production notes

PRODUCTION NOTES
DEEP
DANGEROUS
DETERMINED
JAMES CAMERON’S
Copyright 2013 WIGHT EXPEDITION FILMS PTY LTD
Mild themes and
infrequent coarse
language
www.deepseachallenge3d.com.au
©2012 National Geographic photo by Mark Thiessen
IN CINEMAS ACROSS AUSTRALIA FROM AUGUST 21
1
DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D
There are places on Earth with no human history or memories, as remote from us as a distant
planet. The deep-sea trenches are such a place. The deepest points on the planet, shrouded in eternal
darkness, are home to an ocean’s worth of scientific mysteries waiting to be solved. Now, after years
of painstaking work, a team of visionary engineers led by National Geographic Explorer-inResidence and filmmaker James Cameron (“Avatar,” “Titanic”) has built a submersible that for the
first time allows humans to visit the deepest part of this hidden world. It’s an astounding feat of
technical wizardry, comparable in difficulty to landing a man on the moon.
DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D recounts the personal journey of Cameron and members of his
engineering and science team as they prepare to make history, fulfilling lifelong dreams in the
process. For Cameron, it is a journey told from within, with all his hopes and fears and dreams and
frustrations laid bare. Based on a series of deep-ocean expeditions he undertook, DEEPSEA
CHALLENGE 3D is a unique and personal look at the multiple-Oscar® winner. It offers a glimpse
into the passion he shares with the mission’s scientists to better understand our world. And it shows
what drove him, Ron Allum (co-designer of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER sub), and an international
team working in Australia, to take on the seemingly impossible task—in the end accomplishing what
major institutes and governments could not.
To say that exploring the mysteries of the ocean has been a lifetime pursuit for Cameron is
no exaggeration. His interest in diving began when he was a child, inspired by the “Undersea World
of Jacques Cousteau” TV specials of the 1960s and ’70s. He was scuba-certified at 16, in a time and
place (a village in rural Canada) where diving was hardly a common activity. Real ocean research in
the 1960’s, the work of medical doctors experimenting with human beings breathing liquids, inspired
Cameron’s writing of a short story in high school called “The Abyss.” The story, only a few handwritten pages, described researchers diving deeper than anyone before them, who are lured,
ultimately to their deaths, by the call of the unknown in a deep-ocean trench. The story became the
nucleus for Cameron’s 1989 underwater epic movie of the same name.
Science and exploration are the primary goals of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition.
But even more importantly, the film aims to inspire audiences by demonstrating the limits of the
possible, and to remind us all that we do not live in a post-exploration age and still have much more
to learn about our own planet. DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D will entertain audiences with the thrill
of true discovery, the allure of the unknown, of new life forms, of vistas never before seen by human
eyes—right here on Earth. And hopefully it will inspire young viewers to become scientists,
engineers and explorers themselves, or at least to value and appreciate those who do commit their
lives to science and to giving the rest of us a true understanding of the natural world.
James Cameron is Executive Producer of DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D, and also the
expedition leader, submersible co-designer and pilot. DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D is directed by
John Bruno, Andrew Wight and Ray Quint. The film is written by Andrew Wight and John Garvin.
Andrew Wight and Brett Popplewell produced the film. Jules O’Loughlin ACS and John Stokes ACS
were directors of photography. Music is by Ricky Edwards, Brett Aplin and Amy Bastow; and the
editor is Jane Moran. The executive producers are Lisa Truitt, Maria Wilhelm and Mikael Borglund.
An Idea is Born
Delays at sea, like other obstacles, can be opportunities in disguise. In 2002, filmmaker and
National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence James Cameron and crew were returning from a forensic
study of the wreck site of the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic when they found
themselves in possession of a rare luxury—time on their hands. The Russian vessel that carried them
was not cleared to enter port until ten days later than originally expected.
“I had nothing to do but go through all my Bismarck footage and sit and talk to the
engineers,” Cameron recalls. “One of the topics that came up, and I don’t remember if I initiated it or
not, was the idea of a full ocean-depth vehicle.”
2
In exploring the wreck of the Bismarck, Cameron and his team had dived to depths of 16,000
feet in Mirs - two Russian-designed submersibles intended for scientific research. The deepest part of
the ocean, the Mariana Trench, was more than double that, at nearly 36,000 feet.
“I thought, 16,000 feet—that’s not even half of full ocean depth,” Cameron says. “What
would it take to go all the way? And I think I posed that problem to the engineers on board with me.”
He didn’t realize it at the time, but this was the birth of the idea that would eventually develop into
DEEPSEA CHALLENGE.
In making “The Abyss,” Cameron consulted with many of the members of a small and
exclusive club—the highly specialized community of deep-ocean explorers. It included the likes of
Robert Ballard, who discovered the wrecks of the Titanic and the Bismarck; Sam Raymond, who
founded an undersea systems and equipment company called Benthos; Phil Nuytten, a diving
industry pioneer and deep-ocean explorer who provided submersibles for “The Abyss”; and a
consultant on the film named Don Walsh, who in 1960 made the first descent to the bottom of the
Mariana Trench in the U.S. Navy bathyscaphe Trieste, along with Jacques Piccard.
