The Making of Life of Pi
Page 10
Photograph: David Lee.
Pi faces Mecca.
Photograph: Jake Netter.
During a break, Tabu leans against Vibish Sivikumar, who plays her son and sixteen-year-old Pi’s older brother Ravi, while Adil Hussain discusses the scene with the director.
pi’s home away from india
On February 11, 2011, the crew and Indian cast returned to Taichung, where Pi’s home life was shot on a soundstage. Pi’s childhood home is the setting for Pi at three different stages of his life and three stages of faith. Six days later, with the domestic scenes completed, the Patel household was shuttered. India, both real and constructed, was left behind for good. A brief scene of farewell to India on the Tsimtsum deck, followed by another moment in the cargo hold sealed shut the movie’s first act, its “past.” Five days later, Sharma was in the water. As definitively as Pi departs from home, the production had moved into a new phase.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
Ang Lee and Tabu work on Pi’s mother’s kolam. The geometrical patterns, made of rice flour, ornament the thresholds of many South Indian homes, welcoming visitors, bringing prosperity, and protecting against evil spirits.
Photograph: Jake Netter.
Twelve-year-old Pi says grace before supper.
pi’s life, suraj’s journey
In the beginning of production, Suraj Sharma had other actors—both older and more experienced—to react to, to share the camera with, to ease the pressure. Now they were gone. So was the vibrancy of India: the temples, the candles, the mountains, the colors. Sharma was alone, on a raft or on a boat, in a wave tank or on gimbals, surrounded by a horizonless, artificial blue. He was left with Richard Parker—who, when not completely absent from the set, was represented by a variety of more-or-less tiger-shaped objects that were put there as placeholders (along with other creature substitutes).
How does someone spend day after day acting opposite nothing? Lee maintains that it’s not impossible. “If they’re talented, anybody can do it,” he says. He had Sharma spend some time observing the real tigers, but for the most part, the director believes, “Acting is pretending. Pure. You can borrow experience or whatever, but the final result is what matters. It’s really about how much the audience believes. Of course, if you have the actors believing and the filmmakers believing, it’s a good step in between. But it’s not equivalent to the final result. So I don’t buy that, to act something for real you have to experience it.”
Even so, Sharma couldn’t help feeling as if he had stepped into a completely different movie. “In India, I was reacting to other people, so that made it a little easier for me,” he says. “I didn’t have to imagine things. There was actually something there that had expressions and I could react to those expressions.”
Now, like Pi himself, Sharma was alone.
trial by water
Alone, but not entirely adrift, Sharma had learned to swim. He had learned to dive. He had trained and prepared and watched and listened. He quickly picked up a sense of each department and how they fit together. “He helped. He reset his props,” says script supervisor Mary Cybulski. “He helped guys move apartments. He was a film worker like the rest of us.” And though his time with daoyan—the respectful Chinese form of address for “director” and what Sharma called Lee—was often limited to one or two minutes before the cameras rolled, he had internalized much of what Lee had taught him during their one-on-one meetings in pre-production. “In the beginning it was scary: I was scared of water,” Sharma admits. “But I just started trying not to see the blue screen but to see the ocean and whatever Pi sees.”
Photograph: Jake Netter.
Leaving Pondi: Lee and Sharma contemplate the production’s transition from India to the Pacific.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
A final view of the Patel zoo in the Tsimtsum cargo hold.
Photograph: Jake Netter.
The mock-up of Richard Parker’s head helps the camera frame the shot to include the computer-generated tiger that will be added in post-production.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
The wave lift stunt: a swell lifts Suraj Sharma up and, with the help of a wire, slams him down on top of the lifeboat.
Pi Patel and Suraj Sharma’s stories ran parallel to each other in a rising arc at first; as Pi starts off by mastering his physical environment, so Sharma drew upon the months of physical training that he underwent with stunt coordinator Charlie Croughwell and Croughwell’s son, Cameron. Though it wasn’t a foregone conclusion, from the beginning, Lee preferred that Sharma do as many of the stunts himself as possible rather than use stunt doubles. This was partly a consequence of 3-D—or at least Lee’s vision of 3-D, which favored long takes and a relatively still camera over a lot of movement and cutting. “Ang feels the 3-D experience should not be broken up by a lot of camera angles,” explains William Connor. “That once you’re in it you should stay in it, without too much coverage.” So the opportunities to cut between Sharma and a long shot, say, or the back of a stunt double’s head were few and far between.
That said, Sharma’s safety could not be compromised. The fact that he didn’t get sick after being soaked outdoors nearly every day during an unseasonably cold spring was a miracle.
