle of the swamp.
This is our tri-tree, we call it.
It's a three-piece tree, we can configure it so that it's one tree...
or it's three individual trees or one-and-a-half trees.
Two minutes ago, it was just one tree...
but now, we've pulled it apart into three individual pieces...
and I guess over the next few days it's going to go back to one tree again, maybe.
It's weird looking at this because...
it doesn't really look like anything at the moment.
Of course, where the blue screen is, there's gonna be more swamp trees...
and eventually a distant jungle.
Of course, we have conceptual artwork which helps us visualize...
what the finished product's gonna look like.
So we're basically just looking to get our live action bits...
with the actors on the rafts...
and then a lot of the picture of the swamp, the overhanging trees...
then there's the wildlife in and around the swamp...
all that's gonna be added later on, post-production, with the computers.
I don't care what that guy says.
I can't see how you're gonna make that blue screen into a jungle.
Today we're shooting a sequence where the sailors are having to shoot...
at something in the swamp.
I can assure you it's not butterflies that they're shooting at.
But they're using their guns.
I got these earplugs in.
And Pete's, like, giving me direction. I can't hear a damn thing he says.
At all!
I'm trying to lip-read, though.
I think I'm getting most of it, Pete.
I'm sure he's going to use the earplugs every day now. With or without guns.
Eight guns firing. It's a lot of noise.
Eye protection, ear protection, face protection.
I'll still get shot through the heart, mate.
But you're to blame.
Of course, in the original movie, you may remember...
the sailors were shooting at a brontosaur.
I think it was probably the only carnivorous brontosaur in the world.
But there's this wonderful scene of the brontosaurus tipping the raft over...
and staggering out of the swamp after the sailors.
The original brontosaur from 1933...
still survives and is very close by.
We actually have the original model of the brontosaurus here with us today.
This is the stop-motion brontosaur that was built.
And as you can see, it hasn't stood the test of time very well at all.
And the only advantage with it being in such a bad state...
is it actually allows you to really study, and see the way that these models were made...
back in 1932.
A lot of it is made of steel.
And the armature forms the basis of the stop-motion puppet...
Obviously with the ball-and-socket joints.
The cotton was then wrapped over the armature.
You can still see the bits of string that attached it, and bits of wire.
They used some wire mesh netting to pad the creature out.
And there's actually evidence of the football bladder...
that was used for the breathing.
And then on top of that was, finally, a rubber skin.
And the rubber skin is largely calcified, and, in fact, disappeared.
And what's left is incredibly brittle.
There's actually a couple of shots...
at the beginning of the brontosaur scene...
that was done with a mechanical brontosaur head...
rising out of the water. It wasn't stop-motion animation like this model.
And we actually have that mechanical one over here as well.
This was not an animation armature. It was a little mechanical wire rig...
that when the head of the brontosaur comes out of the swamp...
this is what rises out of the water, with the water drops dripping on it.
Surprisingly small-scale actually. Tiny.
Which sort of explains, in the movie, why the water seems so big...
and out of scale, when it sort of drips from the neck of the creature.
But they just made this much of it...
because all they needed to do was to have it sitting in the water of the swamp.
You know, with the water coming up around its body.
So this is all that exists of that creature.
You can actually still compare it with the photos and recognize its little head.
Of course, the irony is that today we don't have miniature dinosaurs anymore.
They're all going to be computer-generated.
But these are the dinosaurs that inspired me when I was eight, nine years old...
and I saw King Kong for the first time.
So after 72 years, it's just amazing to think that...
they're sitting here right in front of us.
An amazing piece of film history.
I just found something out that really pisses me off.
I looked at the website "Kong is King"...
the other night, and it has me listed as 5' 4" tall.
Which is bull... Okay? I'm 5' 7"...
and, after yoga, I'm 5' 7.5"...
and I don't know who is responsible for it, but I'm gonna find out. Today.
Okay, this is a good example.
- We're about the same height. - Yeah.
I wanna find out what they said you... How tall they said you were...
because I believe they said he's 5' 8".