“Coming out of ‘The Abyss,’ I kind of knew everybody, because when you start talking
about deep-ocean exploration, you’re talking about a very small community,” Cameron says. After
making “Titanic” Cameron set foot down the path of deep ocean exploration himself, ultimately
leading seven expeditions — three to the wreck of Titanic (in 1995, 2001, and 2005) during which he
made 33 dives to the wreck, one to the wreck of Bismarck, and three to hydrothermal vent sites in the
Atlantic, Pacific, and Sea of Cortez. For these expeditions Cameron commissioned and co-designed
unprecedented deep-sea robotic vehicles, 3D camera systems, undersea lighting, and spooling fiber
optic telecommunications systems.
So when Cameron floated the idea of building a full-ocean-depth vehicle, he knew a few
things about deep-sea engineering. The technology had come a long way since the groundbreaking
descent of the Trieste, which he describes as essentially “a big steel balloon using gasoline for
floatation.” After Walsh and Piccard’s single triumphant dive to the bottom of the Challenger Deep,
the US Navy never again sent another human down to the world’s deepest spot. Designing a new
vehicle from scratch to survive the awesome pressures almost seven miles down would be a daunting
task. For all the advances in sub technology since the time of Trieste, Cameron knew that much of it
would be irrelevant for what he wanted to do. Designing a sub that could withstand the crushing
pressure 36,000 feet down would mean pushing against the absolute limits of material science.
“We’ve got new materials now,” Cameron says. “We’ve got titanium. We’ve got glass,
ceramics, syntactic foam. What could we do now and how would we do it and what would it look
like? I just became intrigued by the problem. And then notebooks started getting filled with ideas.”
A Radical New Design
During the following three years, Cameron and Australian engineering manager Ron
Allum—one of the men aboard that ship in 2002—teased out a rough concept for a full-ocean-depth
submersible. It would take some radical departures from previous designs, such as the structural use
of syntactic foam—a composite material consisting largely of hollow particles called
microballoons—to save weight. For ease of launching, the goal was to keep the sub under ten tons—
heavier than the Deep Rover submersibles Cameron owned and operated, but less than the Mir subs,
which topped 18 tons and were very tricky to put in the water, especially in rough seas.
A major design innovation was the shape of the sub. Instead of the traditional horizontal
shape, it would have a vertical form-factor, traveling upright like a seahorse and steering via thrusters
located at the mid-point. This made sense because the sub would spend far more time traveling down
to the ocean floor and back up to the surface—a 14-mile round-trip—than it would moving slowly
along the ocean bed looking for interesting animals, bacterial mats, rock formations, and so on.
“We needed to be optimized for vertical flight and less optimized for the horizontal portion
of our trip,” Cameron says. The vehicle was designed to be fast and stable in vertical travel, and
ultimately reached seven knots coming up from its Challenger Deep dive.
Perhaps most surprisingly, considering the frequent use of ROVs in deep-ocean exploration,
the design called for sending an actual human being down in the sub.
3
“A free-swimming vehicle with a human being in it is still a powerful paradigm,” Cameron
says. “Maybe not for 1,000 feet. Maybe not even for 10,000 feet of depth. But if you want to go
down 36,000 feet, which is beyond the limit of most tethered systems, it’s a really efficient way to
get a lot of work done, because you’re actually operating the human consciousness there, in situ.”
Cameron also took into account the impact on the public imagination, comparing it to the
difference between sending an unmanned vehicle to a distant planet, versus sending a manned
vehicle. “All seven billion people on the earth can’t go to all these places,” he says. “But if one
person goes and they bring back the story, then everybody goes in spirit. So if you want to draw
attention to the need for research in the deep oceans, and the fact that there are still unexplored places
here on planet Earth in an age where people think everything’s been explored, this is how you do it.”
Destination: Mariana Trench
Located in the western Pacific Ocean between Japan and Papua New Guinea, the Mariana
Trench is a 1,500-mile-long gash in the Earth’s crust that is nearly seven miles deep at its deepest
point- the Challenger Deep near Guam. That makes it the deepest part of the world’s oceans—far
deeper than Mt. Everest is high, and the equivalent of the cruising altitude of a commercial jet.
For Cameron, there are a number of important scientific—and philosophical—imperatives
for exploring these depths, from discovering new life forms, to learning more about undersea
earthquakes and the tsunamis they cause, to learning more about how changing ocean currents affect
our weather, and thus our food supply. In the future, he says, a distributed network of sensors
throughout the oceans could provide insights into these and other phenomena.
But for all these potential benefits to humanity, we know next to nothing about such depths.
Nor, prior to the development of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER sub, was there any functioning
technology capable of taking people that deep. All the more amazing to Cameron, these deep ocean
trenches collectively cover an area about the size of North America. One goal of the DEEPSEA
CHALLENGE project, therefore, was to draw attention to the oceans and to the lack of funding for
exploration and science in general.
“More money gets put into space exploration than into the oceans by several orders of
magnitude,” Cameron says. “The ocean is the biggest component of our life support system here on
Spaceship Earth. And we’re destroying it faster than we are understanding it. That’s a real tragedy.”