Not getting injured during stunts, on the other hand, was a matter of very careful preparation. “You have to figure out the gag,” says Charlie Croughwell, using the tech word for “stunt.” “You always test the gag before you perform it with the actor.” Croughwell used his son Cameron for this purpose. “There was a thing where we needed a wave to pick Suraj up and slam him on top of the boat,” says Croughwell. “He needs to ride this wave. We figure out the mechanics with Cameron, then we take Suraj’s double, Nikeeth Thomas, and put him in after we’ve worked out the most difficult part of it; then test it with him, and let Suraj watch it. We get Suraj out in the water, out in the waves; you have to just work your way up to this, but he’s more than competent, more than capable of doing all his own stunts.”
Though the actor’s movement was controlled by wires, the waves were also on full force. Even artificially generated waves can be unpredictable—in fact, they were meant to be, up to a point, for the sake of realism. Sharma’s natural abilities, reinforced by training and the full support of Croughwell’s back-up team, were in evidence from early on. The young actor’s combination of intense discipline and good-natured willingness to try anything that won the day. “When they start the effects, I have three seconds of lots of fun every time,” says Sharma, “with all the rain and storms . . . actually it’s fun.”
Another Tsimtsum-sinking-related stunt, which seemed to faze onlookers from the crew more than the performer himself, was the so-called barrel roll. The stunt was done during the sinking of the Tsimtsum storm, and the lifeboat was required to pop out of the water and roll over, with Pi clinging to it. This particular stunt illustrates the importance of timing in water.
The boat was hung on hooks and lowered upside down into the water with Suraj Sharma attached to the tarp (and a breathing apparatus nearby); then it was lifted right above the water, and held there, still upside down as the waves rose and fell, alternately engulfing the actor, while Lee and Croughwell watched. “Watching the waves goes before lighting,” says the director, “before which camera to use. You observe the water first. You can’t do it backwards or you might waste three hours. You really have to know the water.” Lee waited for a wave that he liked, then called “action”; after this, Croughwell waited for the moment when the water was at its lowest for the stunt to work properly. When he gave the signal, the boat was dropped into the trough of a wave and, with the help of specially designed holes, popped out of the water and rolled over, revealing Sharma, no longer strapped on, looking like he was clinging to the craft for dear life.
In Croughwell’s experience, doing stunts is not just about the physical training: “You have a particular talent for stunts. You either can do it or you can’t. Sur
aj does have the talent, definitely, he has great timing, he’s very coordinated. He started out with a natural inclination, he just didn’t know he had it in him.”
The barrel-roll stunt:
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
1) The boat is held upside down, with Sharma waiting underneath;
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
2) Lee yells “action,” and the boat is dropped down into the water. The boat pops up again and;
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
3) rolls over, with Sharma clinging precariously to the side;
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
4) It’s time for a break.
According to Croughwell, the most difficult stunts in the film for Sharma were the deep tank dives, which were part of the Tsimtsum sequence (though they were actually shot much later). There’s a scene at the very beginning of the Tsimtsum sinking sequence where Pi swims down the flooded corridor—a sixty-foot-long set in the deepwater tank inside one of the hangars—in search of his parents. And shortly afterward, there’s a brief interlude of unbearable loss in the midst of the raging storm in which Pi hovers, suspended under the surface, watching the freighter sink.
“Those two scenes in particular, it’s a long breath hold,” says Croughwell, who worked with Sharma to increase the actor’s lung capacity. “He had to have incredible control underwater as well. He had to be able to swim down, no mask on, no goggles. He had to be able to stop in a very specific spot and understand the dynamics of buoyancy control and just hover there, and then be able to swim back up in exactly the same direction that we specified and at the same time avoid getting bumped by a shark and all these other elements. If he could do those things, he could do anything.”
And he did.
Photograph: Jake Netter.
Sharma prepares for Pi’s plunge.
Still courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.
Pi swims down sixty feet of flooded Tsimtsum corridors in search of his parents.
Still courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.
Suraj Sharma hovers underwater in one of the most challenging stunts of the shoot, which involved complex choreography and long breath holding.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
SURAJ SHARMA: THE HARDEST-WORKING MAN IN SHOW BUSINESS
Individually, each of these production stills represents a dramatic moment in the film—usually Pi making a quick getaway from Richard Parker or getting knocked sideways by a storm swell. But put all the photos together on one page—and imagine how many more of them there are, and then imagine how many more leaps went undocumented by the still photographers—and something of both the heroic and comic dimensions of Suraj Sharma’s work begins to emerge. Even with an extensive support system and backup, simply falling into the water was not without its hazards. But that’s what Sharma did, scene after scene, again and again, in every possible way.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
SHAKEN AND STIRRED: MAKE MINE A GIMBAL
For almost every major sequence filmed in the wave tank, certain shots were also filmed on lifeboats affixed to the top of gimbals, which, unlike even the most sophisticated wave tank, could be programmed with a repeatable set of motions when a close-up was required—for example, when Pi, clinging to the oar, having just seen the Tsimtsum go down, cries out for his family. A gimbal might also be needed if there was a particularly complicated shot that required precise choreography, as in the first minutes after the lifeboat detaches from the sinking freighter and spins across the waves at high speed (done with a combination of the big gimbal with an added rotator on top, plus the Spydercam).
