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Movie Facts
The Movie Fox Baja Studios was mostly constructed in 100 days in order to be ready for the primary filming of Titanic.
Some of the scenes in the movie required a cast of extras number 1,000 people, all prepped for costume, hair, and makeup in a building the size of a football field.
For the movie Titanic, 12 deep sea dives were made to the actual grave of the Titanic. At the time, only five small submarines were capable of diving to the depth of Titanic’s final resting place. It took the sub two and a half hours just to reach the ship (from the surface of the ocean) and two and half hours to get back.
Titanic tied a record for the most Academy Awards ever won by a movie, hauling in 11 Oscars, including one for “Best Picture.”
The Titanic set built for the movie was nearly life-sized, coming in at 775 feet. The set was built to perfectly replicate all known interior and exterior details of the actual ship.
The 17 million gallon seawater tank, built for the sinking scenes in Titanic, is the largest shooting tank in the world and the largest ever constructed for a movie.
The Characters
The characters of Rose and Jack are fictional, as is Cal Hockly, Ruth, Lovejoy, Fabrizio and the Heart of the Ocean Diamond.
There was in fact a J.Dawson listed on the crew roster for the Titanic.
Although this is simply a coincidence, it didn't stop hundreds from flocking to the poor man's graveside in Halifax.
In the movie, Captain Smith is portrayed as quiet, withdrawn and seemingly a little confused in the final scenes, after the damage to the ship is
realized. Captain Smith wanders alone onto the ship's bridge to meet his end. Although the final moments of Titanic's Captain are not clearly documented, survivors recounted seeing him in a number of places during the ship's final moments. From reading the testimony, the likely scenario is that he was washed from the bridge area slightly before the final plunge. The depiction in the film could have well been accurate.
Many of the movies other characters were real. The officers, bandsmen, even a number of the passengers were honest representations of the real people who live at the heart of the Titanic story.
The characters Rose points out to Jack in the first class dining saloon are actors portraying real first class passengers.
After the release of the movie, there was an uproar due to the way the character of William Murdoch was inaccurately portrayed in the film. In efforts to go some way towards making amends, the film-makers, Twentieth Century Fox donated
money to the Murdoch Memorial Prize Fund. The makers of the film also apologized to a Scottish town for turning its local hero into a villian.
The movie showed the Titanic's first officer, William Murdoch, taking a bribe, shooting a third-class passenger being shoved in toward Murdoch making Murdoch think he was trying to fight his way into a lifeboat and then turning his gun on himself.
Titanic historians say that Murdoch did his utmost to save passengers, guiding them into boats and then throwing deck chairs overboard for those in the sea to cling to. He drowned when the ship went down.
Murdoch is honored with a plaque on the town hall of his sea-faring town.
Director James Cameron had meant the audience to understand that Murdoch was disgusted by the attempt to bribe him and killed himself in remorse over his panic shooting of the belligerent passenger.
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