With that in mind, Cameron says National Geographic was an ideal partner for the
expedition, having always stood for the spirit of exploration and curiosity, as well as global
stewardship. Watchmaker Rolex also sponsored the expedition. Cameron celebrates the fact that the
overall project was completely nongovernmental and broadly international. The two teams that
eventually built the specialized submarine were based in Australia and the United States, and
included nationals from Canada, the UK, China, France and South Africa.
“We weren’t there to plant a flag for any nation,” Cameron says.
A Vertical Green Torpedo
It was not until 2005 that the process of designing the full-ocean-depth vehicle officially
kicked off. Cameron describes the final design he and Allum came up with as a “big, green, vertical
torpedo” with a “lower pod” at the bottom for instruments such as a manipulator, lighting boom,
camera boom, and a weight-release mechanism designed to jettison 1,200 pounds of ballast to
facilitate the sub’s speedy return to the surface. To make it easier to manage the construction of the
sub, this lower pod was treated as a separate fully integrated subsystem and assembled by a team in
Silicon Valley. The rest of the sub, including a steel sphere that would house the pilot, was built in a
tiny shop sandwiched between a plumbing supply wholesaler and a plywood outlet in Sydney,
Australia. Later, the lower pod and the main structural beam of the sub were mated at the shop in
Sydney.
The process of building such a revolutionary vehicle was fraught with challenges and
setbacks. “We hit, I would say, four or five hurdles that we thought were showstoppers,” Cameron
4
says. Case in point, the high-strength syntactic foam the team hoped to buy commercially to build the
subs body failed stress tests. So the team spent a year and a half coming up with their own lighter,
stronger foam, creating a small in-house factory to make what they needed.
The team also took great pains to forge and machine the 2.5-inch-thick steel hemispheres to
make the pilot-sphere, only to find that the weld material failed stress tests. They were unable to join
the two halves of the sphere until Allum designed his own weld material and tested it to ensure it
could withstand the 16,000 pounds per square inch (psi) of pressure in the deep ocean. It was the
same story with the thrusters, the casings, the bearings, the battery modules, and more—all had to be
designed from scratch and made in-house in order to be sufficiently pressure tolerant.
“There was nothing off the shelf we could use,” Cameron says.
To tackle the many problems that arose, the teams would meet for several hours each week
via teleconference from Cameron’s home in Malibu. Tapping into what Cameron calls “group
genius,” somehow they always found solutions. Allum, for instance, was a great problem solver.
“He thinks so far outside the box that, from where he’s standing, he can’t even see the box—
which is the kind of mentality you have to have on this kind of project,” Cameron says. “A more
experienced team would’ve just stopped. But we didn’t know what was possible and what wasn’t, so
we proceeded to do the impossible. It’s really about attitude. If you think you can do it, you can do
it.”
And do it they did. Cameron recalls the “pinch-me moment” when the sub was complete.
But, he says, until it dove beneath the surface, even one foot, it was nothing more than an expensive,
11 1/2-ton “piece of sculpture.”
Final Testing … and Tragedy
After some white-knuckle moments during launch, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submarine
made its first humble dive, tethered to a float and only three feet underwater, motoring around at
three knots near the pier in Sydney harbor.
“It just took off, and everybody was amazed because it actually moved quite fast and was
very nimble,” Cameron recalls with a laugh. “So all of a sudden we thought, wow, guys, we’re really
engineers! We really did this!”
But many more hurdles lay ahead—including by far the most difficult of all—as the team
raced to complete final tests and adjustments to the prototype. With Cameron piloting the sub, the
team gradually ironed out one wrinkle after another in progressively deeper test dives in Jervis Bay
south of Sydney, in the Solomon Sea off Papua New Guinea, and off the island of Guam in the
western Pacific. They overcame glitches with the communications system, overheating in the pilot’s
sphere from all the electronics on board and, during one of the deepest test dives, every system on
the sub going haywire due to an errant line of computer code.
On top of that, with Cameron due in London in late March, 2012 for the premiere of “Titanic
3D,” the team was forced to race the clock as their window for the Challenger Deep dive was eaten
away by launch delays due to rough seas. But nothing prepared them for the tragic loss of two key
team members—Cameron’s close friend and expedition leader Andrew Wight, and underwater
cinematographer Mike deGruy—who died in a helicopter accident on their way to film aerial shots of
the sub during a test dive.
“It was the worst day of my life,” recalls Cameron, who rushed to the scene as soon as he got
news of the crash. “Andrew and Mike were both very dear friends. I just felt like I’d been kicked in
the stomach. And when I was there at the scene, I thought, the expedition’s over. I just didn’t see
how we’d have the strength to do it.”
But ultimately, the team and the wives of Wight and deGruy agreed that the expedition had
to go ahead—that Wight and deGruy would have wanted nothing less. Somehow, the team managed
to rebound.
Finally, after seven years of research, design and testing, it was show time for the DEEPSEA
CHALLENGER.