Aside from the big gimbal, there were also smaller-sized units for light motion, manual control, and work with the tigers throughout the shoot. Then there was the “rotisserie” boat—so-called because it rotated back and forth on an axis—a sadistic contraption specially created by the SFX department for the Storm of God sequence, where Pi retreats under the boat’s tarp with Richard Parker to wait out the worst of the weather. The effect, plainly visible on the video feed during the shoot, was like watching a person go through the heavy-duty wash cycle at the laundromat.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
Setting up for a close-up of Pi, the morning after the sinking of the Tsimtsum.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
Pi watches the Tsimtsum sink, taking everything he has ever known with it.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
Part of the Storm of God sequence, shot on a gimbal. There’s an enormous dump tank full of water behind Suraj Sharma. Wait for it . . .
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
. . . and here it comes! The gimbal operator is in the foreground. Though the sequence is largely pre-programmed, he can make adjustments with the steering mechanism.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
The “rotisserie” in action for the Storm of God sequence: as the boat rotated around, Sharma would often become completely submerged.
Until a few scenes before the Storm of God, Pi’s journey is a very physical and intuitive one: he’s in survival mode, mastering his environment and the tiger. “He’s getting good, and starting to get comfortable,” says Lee—talking about both the character of Pi and the increasingly confident professional playing him. But it is the Storm of God, the pendant to the storm that sinks the Tsimtsum that marks a moment of transition in Pi’s journey. In many ways that scene in the film marked another step in Sharma’s transformation, a transformation partly managed by the director. A more spiritual dimension enters into the film, a dissolution of the self into the surrounding vast unknown that Lee wanted Sharma to access.
“It wasn’t about the physical anymore. And I wanted the look in his eyes to be very spiritual.” Lee made playlists for Sharma’s iPod of what became known as “spooky God music”—mostly choral, ranging from Gregorian chants to the avant-garde Requiem by the Hungarian composer György Ligeti that Stanley Kubrick used so effectively in 2001. “I started talking philosophy and religion with him,” says Lee. “One thing that worked for him is that I asked him to start praying every night. He has to kneel down by the bed. But he doesn’t pray to any god—he just designates something that works for him—speaks to that person and confesses.” Yoga also went back into the mix. “And,” adds Lee, “I asked him not to talk to anyone, as much as he could. And I told people, don’t bother him. Just leave him alone.”
“In this part of the movie, the storm part, there’s a lot of acting, but a lot of it is also survival—which, somehow, everyone has in them.”
—SURAJ SHARMA
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
Suraj Sharma’s face on the monitor captures Pi’s increasing disconnection from reality.
Photograph: Peter Sorel.
Pi, adrift.
Photograph: Mary Ellen Mark.
Lee and makeup designer Fae Hammond put on the final touches.
Photograph: Jake Netter.
From the makeup department’s ring binder, the late-stage “look” of Pi’s journey.
All of this was by way of keeping Sharma in character, to prepare him for the two most emotionally difficult scenes in the film: above all, the Mexican infirmary scene at the very end, of course—the long, challenging monologue that got Sharma the part of Pi in the first place. And leading up to that, and in some ways just as important—at least as a stage in the acting journey that would help Sharma prepare for the Mexican infirmary scene—was the scene after the Storm of God when Pi believes that he and Richard Parker are dying. He has to cry on cue. For Sharma, the emotional challenge was of a different magnitude than the physical feats he had accomplished so far.
The scheduled beach landing having been rained out, the scene was shot with the sketchiest of sets: the lifeboat against a portable blue screen under the roof of a school bus depot in a small provincial town in southern Taiwan. “I was sort of apologetic about this not being the right conditions,” says Lee, “but by that
time, Suraj was now a pretty serious actor. So it’s ‘I’ve gotta do this.’”
He found Sharma looking rather despondent. “I went up to him and I said, ‘So this is what we’re going to do. It’s going to be okay.’ He told me he wasn’t in that place.”
“I kept trying to push these sad thoughts in my head and think of all the things we’d been through and about how everything is suddenly coming to an end,” says Sharma. “But I was still not able to cry.”
Lee called “Cut” and took Sharma aside. “His character, Pi, is crying with depth; with what he went through in that journey, all that he lost, with fatigue—all these layers of sorrow.” So, as Lee puts it, “I gave him a layer.” He started with basic sorrow, telling the actor: “You and the tiger are dying.” Sharma tried the take again. “Better, but not quite there yet,” Lee said, and then he gave Sharma another layer: “You and the tiger are dying, and you have lost everything.” Another take, another layer: “The final layer was fatigue,” Lee recalls. “The description of acting is really abstract. You can only be so specific. At some point you’ve got to describe what to do in terms of body function: It’s natural. It’s fatigue.” That’s what he told Sharma: “You and the tiger are dying; and you have lost everything; and you are tired, so tired, and physically numb.”