Ask Me a Question: The Abyss

Panelists include Todd Graff (“Hippy”), Michael Beach (“Barnes”), Lesley Dilley (production designer), Joseph Nemec III (art director), Phillip Darlington (Cameron’s underwater assistant), Starr Jones (makeup FX) and Trey Stokes (“alien” movement designer)! - See more at: http://www.cinefamily.org/films/?time=past#the-abyss-castcrew-in-person

Panelists include Todd Graff (“Hippy”), Michael Beach (“Barnes”), Lesley Dilley (production designer), Joseph Nemec III (art director), Phillip Darlington (Cameron’s underwater assistant), Starr Jones (makeup FX) and Trey Stokes (“alien” movement designer)! - See more at: http://www.cinefamily.org/films/?time=past#the-abyss-castcrew-in-person

Panelists include Todd Graff (“Hippy”), Michael Beach (“Barnes”), Lesley Dilley (production designer), Joseph Nemec III (art director), Phillip Darlington (Cameron’s underwater assistant), Starr Jones (makeup FX) and Trey Stokes (“alien” movement designer)! - See more at: http://www.cinefamily.org/films/?time=past#the-abyss-castcrew-in-person

Panelists include Todd Graff (“Hippy”), Michael Beach (“Barnes”), Lesley Dilley (production designer), Joseph Nemec III (art director), Phillip Darlington (Cameron’s underwater assistant), Starr Jones (makeup FX) and Trey Stokes (“alien” movement designer)! - See more at: http://www.cinefamily.org/films/?time=past#the-abyss-castcrew-in-pe

In a wonderful case of scheduling coincidence, I'll be seeing two films by James Cameron featuring Michael Biehn on the big screen in one week.  First up, a cast and crew reunion event for 1989's The Abyss; Cameron's underwater thriller concerning oil workers and NAVY Seals investigating a crashed US sub and encountering something inhuman beneath the surface.

Carpenter turned Cameron assistant Phil Darlington set up a fantastic event at The Cinefamily; corralling an impressive panel including actors Todd Graff (Hippy) and Michael Beach (Barnes), Oscar winning production designer Lesley Dilley, Art Director Joseph Nemec III (The Shadow!), Make up artist Starr Jones and NTI movement/puppet designer Trey Stokes.  Everyone was comfortably crammed onstage and moderator Marc S. Zicree (writer of a million Star Trek episodes) got it all started.

Tonight's crowd was filled with others who worked on the film, most notably Van Ling, a young kid who built a Power Loader Halloween costume and impressed producer Gale Ann Hurd and James Cameron enough to be hired on for The Abyss and subsequently Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic.  If you own the Alien Quadrilogy box set, check out A Boy and His Power Loader.  Great stuff.


When you have a panel this size, it's easy for it to fall into awkward lulls, non-sequitur, fractured conversation with a few dominating voices.  Fortunately, Zicree did a great job moderating as he was excited to be there, a fan of the film and smart enough to keep each panel member involved which kept the the audience's attention (well except that one girl in the second row who nodded off, CASUAL FAN).  Before the film, Zicree engaged the guests in a nearly one hour panel.

Recollections of The Abyss:

- Shot for six months outside Gaffney, South Carolina in an unfinished nuclear power plant.
- Shooting under water presented so many variables that every actor had to be ready to shoot at first call.  No one knew what was going to happen day to day.
- A tent constructed over the tanks lasted two weeks before being blown off, just like the locals warned.  Millions of black plastic beads were poured over the surface to block out the light.  Cast and crew members would find them in their ears and random places for months afterwards.
- Darlington was hired as a carpenter, wanted to work first unit and ended up being Cameron's underwater assistant and nicknamed Flipper on set.
- Nemec had a background in diving, figured it'd be fun shoot.  Both he and Dilley had no idea what they were getting into.  The scale and construction efforts were massive.
- 12 to 14 hour days in the tank meant having to decompress, many times while watching dailies.
- The creatures in the film are NTI's, Non-Terrestrial-Intelligence, don't you dare call them aliens!
- Creatures had to be constructed in a way to convey various light patterns, Cameron's thought was that they would communicate through colors.
- Post production took nearly as long as shooting to accommodate special F/X and creature scenes.
- Graff was given his rat sidekick at birth so they could bond.  Had it for two years after filming.
- The rat really did breath liquid, Cameron scripted no dialogue and just told the actors to go for it but they were mostly in shock and thought they were killing the animal.
- James Cameron is a genius who can do everyone's job, probably better than they can.  Grabbed the camera and jumped into the water to get a shot when the camera operator bungled first attempt; took a can of spray paint from someone's hand and did it himself when results weren't good enough, etc.
- Michael Biehn told Beach (who only appears in the opening scene) he was lucky not to land a bigger part and pleaded to be taken with him.
- The production was nicknamed "The Abuse".

Of course much, much, much more was talked about and I wish they would have covered more topics but it was still a school night so the movie had to roll sometime.

They screened the theatrical cut which I'm not overly familiar with.  I grew up watching the 30 minutes longer Director's Cut.  Watching it in it's original form was interesting; for a 2 hour and 20 minute film, it moves quite quickly.  Performances are great all around, Ed Harris is funny and strong as roughneck Virgil "Bud" Brigman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays Lindsay, the ire of many characters but always comes across likeable and intelligent.  Cameron regular Michael Biehn dons a stache and plays shaky, paranoid Navy Seal Lt. Coffey, who suffers from pressure sickness and attempts to nuke the NTI's.  Graff as Hippy and Leo Burmester as Cat anchor a great supporting cast of likeable, blue collar types caught in the middle of a hurricane, "aliens", nukes and a possible global military crises.

The ending was a shock as the NTI's are portrayed as good guys who help out Brigman after he risks his life to save them.  The Director's Cut is much more detailed as the NTI's observe mankind's destructive nature and threaten to wipe out the coasts with giant tidal waves before realizing there is love in the world as demonstrated by Bud and Lindsay's repaired relationship.  A fanboy internet critic recently lamented Cameron's status among "geeks" was destroyed when he made a movie with kissing.  But all of Cameron's films, The Abyss especially, are love stories.  Titanic is just the only one without robots, fighter jets or aliens (or in this case, NTI's).

 Check out the making of what's considered one of the most difficult movie shoots of all time: