How the film "Pearl Harbor" was filmed: Stills from the set and 18 interesting facts about the film (16 photos)

Everything is great here: the plot, the direction, the camera work, the battles, the romance and the cast. The film about the attack on the Pearl Harbor military base became a real hit.





1. Michael Bay had been negotiating with Disney (or rather its "daughter" Touchstone Pictures) about filming the movie for a long time, and they seemed to have even agreed, but allocated a limited budget for it.



Bay thought this funding was insufficient, and he even considered giving up the director's post. But in the end, the studio bosses agreed to raise the budget to $140 million, which suited the director.

2. For Michael Bay, the film "Pearl Harbor" was the fourth full-length film. He wanted to create a war film in which there would be room for love. But many critics considered the romantic line to be rather cardboard. To this, Bay himself responded that he deliberately made the love line naive in order to pay tribute to the films of the 50s.





The director himself initially wanted to make a film in a more rigid style with a high age rating, but the studio bosses talked him out of this idea, as they wanted teenagers to see and appreciate this film. Although, of course, the financial side also played a significant role in this, because a film with an adult rating would have greatly affected the box office.

3. The director cast Ben Affleck and Josh Harnett for the main roles. But Harnett did not want to smile on camera, and was constantly filmed with a serious face, not listening to the director's commands.



Then Bay told him that he would take a single frame of smiling Josh and copy it (or rather the smile using computer overlay) throughout the film in those scenes where the character is required to smile. After that, Harnett became much more submissive.

4. Before filming the movie, Ben Affleck, Josh Harnett and even Alec Baldwin underwent flight training to look more organic on camera. Moreover, in some scenes, the actors even flew the plane themselves, but, of course, under the strict supervision of a professional pilot.



5. The Strela plant produced two Japanese fighters specifically for the film.

6. Naturally, during the filming of such a large-scale film with explosions, there were injuries. During the filming, there were 5 accidents. Among them were a dislocation, a broken ankle, a broken head, a broken finger and a broken collarbone. Moreover, one of the actors broke his finger during a small plane crash.



7. The romantic scenes between Ben Affleck and Kate Basingel were filmed after the main shoot. During this time, the actors became close friends and they were already awkward during kissing scenes. At least that's what Kate Basingel said.



8. The film was shot primarily in 4 locations: Hawaii (including the real Pearl Harbor base), California, Texas, and Mexico (Baja California). By the way, during filming in Orange County (California) at the long-closed Air Station Tustin military base, the locals were so scared that a real war had started that they began to run away in panic when they heard explosions and saw military aircraft overhead.

9. The Japanese were outraged by how their compatriots (even if they were negative characters) were shown in the frame. Firstly, they were outraged by the fact that the military command meeting was held outdoors, since the Japanese hold such meetings exclusively indoors.



And secondly, the Japanese were outraged by the fact that in the film they were shown as outright barbarians who bombed civilians and hospitals, since in reality they only bombed military facilities.

10. American veterans were also outraged by many inaccuracies that were shown in the film. For example, in the scene of Japanese planes taking off, an American aircraft carrier was used, which offended the participants in the real battle.



Michael Bay said that, firstly, he was making a feature film, not a documentary. And secondly, he said that the veterans themselves were in some sense to blame for the destruction of the Japanese aircraft carriers. But the most interesting thing is that Ben Affleck's grandfather, who was himself a veteran of World War II, flatly refused to watch the film "Pearl Harbor". According to him, if he had noticed any inaccuracies in the film, he would have simply stopped communicating with his grandson because he starred in this "fake".



And I think it's even good that the actor's grandfather didn't watch the film, because there are so many historical inaccuracies here that he would not only stop communicating with his grandson, but probably would have attacked him with his fists.

11. The film used so many explosives that it even got into the Guinness Book of Records as the film with the largest number of explosions.



12. The film has an extended version, which is longer than the original by a ridiculous 69 seconds. And this mainly concerns the very scene where Affleck's character "artificially" cries. Was it worth making an extended scene for this? The answer is obvious - no.



13. The film also used real planes from World War II. As a rule, they were borrowed from various museums.

14. The leading female role was originally planned to be given to actress Gwyneth Paltrow, but she refused because she was not satisfied with the fee. But actress Kate Basingel was satisfied with the fee.



15. The main characters played by Ben Affleck and George Harnett had their real prototypes, namely US Air Force lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth Taylor. However, their characters and destinies were greatly changed.



Kenneth Taylor himself said that he didn't like the film at all, and especially how it was essentially shown in the film.

16. Initially, Michael Bay wanted the final song for the film to be performed by the famous singer Celine Dion, who three years earlier performed the song for James Cameron's film "Titanic".



But the singer herself refused this offer. In the end, singer Faith Hill was invited for this purpose, who was even nominated for an Oscar in the category "Best Soundtrack". But she did not receive the award.

17. With a budget of 140 million dollars, the film collected 450 million dollars in theaters. And despite the huge number of historical inaccuracies, the film became a real hit.

18. The film "Pearl Harbor" was nominated for a huge number of nominations in such popular awards as the "Oscar", "Golden Globe", "ASCAP" and others.



However, in the end, the film received only one "Oscar" statuette for best sound editing.