- Yeah. - And I'm 5' 4". What's up with that?
Are you really 4 inches taller than me?
Jack's not very tall. I mean...
I think he wears those... You know, those heel supports.
Don't tell him I told you, but I don't think he's very tall.
It's not that I wanna be 5' 7.5". It's that I am 5' 7.5".
5' 8" if I've just been doing yoga.
I don't know how many times I have to say it.
It's pretty sad how such an innocent comment...
has really taken Jack's eye off the ball.
Yeah..."Taste of it." What is it?
- "We can all have a piece of it." - "We can all have a piece of it." Sorry.
For a long time, he was giving a really good performance...
but recently, he's become a different man. He's lost a few inches.
I don't wanna affect the working atmosphere...
but that's affecting my work atmosphere. That's affecting my work atmosphere.
When they put lies like that in the Internet...
for everyone to see, that affects my working atmosphere.
- Telling... Okay. - The grips have just brought you this.
There you go. There's your... Just jump up there to sort things out.
That doesn't help me. That doesn't make me feel better.
No, I like to think this 5' 4" thing is pretty accurate.
I reckon it's pretty accurate, because I'm 5' 10".
And even if he's not 5' 4", he acts like someone who's 5' 4"...
which is, really, probably what they're referring to.
Okay, well, I'll be in my trailer until this is rectified.
All right.
I do yoga, you know.
It stretches the tendons and the muscles and the bones. Everyone knows that.
Makes you taller.
- I've been thinking a lot about it. - Yeah.
And I don't know if this is... If these are period...
but I really think these would be good for my character.
Okay, all right, yeah. Well, I mean, so long as we don't see them...
- I guess it doesn't really matter. - Okay.
Should we make it like your trousers are long...
and your trousers drag on the ground so they hide the shoes?
Yeah. No, I don't really... It's just the feel of them.
I feel more "Carl Denham" when I wear these, so...
Is that extra two inches that important to you?
It's not the inches.
It has nothing to do with inches. It has to do with the feel of... For the good of the film.
Thank you, though. I'm glad that you're okay with it.
That's Carl Denham in a nutshell.
You can laugh, but I think these are right for the character.
- Absolutely. - It's not really about how they look...
- it's more about how I feel. - Right.
- And they do make me feel more... - Like Carl?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Carl the filmmaker. - Thank you. I'm glad you see things my way.
- Sorry. - It's okay.
Sorry, Mr. Black.
No problem. No problem at all. How are you?
- I'm fine. - Good to see you.
Oh, yeah.
And just remember, everybody, sense of speed and urgency, please.
And action.
And cut.
That's good. Jack's so much better.
- Hey, Jack. - Yeah?
- That's good, mate. Much better. - Oh, good.
We're just gonna do one more for luck.
I felt good on that one. Good.
So it's day 48 and we're in the jungles of Skull Island.
Not particularly spectacular on set.
This is like a kitset jungle, or a build-your-own jungle.
But, of course, the real jungle is gonna be appearing on the blue screen.
That's where all the spectacular stuff is and...
you know, have a look at those little orange markers on the blue screen.
They're critical to the process.
Right, well, that's because there are holes in the screen.
And they're just to cover them. They couldn't find any blue gaffer tape.
Well, actually, they're not dots, they're squares.
It's to keep a guy named Malcolm Angell employed.
Tracking markers. What we're doing is creating a virtual camera...
which mimics the movement of the real camera.
And we use that for any computer-generated portions of the shots.
So with the computers tracking the camera movement...
the combination of the miniatures and real footage...
is gonna be used to create the jungles.
Jeremy Bennett and Gus Hunter, two of our conceptual artists, have been working...
for well over a year on creating looks for our Skull Island jungles.
Once the artwork's approved it goes to either art department to build the set...
or then goes down to, ultimately, miniatures who produce the mid-ground elements...
and sometimes the background elements...
before you have the digital map out on the deep distance.