5
Into the Deep
At 5:15 a.m. local time on March 26, 2012, after launching off the research vessel Mermaid
Sapphire and overcoming last-minute glitches, Cameron was finally ready to take the DEEPSEA
CHALLENGER down to the deepest part of the ocean.
In addition to its scientific goals, the dive blended Cameron’s passions of filmmaking,
technology and deep-ocean exploration, as had his work on “The Abyss” and “Titanic.” It was his
groundbreaking 3D work on “Avatar” that gave new impetus and energy to the current 3D trend.
Earlier in his career, he developed a digital 3D camera system with engineering partner Vince Pace
and, in order to explore and film the wreck of the Titanic, he developed revolutionary deep-ocean
lighting and photographic technology. Many of these innovations now came together again, with
divers wielding 3D cameras as they circled the sub, and the sub itself equipped with 3D cameras,
lights, and three video monitors.
Encased snugly inside the 43-inch-diameter pilot’s chamber, Cameron gave the go-ahead to
the team to release the sub, and it began a rapid descent, quickly leaving behind the divers.
“It was going like a bat out of hell,” he says. “It seemed like just a few minutes and I’m
going past Titanic depth. Then I’m going past Bismarck depth, 16,000 feet. Then I’m going past
20,000 feet, which is the deepest the Mirs can dive. Then I’m going past the deepest any sub on the
planet, other than our sub, can dive.”
As the sub fell, Cameron worked through a checklist of tasks, which he completed at 27,000
feet.
“I still had 9,000 feet to go, and everything just stopped and it got really quiet,” he says.
“Then I saw a glow and there was the bottom. I trimmed the sub to make it neutrally buoyant and
came down to a gentle landing. And I just sat there and thought, ‘Here I am. Seven years and all that
engineering and all that struggle —and it worked.’ ”
Knowing he would switch into analytical mode during the dive, Cameron had made a point
of writing on his checklist, “Stop and look out the window.” He did.
“It looked like a parking lot covered with new fallen snow.” It was a flat and featureless
plain of mud. “We’re talking pretty much the bleakest place that I had ever seen in the ocean.”
Other than tiny amphipods flying around in the water like snowflakes, there were no visible
life forms. Certainly there were no large animals.
“It’s fascinating to see when you’re at the absolute edge of life’s ability to adapt. It really just
felt like, the deeper you got, the more narrow the biodiversity got. Nature’s ability to adapt to this
extreme pressure was so limited.” Cameron’s first task was to use the manipulator arm to push a
sediment core down into the bottom and get a sample. In it, he knew, would be new species of
bacteria and other microorganisms. In fact, the sample contained the genomes of over 20,000
microorganisms, of which more than 100 have been identified as new to science.
Attached to different parts of the vehicle’s exterior, including the manipulator, were three
Rolex watches, specially designed by Rolex to withstand full-ocean-depth pressure. The watches
came through the challenge with flying colors.
“When you see the second hand sweeping away, inside that massive but elegant casing, it’s
such a beautiful technical accomplishment,” Cameron says.
A fourth Rolex, which rode inside the sub with Cameron, had special significance; it was the
sister of a Rolex watch that had dived in the Trieste with Walsh and Piccard in 1960. That watch,
too, emerged unscathed, like its sister before it.
Cameron would spend over three hours exploring and filming this strange and lonely
universe in 3D. If anything went wrong, there was no one to help him. With more than 16,000 psi of pressure crushing against the sub, if it happened to spring a leak, the water would drill in like a laser, boring through everything in its path, including him. “That’s actually millions and millions of pounds when you distribute it over the whole
surface,” Cameron says. “It’s best not to think about it. You just have to trust the engineering, and as
co-designer of the sub, I’d have nobody to blame but myself. Though there wouldn’t be time to even
think of blame, or anything else. You’d get to think ‘oh sh—‘ and that would be it.”
Eventually, after traveling about a mile north across the sea floor, he reached terrain that
began to undulate upwards.
6
“I saw some really interesting ridges,” he says. “I actually set off a little avalanche and I
watched it roll down from the edge of a ridge into a valley, spreading across the sea floor. It was
really quite beautiful.”
But his travels were cut short by a series of mechanical failures, including the loss of the
starboard horizontal thrusters and the hydraulics. Unable to operate the arm to take samples, and
unable to proceed forward due to unbalanced thrust, he had no choice but to end his bottom time
early. The dive was a success on multiple levels. It proved that a full-ocean-depth-piloted vehicle
could be built and operated cost-effectively and by a small team. Cameron had imaged the entire
journey in 3D, and later analysis of HD images revealed new species. The specimens he collected
during this and other dives in the sub revealed many life forms, including 100 new microbial species.
Hinting at the potential benefits to humanity of such deep-ocean expeditions, one shrimplike
amphipod was even found to produce a compound that was already in clinical trials to treat
Alzheimer’s disease. But now it was time to return to the surface.
After successfully jettisoning the ballast weights, Cameron made the seven-mile journey
back up in about 70 minutes, imagining the ocean gradually relaxing its vice-like grip. After what he
calls “splash up” (as opposed to a space mission’s “splash down”), he was picked up by the Mermaid
Sapphire, and greeted with huge smiles from the team and a kiss from his wife, Suzy, as he opened
the sub’s hatch.
