K-19: The Widowmaker Photo Gallery

DP Jeff Cronenweth provided Millimeter with these behind-the-scenespictures of the making of Kathryn Bigelow's new film, K-19: TheWidowmaker. Showing some of the scope of the logistical effort, and thecramped spaces on the scale sets in which filmmakers worked, thepictures illustrate the lengths filmmakers went to replicate conditionson board an embryonic, 1961-era Soviet nuclear submarine. See the Juneissue of Millimeter for more on the making of the film.

The production used mothballed submarines for exterior shots duringfilming at Canada's Lake Winnipeg (1) and they built scale sets showingsubs in drydock, for the film's opening sequences.

Cronenweth's camera crew swarms all over a sub during topsidefilming.

A variety of special camera cranes were built onto both tugboats foropen-water exterior filming (4) and on land for scenes showing theK-19's launch. (5)

Key scenes were shot in the dead of winter.

Director Kathryn Bigelow assembled a flotilla of several tugboatslike these to aid the production.

Shooting on cramped, scale sets of the sub's interior, using onlythe kind of light actually found on a submarine, was a challengingproposition.

DP Jeff Cronenweth and his crew during a shooting break.

Scaffolding used during building of the film's sets.