Yes, shooting in the water was absolutely challenging for Stockwell, who eventually generated expert bodysurfer Mike Stewart to run the electronic camera after a Hollywood cinematographer was secured by a wave, ruining a pricey electronic camera at the same time. But the director exposed that the hardest part of making Blue Crush was timing.
“The biggest challenge was getting the studio to understand that you couldn’t schedule the waves,” he described. “I said, ‘We’re going to have wave coverage. If there are waves, no matter what is scheduled, we’re going to go shoot in the water.’ So that’s what we did and we had a very flexible schedule.”
And that openness to movie based upon the ocean caused a few of the motion picture’s finest shots, according toStockwell
“Even in pre-production, if there were waves, I went out and shot,” he stated. “I would say, ‘OK, this is costume test.’ But I would send Kate and Sanoe and Michelle out and some of the best footage in the movie is from wardrobe tests. Universal hated that because they didn’t have all their insurance in place, so they weren’t happy that it happened, but it was the only way I could do it.”
The studio at first generated a 2nd unique impacts system and had strategies to CGI whatever, however it “turned out terrible,” Stockwell confessed, so the only result utilized in the motion picture was facial replacement to put Bosworth’s face on Ballard’s body.
“Honestly, it’s not great,” he included. “The impacts are quite bad if you slow it down. It was the exact same individuals who did Face/Off, that John Travolta and Nicolas Cage motion picture. But all the waves are genuine. Kate paddled out on some wedding days and I actually desired her being in the lineup, with the spray blowing off the back of the waves. She absolutely might’ve gotten hurt or eliminated, so props to her for heading out.”