“I didn't say, ‘I've done it,’ ” Cameron recalls of that unforgettable moment. “I said, ‘We’ve
done it’—because the whole team dives with the sub.”
Not since the Trieste made its extraordinary descent in the Mariana Trench over a halfcentury earlier had another human being traveled to such extreme depths. So it was supremely fitting
that the first person Cameron saw as he emerged from the sub was none other than Walsh himself,
now in his 80s.
“It was amazing that he made the journey with us,” Cameron says. “He understood that we
were there not only to do our own thing, but also to celebrate what he had done—and by extension,
what all the pioneers who had gone before us had done.”
Given the margin of error of the onboard pressure sensors used to calculate the depths of
their respective dives, it was determined that the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER dive of 35,787 feet
(10,908 meters) effectively tied the Trieste’s recorded depth of 35,800 feet. More importantly, the
project achieved its larger purpose of drawing attention to that two percent of the world’s surface that
is occupied by deep-sea trenches like the Mariana.
“What I think this has done is shine a spotlight on the fact that there’s still a vast frontier here
on Planet Earth that’s unexplored,” Cameron says.
The dive was finally over, but the larger mission of re-igniting people’s passion for better
understanding of the secrets of the deep oceans had just begun. Let the golden age of exploration
continue.
7
FUN FACTS
The Expedition
•
Cameron has had a fascination with diving from an early age, earning his scuba certification
at age 16 while living in rural Canada. While still in high school, he wrote a short story titled
“The Abyss,” which became the seed for his 1989 science-fiction deep-ocean diving
adventure film of the same title. He has led eight deep ocean expeditions, made over 80
submersible dives, and is an accomplished submersible and ROV pilot.
•
The idea for a full-ocean-depth vehicle was born in 2002. Over the following three years,
Cameron and Australian engineer Ron Allum developed the concept, officially kicking off
the engineering process in 2005. It took a further seven years of research, design, building
and testing before the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER was ready for the expedition.
•
Building the revolutionary DEEPSEA CHALLENGER involved a plethora of firsts. It was the
first submersible to make structural use of syntactic foam, the first to have a vertical form,
the first to have proprietary cameras for shooting 3D at full ocean depth. Virtually every
component was designed from scratch and made in-house to withstand the deep ocean’s
more than 16,000-pounds-per-square-inch pressure.
•
For the sub’s core structural beam, Ron Allum developed a new form of syntactic foam that’s
formed by hot-pressure curing a mixture of hollow glass micro balloons and epoxy resin. It is
the only flotation material that can withstand full-ocean-depth pressure, which compresses
the 24-foot sub about 2.5 inches during the descent.
•
To make it easier to manage, construction of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER was divided
between two teams—one building the Lower Pod in Silicon Valley, the other constructing
the core-beam section in Sydney, Australia. Later, both sections were assembled in Sydney,
where the sub made its maiden dives.
•
The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER is 24 feet tall and weighs 11.5 tons. When diving to full
ocean depth the sub carries 1,200 pounds of ballast, which must be jettisoned in order to
return to the surface.
•
As in his narrative features “The Abyss” and “Titanic,” Cameron’s work on DEEPSEA
CHALLENGE 3D blends his passions for filmmaking, science, technology and diving. He
wears multiple hats, including executive producer, expedition leader, submersible codesigner, and pilot.
•
Starting at 5:15 a.m. local time on March 26, 2012, Cameron piloted the DEEPSEA
CHALLENGER to the east depression of the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the
Mariana Trench. While he was exploring the north slope of the trench, failure of the
starboard thrusters forced Cameron to curtail the dive. He spent three hours exploring the sea
floor—two hours less than he had planned. A day later, on March 27, he was on the red
carpet in London for the premiere of “Titanic 3D.”
•
The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER dove with four Rolex watches that were specially designed to
withstand full-ocean-depth pressure. Three of the watches were attached to different parts of
the sub’s exterior, including the manipulator arm. A fourth, which rode inside the sub with
Cameron, is the sister of a Rolex watch that dived in the Trieste with Walsh and Piccard in
1960. All four watches, and the watch in the 1960 dive, emerged in perfect working order.
8
•
Later analysis of the specimens Cameron collected during this and other dives in the sub
reveal many life forms, with at least 100 of them already identified as new species. One
shrimplike amphipod was found to produce a compound that was already in clinical trials to
treat Alzheimer’s disease.
•
The nongovernmental expedition included primary science partners Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Hawaii and the
University of Guam, as well as National Geographic, watchmaker Rolex and the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation. The expedition was also broadly international, with team members that
built the sub coming from Canada, Australia, the UK, China, France, and South Africa.
•
The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible and science platform was donated to Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution on March 26, 2013, the one-year anniversary of James
Cameron’s historic Challenger Deep dive.
The Mariana Trench
•
The deepest part of the world’s oceans, the Mariana Trench is a 1,500-mile-long underwater
gash in the earth’s crust located in the western Pacific Ocean, south of Japan and north of
Papua New Guinea. It measures 35,800 feet down at its deepest point, known as the
“Challenger Deep.” That is 7,000 feet deeper than Mt. Everest is high.
