What’s the significance of Jack’s peanut?
Verbinski: Exactly.
How hard is it to keep the story in mind if you’re so busy with a lot of technology and computer generated images?
Verbinski: Visual effects are a tool in the filmmaker’s toolbox. Once you become acquainted with them they cease to be distracting. I always try to keep story foremost in my mind while shooting.
How was it working as a guitarist on the score?
Verbinski: That was a blast, but my contribution is a pimple on the ass of a tick crawling along the ankle of a behemoth endeavor. Hans Zimmer and his entire team did all the work.
In general, what are your thoughts on DVD extras? Some directors bemoan the idea of revealing the mechanics behind the magic and other guys love revealing how it’s all done. What are your thoughts on the issue?
Verbinski: These films are a different species completely. The process of making them has been such a wondrous and strange adventure, I think it serves as a form of entertainment itself. Nobody wants to show their dirty laundry, but ownership of these movies belongs as much to the audience as it does the filmmakers.
You said on the bonus material that all of the sets begin with drawings on a napkin. When you now watch the finished movie, how close did the sets come to what was envisioned during the napkin drawing?
Verbinski: The creative process is complex. I try to be specific and deliberate as I storyboard and pre-visualize the entire film. Yet I am constantly aware that this process can make a film cold and clinical. I try to remain open to gifts that a little bit of randomness can provide along the way. The contributions of others is essential in creating that particular form of ‘controlled chaos.’ The napkin drawing is a starting point from which I encourage evolution. Most of the time the concept remains intact but execution shifts dramatically.
Was the making of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End as hectic as was portrayed in the DVD of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest?
Verbinski: At World’s End had to be in theatres 10 months after the release of Dead Man’s Chest. Hectic? How about insane? Fortunately the cast and crew found their stride enabling us to work intuitively throughout the madness.
What was it like when you finally got Keith Richards on set? Was he well behaved?
Verbinski: Well behaved? Let’s just say everything you have heard is true.
What worries you more as a director in general, big scale scenes or intimate ones?
Verbinski: It is always the intimate ones that require the most attention to detail.
Of the special features on the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End DVD, is there one featurette or one segment that stands out to you as being your favorite or the most interesting?
Verbinski: Yes, the making of the Maelstrom gives you a small window into the complexity of creating and executing a sequence that has never been accomplished before. Months in planning and 8 weeks of shooting required a synergy between stunts, camera, practical effects and visual effects. Day after day we were operating amid 100 miles per hour winds, cascading rain and debris, deafening cannon fire with 150 sword wielding stuntmen battling across two undulating vessels on the largest gimbals ever constructed for filming. Although artificially created, practically speaking, we were filming a battle within a massive storm. I think the viewer will get a good sense of what everyone went through to bring this to the big screen.
You visited a lot of exotic locations during your time working on the trilogy. Which was your favourite and did you ever get a moments peace to enjoy any of them?
Verbinski: St Vincent and the Exumas were fantastic, but I really recommend Dominica for those who want to go back in time. We stayed and rented homes and bought fish from the locals and barbequed on the beach every night after wrap. There was very little time off but the community of the island melded with production in a way that I have never witnessed. That was a special place.
Do you have any visual dreams that are technically still impossible to do but can be done in the near future?
Verbinski: I think the Hollywood invention has always been somewhat limitless. You may have relied on a bit of claymation, filmed lizards for dinosaurs, or depicted Chuck Heston parting the seas but what continues to change is execution: design aesthetic and photo realism continue to evolve. For me the limits have always resided with our imagination. The struggle is to conceive something unique. If you can achieve this, then the underlying concept or idea even badly executed will always outshine the polished cliché.
You’ve been featured on Premiere’s most powerful list. Do you feel powerful these days?
Verbinski: Only when I wear my eyepatch.
Are you planning on doing a 4th part?
Verbinski: I think the trilogy is now complete. All of the stories set in motion by the first film have been resolved. If there ever were another Pirates of the Caribbean film, I would start fresh and focus on the further adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow.
Get more info on the DVD here and on the Blu-ray Disc here.
