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All rights reserved on ALL content, including photographs and text. THIS MATERIAL IS FOR THE SOLE USE OF SETDECOR MAGAZINE and the SDSA. Reproduction or use of the material in any way or by any means for any purpose without permission from the Set Decorators Society of America is strictly prohibited.
(Click to enlarge)
Pirates of the Carribean, Set Decorator, Larry Dias, SDSA
(Click to enlarge)
Pirates of the Carribean, Set Decorator, Larry Dias, SDSA
(Click to enlarge)
Pirates of the Carribean, Set Decorator, Larry Dias, SDSA
(Click to enlarge)
Pirates of the Carribean, Set Decorator, Larry Dias, SDSA
| Pirates of the Carribean
Interviewed by Florence Fellman SDSA
Set Decoration Larry Dias, SDSA
All Photos have been reprinted with permission from SET DECOR Magazine (Fall 2003)
Set Decorator Larry Dias helped turned Disney’s classic amusement ride,
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN into a wild and wacky, swashbuckling fantasy
movie of the same name.
SET DECOR: First, let's get obsessed with PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN - is this your first movie based on a Disneyland ride?
Larry Dias: Oh my God, yes!
SD:
Okay, let's be honest, how many times did you have to go on the PIRATES
OF THE CARIBBEAN ride before you had a vision for the movie?
LD:
Physically, only once, but the Art Department went on the ride, filmed
it, took still photos with a panoramic camera (stopping the ride
whenever they needed to) so we had great research. I think I watched
that film about 1200 times.
SD: So I suppose Disney sent you on
an all-expenses-paid-trip to the Caribbean to turn that ride into the
biggest, craziest high-energy ride of
them all?
LD: Yes, we
shot in the Caribbean, but it wasn’t exactly Club Med. It was a little
rough and tumble. We were on St. Vincent Island, which is one of the
Grenadines.
It's sort of an undeveloped island without the really beautiful beaches
and white sand. We had to choose an island like this so we could create
big plate shots and be in an unidentifiable place. The beaches we did
use allowed us to build our big ocean front town, Port Royal, Jamaica.
SD: Did being on this island pose any unique decorating challenges for you and your crew?
LD:
I had done a movie in the Caribbean twice before so I knew what I was
up against. I had also done a movie in Hawaii for six months so I
understood the island thing. I was quite aware that I was limited as to
what resources I could get locally. You have to be a good planner.
Besides that aspect, it was a relatively primitive situation and it
took hours to get anywhere by truck, so
we had to barge everything in. Even going to the set every morning involved going aboard a double-decker barge and sailing in.
SD: How did you manage your crew on such a remote location?
LD:
I think there were about a total of 300 crew people on location. I was
allowed to take most of my key people including Assistant Decorator
Teresa
Visinare SDSA, the lead, the coordinator, and some set
dressers. I did hire a few local set dressers and we all worked really
hard. My crew was amazing - they made it all possible.
SD: Each
time we set decorators are hired on a new project, our first task is to
read the script and break it down for creative and budgetary
considerations. Often, we come across at least
one set which
generates a moment of abject horror where we think, "How in the world
am I going to pull that off?" Did you have a moment like that when you
first encountered the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN script and how did you
resolve those challenges?
LD: Actually, there were many scenes
and sets where I thought, "Oh my God, how are we going to do this?"
Just the scale of the movie alone was beyond large. For example there
was a "Treasure Cave". About five pirate ships were supposed
to
enter a huge cave and dump their massive treasure right off the ship’s
decks into the cave. We built this set on Stage 2 on the Disney lot.
Then during the building phase, while we were
away on a scout, the
set caught fire and almost burned down the whole stage. That was quite
a shock. Apparently, there was a chemical reaction between the foam
that was used to sculpt
the cave and some other materials.
Of
course, we had to rebuild it. In that cave set, it was difficult for me
to calculate exactly how much treasure it would take to fill the space
in a believable way. We had to have boatloads
of coins and pirate booty. In the end, I had to have almost 1 million gold coins minted.
SD: How did you go about doing that?
LD:
We found original coins from that period - Spanish and Portuguese
coins, then we cast them and gold plated them, virtually creating our
own mint.
SD: What happened to those coins after the movie?
LD: They turned out really well. I think they're being used for public relations purposes now.
SD:
While we’re on the subject of gold, is it true that Johnny Depp showed
up on set with all his teeth capped in gold? And were you forced to
arrange the decor to harmonize with his oral
presentation?
LD: (laughing) No, definitely not. But Johnny was funny with his gold teeth.
SD: Did he or any of the other actors respond to the set decor and art direction?
LD: Yes, all the actors were terrifically responsive to the environment we created.
SD:
Besides minting coins, did you have an extraordinary amount of
fabrication demanded by the fantasy and period qualities of PIRATES?
LD:
Yes, we fabricated more on this film than I ever had before. Because we
built period ships, we had to create authentic ship's interiors
starting with the bunks and rigging, down to the smallest details like
the sailor's bags, their hand-held instruments and tools. It was a
tremendous education, especially
building the two main ships, the
Evil Pirate ship and the British naval ship. The British ship we
actually built twice, once for shooting in San Pedro, then once again
in the Caribbean. Both ships were built on top of barges so they looked
like real ships but the structure that propelled them was under water.
These were such huge undertakings that we set up our own in-house staff
shop to enable us to sculpt, make molds, cast, weld and paint -
whatever was demanded of us, we could do on site.
SD: Besides
the fabrication, were there any vendors in Los Angeles who were
especially helpful with your execution of PIRATES decor?
LD: So
many vendors helped me, but especially Warner Bros. Prop House,
Universal Prop House and House of Props were terrifically helpful to me
with the accumulation of vast amounts of treasure. They were also
accommodating with long-term rentals.
SD: What sources and methodology did you use for your research?
LD:
Most of our research came from the Internet. We would look up headings
like pirate objects, ship building, ship interiors and that would lead
us to interesting eccentric people who were doing things like keeping
the original art of blacksmithing alive. The Internet made it possible
for us to hook up with collectors and people who published small
pamphlets on otherwise lost arts. We also purchased a huge amount of
books and studied the images, obviously focusing on the styles of
architecture and everyday objects used in the Caribbean islands during
that period.
SD: Larry, thanks for sharing the secrets of
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN with us. As decorators interested in the art
of storytelling, I can guarantee that anyone who sees the film will
benefit from learning about your wonderfully creative solutions. |
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