•
The Mariana Trench is one of a number of deep-ocean trenches, including the Kermadec
Trench, the New Britain Trench, the Puerto Rico Trench, the Aleutian Trench and the Japan
Trench, among others. Collectively, they comprise an area about the size of North America.
•
The first human beings to dive to the depths of the Mariana Trench were Lt. Don Walsh and
Jacques Piccard, who made the descent in 1960 in the Trieste—a U.S. Navy submersible
called a bathyscaphe. They survived despite a cracked antechamber view port, and the Navy
never again sent another human down to the world’s deepest spot.
•
Fifty-two years later, Walsh, now in his 80s, was one of the men aboard the ship for the
DEEPSEA CHALLENGER dive. Fittingly, he was the first person Cameron saw when he
returned from the dive. Later, it was determined that the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER dive of
35,787 feet (10,908 meters) effectively tied the Trieste’s recorded depth of 35,800 feet.
9
TRIBUTE TO ANDREW WIGHT AND MIKE deGRUY
DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D producer and director Andrew Wight, James Cameron’s
documentary producing partner, and noted underwater cinematographer and marine
conservationist Mike deGruy died in a helicopter crash in Australia on February 4, 2012. Wight
had been piloting his R-44 helicopter to capture images from the air. Wight had partnered with
Cameron on five prior films and co-led six previous expeditions over a 12-year period. DeGruy
had also participated in previous expeditions with Cameron.
Mike deGruy was an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and television host specializing in
natural history and underwater programming in a career that spanned the world’s oceans and
more than 30 years. His work as cinematographer, producer and host for such projects as Life in
the Freezer, Trials of Life, Blue Planet, and Last Mysteries of the Titanic won multiple awards
and reached global audiences with his infectious love for the oceans and the spirit of adventure.
DeGruy founded the Santa Barbara, California-based production company The Film Crew Inc. in
1979.
An Australian Adventurer of the Year medal winner and Emmy nominee, Andrew Wight
produced over 45 films since 1989, including television documentaries, live television specials,
and 3D Imax films. His journey to becoming a filmmaker began in agricultural science, working
in scientific research and marketing. He was a respected SCUBA and cave diving instructor,
commercial helicopter and fixed-wing pilot, and cattle farmer. Wight had only recently been
announced as the general manager of the Australian office of CAMERON | PACE Group, where
he was responsible for providing 3D cameras and production technology to Australian films and
television.
REMEMBERING FILMMAKER MIKE deGRUY
Mike was a levity maker. He could find the humour in anything, especially the critical, urgent,
deadline-driven stuff. He knew that being lighthearted gives the moment unexpected radiance.
He was always ready with his easy smile, quick wit, and self-deprecating humor.
He embodied “warrior’s honor,” that rare blend of honesty, integrity, and loyalty. It was
expressed in his profound sense of responsibility to his family, his friends, the ocean, and his
deep-sea brothers and sisters. It was evident in the off-the-cuff, unrehearsed things he did—the
way he asked questions about the dive plan; his confidence in everyone to complete the task no
matter how daunting. The unspoken message was that if you kept your end of the bargain he
would take care of you. There were moments when his words had the mark of nobility. —Dr. Joe
MacInnis (Expedition Doctor and Second Unit Director)
REMEMBERING FILMMAKER ANDREW WIGHT
Andrew was a great leader. When adversity took a swipe at his projects, he offered his hard-won
advice and buoyant wit. He knew that people who laugh well together work well together. A
man of unlimited generosity, he had an intuitive grasp of his team’s anxieties, moods, and needs.
Years of experience taught him that the best teams are bound together by professional skills and
a fusion of friendships supported by random and excessive acts of kindness. One of his finest
leadership skills was to provide that kindness. —Dr. Joe MacInnis (Expedition Doctor and
Second Unit Director)
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Biography : James Cameron
James Cameron was born on August 16, 1954, in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. A science
fiction fan as a child, James Cameron grew up to become one of the most visionary filmmakers
in Hollywood and the critically acclaimed film director known for some of the biggest box office
hits of all time including The Terminator, Aliens and Avatar.
He has received numerous Academy Awards and nominations for his often large-scale,
groundbreaking productions. His most noted work, 1997's Titanic, became the first film to earn
more than $1 billion, and landed 14 Academy Award nominations, with Cameron winning three
himself – for best director, best film editing and best picture.
Cameron initially pursued physics as a student at California State University at Fullerton, but
he left to follow his cinematic dreams. Working as a truck driver, Cameron would pull off the
road to work on screenplays. In 1978, Cameron made his first film, a science fiction short
called Xenogenesis. The film helped him get a job with New World Pictures, a company run
by famed B-movie director Roger Corman. At New World, Cameron worked in a number of
different roles, from art director on Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) to director on Piranha II:
The Spawning (1981).
