It takes many an eye-patched and wooden-legged man to steer a pirate ship. It takes even more to steer a movie.
Film is alone among all the narrative mediums in its capacity to mobilize hundreds, even thousands of people, for the sole purpose of creating an entertaining story. Extras, cameramen, sound guys, food guys, note takers, not to mention all the actors, the director, and the possibly concerned producer; all are involved in shaping even the most insignificant pieces of celluloid.
A 2005 graduate from the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television and aspiring actor Paul Peglar experienced the magnitude of such undertakings last year when he participated in the making of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (in theaters today). His part was small ““ basically “extra” work ““ but the effort that went into making his part possible certainly was not.
There were even auditions.
“It consisted of us sitting in chairs, staring ahead with a blank expression and looking as nondescript as possible,” Peglar said. “Some people literally came in looking like pirates, or like dead people ““ it was scary.”
The role asked for a pale Caucasian, and Peglar fit the description well enough. He was cast, along with seven others, and promptly sent to the Bahamas for eight days, with free hotel accommodations and plenty of food.
Once there he chanced upon most of the popular actors, who were filming their own scenes nearby.
“It was cool because I got to see Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush and Orlando Bloom … They were filming “˜Pirates 2′ and “˜3′ at the same time. So we actually were told we were in “˜Pirates 2.'”
Arriving on set was also an opportunity to meet with director Gore Verbinski, who graduated from the UCLA film department in 1987.
As for the actual acting work, Peglar spent more time preparing rather than performing.
“We were on the set four (of the eight) days. We were in hair and makeup for three of those four days. And we actually only filmed one day.”
Even on the day of the filming, things progressed leisurely.
“We didn’t end up filming until 5:30 in the morning. We waited around for 15 hours before we finally filmed our scene. We sat around doing nothing, drinking soda, eating food and having conversations.”
After lots of planning, measuring, lighting and other cinematic tinkering, the shoot eventually got underway.
“Our scene consisted of each of us being on our own row boats out in the ocean; we had divers, which we obviously couldn’t see, holding from behind the boat,” recalled Peglar. “We were playing dead people who were in between the living and the dead world, so we had to look kind of skeletal and ghostly.”
It wasn’t just the subject matter that bordered on the surreal. The set itself likewise aimed at evoking a strange and uncanny atmosphere; all in favor of attaining the film’s fantasy-fueled visuals.
“Nothing is real; even if it is real, they’ll go out of their way to make it be not real. Like they had these giant orbs which were probably 20 or so medicine balls-big, which represented the moonlight. And we had these little lanterns on the boat to give us more of a glow.”
But the whole endeavor was short-lived.
“We did two takes and that was it. Altogether the process was 10 minutes. The weird thing about it is that it’s so much work for so little work.”
As disenchanting as the delays and the generalized unreality of the production may be to some, for Peglar, such things only inspire further admiration at the sheer toil and labor that they manifestly represent.
“Once you’re behind the scenes, the magic isn’t taken away, it actually gets more magical,” said Peglar.
“You see a movie and you think, “˜Wow, that’s really impressive,’ but then you see how they do it and all the work that goes into it and you say, “˜That’s a lot of work; people are really passionate about what they do.'”
So this weekend, as you scrunch up inside a packed theatre to sit and watch the final installment of the “Pirates” trilogy, remember that each special-effect shot and each lavishly crafted sequence, battle and background character probably required days (or months) of work to end up projected across the silver screen at the other end of the hall.
And, if the cutting room floor has not been unkind, you might even see Peglar there, rowing under the moonlight.