About Titanic

About the Production of Titanic

Timeline

December, 1995	Director James Cameron announces his next film will be "Titanic", not "Terminator 3".
March 20, 1996	Kate Winslet is cast. Cameron budgets $110 million for 400 special effects.
May 16, 1996	Shooting begins in Mexico on sound stages constructed according to the Titanic's dimensions.
May 25, 1996	Leonardo DiCaprio is cast.
June 20, 1996	Filming moves to California. Work begins at Mexico's Rosarita Beach on a huge water tank three times the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground to simulate the open sea.
September 9, 1996	Cast and crew move to Mexico. Final cost nudging $230 million.
December 9, 1996	Release date announced as July 4, 1997.
February 18, 1997	Filming near completion.
March, 1997	Cameron begins editing. Special effects problems slow him.
April 16, 1997	Fox studios says it is unsure Titanic will be ready by July 4.
May 15, 1997	Cameron tells studios July 4 is out. October 8 is set.
May 22, 1997	New release date of early November.
June 2, 1997	After viewing rough cut, studios decide it is so strong they hold release to December 19 to catch lucrative Christmas trade.
October 21, 1997	After six months of editing, the final cut clocks in at three hours and 14 minutes. To placate theatre owners and public, it's listed as two hours and seventy four minutes.
November 1, 1997	Titanic has world premier at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Positive reviews indicate raise the possibility of Oscar nominations in February.

Something I thought you may want to know

Also, there actually was a man named Jack Dawson who sailed on Titanic's maiden voyage. He, as well as in the movie, died on Titanic. If you care to go to the Passengers and Survivors you will note that he actually was a third class passenger, and he embarked on Titanic at Southampton. When James Cameron wrote the script for Titanic, he didn't know this.

From James Cameron
(commenting on the soundtrack)

"Titanic" is first and above all a love story. The passion, the intimacy, and the heartbreak one feels in watching a love story are created largely by the actors, but we help out where we can with the cinematography, set design, and the other crafts. Of course music is the most important addition to the actors' work for increasing the emotional impact of the film.

James Horner's score for Titanic is all I had hoped and prayed it would be and much more. It deftly leaps from intimacy to grandeur, from joy to heart-wrenching sadness and across the full emotional spectrum of the film while maintaining a stylistic and thematic unity. The music spans time, making immediate the actions and feelings of people 85 years ago with conventional period picture score, or the inappropriately modern and anachronistic "counter program" score.

James has walked the tightrope by using synthesizer, vocals, and full orchestra to create a timeless sound which tells us that these people were not so very different from us. Their hopes, their fears, their passions are just like ours. In the film I have tried to accentuate the other time and our own. James has done the same thing, bridging the gap of time and making these people seem so alive, so vibrant, so real that the dreaded event, when it finally comes, is terrifying as its authenticity.

And most importantly, he has made us one with Jack and Rose, feeling the beat of their hearts as they experience the kind of love we all dream about, but seldom find.

JAMES CAMERON

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