Cameron's big break came in 1984, when he wrote and directed the film The Terminator
(1984). The movie told the gripping science fiction tale of a robot from the future (played by
Arnold Schwarzenegger) who travels to the present day to hunt down the leader of the resistance
in a yet-to-occur battle between humans and machines. The film became a critical and
commercial hit, and helped Cameron land his next project, the sequel to Ridley Scott's
Alien (1979), which featured Sigourney Weaver as a female action hero in space. Aliens (1986)
received several Academy Award nominations, including one for Weaver as Best Actress.
With his next film, The Abyss (1989), Cameron told the story of scuba divers who encounter
aliens while recovering a U.S. Navy submarine. After a grueling shoot, much of it filmed in a
huge underwater set, which took its toll on the cast and crew, critics and moviegoers were
divided. The film's visual effects however were stunning and earned an Academy Award.
Cameron returned in 1991 with another box-office hit, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The film
earned more than $200 million, and broke new ground with its impressive visual effects.
Mixing marital issues with undercover spies, Cameron wrote and directed True Lies (1994),
starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film was No. 1 at the box office,
grossed more than $378 million worldwide, and received an Oscar nod for its visual effects.
Cameron then began a massive undertaking with his story Titanic, a movie about star-crossed
lovers (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) trapped aboard the doomed Titanic
ocean liner. To recreate one of the greatest disasters at sea, Cameron had a special studio built in
Mexico, which featured a 17-million-gallon water tank and 775-foot replica of the Titanic. The
film cost nearly $200 million to make, and was plagued with problems and delays. Many in the
industry expected the film to tank just like its namesake, but Cameron proved the skeptics
wrong. Opening in December 1997, the film received critical raves and strong ticket sales.
Titanic became the first film to earn more than $1 billion and landed 14 Academy Award
nominations. For his work on the film, Cameron took home three Oscars—for best director, best
film editing, and best picture.
Continuing to be fascinated by the Titanic story, Cameron worked with his brother, Mike, to
create new technology to film the undersea wreck of the infamous vessel. The result was the 3-D
IMAX documentary Ghosts of the Abyss (2003). Two more related documentaries followed in
2005: Volcanoes of the Deep and Aliens of the Deep.
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Again revolutionizing the world of special effects, Cameron returned to making feature films
with Avatar (2009). The film explores the conflict between American forces and the native
population on another planet. Sam Worthington played an American soldier who switches sides
to help the Na'vi people, and falls in love with one of them (played by Zoe Saldana). Avatar
quickly surpassed Titanic at the box office. It has also earned Cameron a number of accolades,
including Golden Globe wins for Best Director and Best Motion Picture - Drama. For the
Academy Awards, Avatar was been nominated in nine categories, including Best Picture and
Best Director. All of the success of Avatar has led Cameron to develop two sequels to this box
office hit.
In 2013, Cameron traveled across the country with his DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submarine
used in the expedition that is chronicled in DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D. He had developed this
submarine to travel to the deepest spot on the planet called the Challenger Deep in the Mariana
Trench. Cameron made several stops on this journey to talk with young people about his
amazing voyage into the Challenger Deep. "By telling the story to school-kids in a hands-on
way, we can inspire the next generation of engineers, scientists and explorers," he told the Cape
Cod Today website. At the end of his trip, Cameron donated the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER to
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Biography : Andrew Wight - Co-Director/Co-Writer/ Co-Producer
Born in November 1959, Andrew Wight was an Australian underwater explorer and filmmaker.
Andrew began his career in agricultural science and worked in scientific research, and was a
respected scuba and cave diving instructor, commercial helicopter pilot and Australian
Adventurer of the Year medal winner (Australian Geographic). Andrew initiated and led the
record breaking Pannikin Plain Cave Diving Expedition into Australia's remote south-west in
1988. Andrew produced the award-winning documentary of this expedition called Nullarbor
Dreaming (1989). Andrew led expeditions to dive and explore some of the most remote and
bizarre regions of the world including, Australia, Alaska, Mexico, Canada, Florida, Cuba, Papua
New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, New Zealand, Gaudaloupe Is, Bahamas, Dominican
Republic, Belize, Dry Tortugas, Navassa Is, Costa Rica, Coccos Island, Galapagos Islands, Lord
Howe Island and hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Andrew produced more 40 documentary films, his company,
Great Wight Productions, gained an international reputation
for making award winning adventure television programs.
His programs are screened in over 60 countries around the
world. Over the course of his career Wight developed a close
personal and professional relationship with director James
Cameron, a fellow diving enthusiast. Andrew was the line
producer for Cameron’s 3D IMAX film Ghosts of the Abyss
(2003), released by Walden Media and Disney; and producer
for Expedition: Bismarck (2002), which was made for the Discovery Channel. With Cameron, he
produced another 3D IMAX film about hydrothermal vents called Aliens of the Deep (2005),
released by Disney in January 2005. With Cameron as Executive Producer, Wight was Producer
and Co-Writer of the ambitious Australian cave-diving drama Sanctum, released in 2011.
