How'd They Get That Shot: Deepwater Horizon
MOVIES
How’d They Get That Shot: Deepwater Horizon For an action-packed movie about the 2010 BP oil spill, Lionsgate re-created the ill-fated rig—in a parking lot.
M E D IA COVE RAG E O F the largest marine oil spill in United States history mostly focused on the environmental damage, not what befell the 126 crew members who became stranded on a torch 40 miles from shore. Deepwater Horizon, out September 30, shows us what happened to them. But re-creating the tragedy required serious engineering. For one thing, the real rig—which exploded when a bubble of methane gas blew out the drill column, eventually spilling 4.9 million barrels of oil—was massive: 256 by 396 feet. For another, what’s left of it is currently at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. To shoot the action scenes, production designer Chris Seagers and his team built a replica rig to 85 percent of the actual scale on land. He told us how they did it. —Katie Macdonald
FIRE WATE R
• To fake the Gulf of Mexico, we
worked with an East Coast company that constructs gigantic plastic tanks for fracking and river repair work. They built a 350-by-340-foot tank holding about two million gallons of water. We used a second tank nearby for close-up shots.
• The special-effects team con-
structed a special piping system about four to six inches below the waterline. When a scene required flames on the water, they pumped natural gas through the pipes and lit it. Stunt doubles and camera lenses make the fire look closer than it is.
LANDING PAD
• In an early scene, BP executives
and crew members (including Mark Wahlberg as electrician Mike Williams) take a helicopter to the rig. To land a 19-passenger Sikorsky helicopter, we had to build a helipad big enough to handle the weight 70 feet in the air.
STRUCTURE
• It took eight months and 150
people to build the base. Each leg required 10,500 cubic feet of concrete. We were working in Louisiana going into hurricane season and we had to make sure the whole thing wouldn’t just take off. It ended up being so heavy we had to bring in structural engineers.
LOCATI O N
• Originally, we wanted to film on a rig or abandoned power plant, but halfway through the movie there is a significant amount of fire. We realized we’d need to build our own steel structure, and we found an enormous parking lot at the old Six Flags amusement park outside New Orleans that would let us do it.
2
OCTOBER 2016 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
How’d They Get That Shot: Deepwater Horizon For an action-packed movie about the 2010 BP oil spill, Lionsgate re-created the ill-fated rig—in a parking lot.
M E D IA COVE RAG E O F the largest marine oil spill in United States history mostly focused on the environmental damage, not what befell the 126 crew members who became stranded on a torch 40 miles from shore. Deepwater Horizon, out September 30, shows us what happened to them. But re-creating the tragedy required serious engineering. For one thing, the real rig—which exploded when a bubble of methane gas blew out the drill column, eventually spilling 4.9 million barrels of oil—was massive: 256 by 396 feet. For another, what’s left of it is currently at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. To shoot the action scenes, production designer Chris Seagers and his team built a replica rig to 85 percent of the actual scale on land. He told us how they did it. —Katie Macdonald
FIRE WATE R
• To fake the Gulf of Mexico, we
worked with an East Coast company that constructs gigantic plastic tanks for fracking and river repair work. They built a 350-by-340-foot tank holding about two million gallons of water. We used a second tank nearby for close-up shots.
• The special-effects team con-
structed a special piping system about four to six inches below the waterline. When a scene required flames on the water, they pumped natural gas through the pipes and lit it. Stunt doubles and camera lenses make the fire look closer than it is.
LANDING PAD
• In an early scene, BP executives
and crew members (including Mark Wahlberg as electrician Mike Williams) take a helicopter to the rig. To land a 19-passenger Sikorsky helicopter, we had to build a helipad big enough to handle the weight 70 feet in the air.
STRUCTURE
• It took eight months and 150
people to build the base. Each leg required 10,500 cubic feet of concrete. We were working in Louisiana going into hurricane season and we had to make sure the whole thing wouldn’t just take off. It ended up being so heavy we had to bring in structural engineers.
LOCATI O N
• Originally, we wanted to film on a rig or abandoned power plant, but halfway through the movie there is a significant amount of fire. We realized we’d need to build our own steel structure, and we found an enormous parking lot at the old Six Flags amusement park outside New Orleans that would let us do it.
2
OCTOBER 2016 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