The beauty of working in Photoshop here, using photographic garments...
is that the amount of information we can convey in the paintings...
proves to be very, very helpful to Alex Funke.
When we start, the production illustration just gives us the basics.
How big things are, where they are, what kind of trees they are, things of that kind...
but it also contains all the details that Peter has seen and...
has developed maybe over a number of paintings, things that he really wants to see.
The beam of light coming through here.
The fact that the distant trees are gradually fading out into the smoke.
How much smoke you see here compared to how much smoke you see here.
What kind of plants are growing on this little rocky section.
All these things we can get just from looking at this painting.
One thing with conceptual art is that often the art looks amazing...
but you can never actually recreate it on film.
So I was very determined that our conceptual designs for our jungle...
were actually achievable because, you know...
I didn't want art that got us all excited...
and then we couldn't actually get that look on film.
So earlier this year we instigated a series of tests where we took...
the art that Jeremy and Gus had done and we really tried to...
recreate the look of the jungles on 35 mil film.
There's the painting of the log they're working from, here's the real log.
Very, very small, 20th scale. So what we had to do...
after the live action was shot of these guys walking over sandbags...
was to match the contours of that ramp...
to the contours of this 20th-scale miniature log.
So all these little ups and downs are actually...
little ups and downs in the sandbag pile.
Now there's a lot of other layers.
If you look from the back there, this is not the actual relationship.
There's another piece, that's a mid-ground piece...
it's a bit of tree, it's this piece right here...
that's this coming down there, so this we actually shot in a series of layers...
the reason being, we want to put different amounts of smoke in it...
to make it look like it's getting further and further away.
So it's a very evolutionary process and a very exciting one.
Once each piece is shot...
then that is scanned in, in digital...
and hand-loaded into the compositor.
What we're essentially doing is trying to build all those layers...
and try and recreate Jeremy and Gus's vision as close as possible.
So we actually have quite evocative test shots...
that won't be in the movie but they certainly represent the type...
of shots that we're looking to achieve in the finished film.
So here we are on day 51...
and it's our first day of shooting at the Skull Island wall.
It's gonna be a spectacular set.
As in the original film, I wanted the village...
and the wall to have been built by the hand of some ancient civilization.
And, of course, the Skull Island population that occupy it today...
are not the people that built this.
The people that built these structures have long since disappeared for whatever reason.
Probably something to do with dinosaurs and big gorillas, I suspect.
And it's now inhabited by a much less sophisticated group of people...
and they are the people that obviously take Anne...
and sacrifice her to Kong.
Even though this set is very close to our studio base...
just the fact that it is a location up on a hill...
it poses all sorts of complications for the unit and we have...
a tremendously hard-working unit team whose job it is...
to make sure that we can just show up...
get out of our cars, walk on the set and start shooting.
And for me that sounds simple, but for everybody else it's been an enormously...
difficult logistical and planning exercise.
So now we're on King Kong instead of Lord of the Rings...
and we're still setting up again!
The responsibilities of a unitllocation manager are...
mainly, we'll start with locations, is setting up the location for the crew...
to come in and work.
Basically when we started on this location there was a field.
It just had grass, a bit of gorse, a few little shrubby bushes around the place...
so we come in with some graders...
we took up all the topsoil and then we bought on a whole lot of base course.
All the grass had to go and we had to get all this stuff here...
it's just shingle and dirt, really...
Just looks like a normal shingle road now.
It was a nice green pasture at one stage.
That enabled the art department and that to bring all their machinery in...
and put the containers up, do all the scaff work and get the set ready.
Once we start filming, the unit's in charge of looking after the crews.
Today we've got four shuttle drivers which might increase to six...
moving crew from a parking area to the location...
'cause there's diddlysquat room on the location.
Since 6:00 this morning...
half a dozen of our transport boys have been down here...
prepping all the trucks, getting them all warmed up...
and traveling them back to Crawford.
The camper is one of our vital trucks that we have to get up on site first...
because we need to have it powered up for the batteries...
This is us.
Up top there, we had to sort of...