Andrew was the initial director and producer of DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D, working with
Cameron on its development and creation for several years. Andrew Wight tragically died in a
helicopter crash in February 2012 at Jaspers Brush in New South Wales, Australia; when the
film was in production and just days before the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition was due to
leave Sydney.
pic: Mike de Gruy, Andrew Wight, James Cameron
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Biography : Ray Quint - Co-Director
Australian Ray Quint is one of three directors credited on James Cameron’s DEEPSEA
CHALLENGE 3D, alongside John Bruno and Andrew Wight. Following the tragic death of
originating Director/Producer Andrew Wight, John Bruno was brought in to direct the expedition
footage. Later with the film going into post-production, Ray was charged with the responsibility
for creating the story structure, directing dramatic recreations, interviews and collaborating on
visual effects, music, sound and post-production for DEEPSEA CHALLENGE. Ray is a
graduate of the prestigious Australian Film, Television and Radio School(AFTRS).
Ray’s drama credits include the AFI award-winning ABC-TV mini-series Bastard Boys (which
he conceived produced and directed) and for which he received the Australian Director’s Guild
Award for Best Direction for a Telemovie or Miniseries in 2007. He has also directed eps of the
television drama series The Secret Life of Us, Blue Heelers, McLeod’s Daughters, Stingers,
Murder Call, Water Rats, the children’s series Don’t Blame Me, the US/Canadian series
Beastmaster and the telemovie, Balmain Boys.
Ray’s documentaries, Return to Sandakan, The Forgotten Force and Music for the Delinquents
were awarded Finalist – Best International Documentary under 60 mins at the Canadian
International Documentary Festival (Hot Docs); Certificate of Excellence–US International Film
& Television Festival and a Certificate of Merit, Chicago Film Festival. Ray has also produced
public affairs television for SBS; and children’s drama for the ABC. At the AFTRS, Ray has
been an associate of the directing faculty, guest lecturer and assessor as well as a lecturer in the
Foundation Year Diploma course in 2012.
Biography : John Garvin – Co-Writer/ Safety Co-ordinator/Diving Officer
John Garvin is recognised as one of the world’s leading technical diving
instructors. Sydney-base, he is also known as the co-screenwriter of the
cave-diving drama Sanctum, made in Australia and released all around
the world by Universal Pictures to considerable success in 2011. John’s
multiple roles on DEEPSEA CHALLENGE include Co-Writer (with
Andrew Wight), and can be seen and heard onscreen in several scenes
as the safety-officer who communicates with the isolated solo James
Cameron in the Challenger submersible craft.
After years of teaching diving in the U.K, John moved to the Turks and Caicos Islands, where he
set up and ran the world-class technical divingO2 Technical Diving. While living in the Turks
and Caicos, John founded ‘The Caicos Caves Project’, a team of experienced cave divers
dedicated to exploring, mapping and protecting the incredible underwater cave systems beneath
the islands. This led to work on several film projects including providing logistics and safety
diver support for Tanya Streeter’s world record breaking free dive to 160m (540ft), which was
filmed as part of the documentary ‘Inner Breath’. In 2010, John worked as dive-coordinator and
underwater stunt consultant for the film Sanctum, in addition to training the actors and stuntdivers to dive with the Sentinel Closed Circuit Rebreathers and also featured as a stunt diver and
actor in the film.
Throughout 2011-12, John was Diving Officer and Project Manager (Sub Internals) on the
DEEPSEA CHALLENGER project. John’s team designed, made and installed and tested all of
the critical components inside the tiny 42inch diameter pilot sphere. Using the latest closed
circuit rebreather technology, the sub’s life support system borrowed heavily from lessons
learned in technical diving. John is the author of the Inspiration/Evolution training manual for
Technical Diving International and played a pivotal role in the first ever rebreather expeditions
to the world’s most remote and exciting dive sites, including Galapagos, Bikini and Chuuk
Lagoon.
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JAMES CAMERON, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ENTERTAINMENT & BEYOND FILMS
Present in association with EARTHSHIP PRODUCTIONS INC
A WIGHT EXPEDITION FILM in association with BEYOND PRODUCTIONS
“DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D”
Edited by JANE MORAN Director of Photography JULES O’LOUGHLIN ACS
Music by RICKY EDWARDS, BRETT APLIN, AMY BASTOW
Executive Producers JAMES CAMERON, LISA TRUITT, MARIA WILHELM,
MIKAEL BORGLUND
Produced by ANDREW WIGHT, BRETT POPPLEWELL
Post Production Producer MARC VAN BUUREN
Written by ANDREW WIGHT, JOHN GARVIN
Directed by JOHN BRUNO, ANDREW WIGHT, RAY QUINT
www.deepseachallenge3d.com.au
Facebook.com/deepseachallenge
Twitter: @deepseachallenge
Distributed by Beyond Films in association with Label Distribution
www.labeldistribution.com
tb@labeldistribution.com
Media enquiries:
National / NSW / ACT/ SA/ WA : NixCo
02 – 8399 0626 / info@nixco.com.au
VIC/ TAS : CG Publicity
Cathy Gallagher / Alicia Bresciani
0416 227 282 / cathy@cg-publicity.com
Q’land / NT : Think Tank Communications
Georgina Stegman
0415 622 213
georgina@thinktankcommunications.com
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