The Perfect Storm: Gimbal Madness

While Wolfgang Petersen's film, The Perfect Storm, explores the theme ofman vs.nature, behind the scenes, it was all about man vs. machine. Torecreate the deadly high-seas saga of the Andrea Gail, practical effectsveteran John Frazier (Armageddon, Speed) served up a computer-controlledgimbal capable of making a full-scale fishing trawler climb walls of waterwithin a custom-built tank.

Petersen scouted the film world to find the ideal spot to shoot his actorsswarming on the Andrea Gail. One by one, the Malta tank, Universal Lake,and the Baja facility where Titanic was made, were shot down. Petersen andFrazier decided instead to dig the largest soundstage tank in the world-a95' square, 22' deep hole in the floor of Warner's legendary Stage 16.

In addition to Stage 16's huge motion base, the project demanded a whoppingseven gimbals. Frazier had his hands full insuring that the full-scale propboats could weather the rough ride. He says that although the real AndreaGail was all steel, the film's construction team initially wanted to workin wood. "We said, 'Forget it! The first time we turn this gimbal on, it'sgoing to come apart'," Frazier recalls. "So our Andrea Gail's all steeltoo. Anything else wouldn't have held up under the g-force we were pulling."

Meanwhile, Frazier and company set to work building what he says is themost complex gimbal ever designed for a feature film, a six-axis hydraulicmotion base measuring 25' in diameter and 15' high. "Most gimbals have auniversal pivot joint in the middle which gives us two axes of movement,"Frazier explains. "Instead, this one has six intersecting rams on a15-degree angle arranged in a circle. Each ram looks like an inverted 'V',and all six rams supported the Andrea Gail, which weighed 150,000 pounds.Each ram was capable of picking up 25,000 pounds. It's a take-off of flightsimulator technology, but I don't think anyone ever thought 150,000 poundswould be sitting on top of one!"

While the gimbal took two months to construct, it took just a matter ofdays to program. "It was motion controlled-on a big scale," Frazier says."So when Wolfgang came in, we were up and running and he could simply askus, 'Can you give me a little bit more pitch? Or can you speed it up?' Thatsort of thing."

Frazier says the rig also provided some effective, but nerve-wrackingpracticals. "The boat literally would go over on its side, so a lot ofthose waves you see going over the bow were created by the action of thegimbal. It was so intense, there were times when that gimbal was soviolent, I couldn't watch it anymore!"

Back in the relative safety of ILM, effects artists lead by weather-effectsguru Stefan Fangmeier faced the challenge of marrying the digital and realwater. "I admired Titanic a lot, but that water was flat," Petersen notes."We were dealing with over 100-foot waves, not only shooting on water butcreating water in an artificial way, which is the most difficult thing youcan do and make audiences believe it. It's never been done before to thatextent, the way we've done it in Perfect Storm."

Meanwhile, Frazier has already upped the ante. When asked if the AndreaGail gimbal was the world's largest, he laughs. "I could say that-untilPearl Harbor, where we made a third of the battleship Oklahoma roll over.That is the biggest gimbal ever." For now.