MovieChat Forums > Morning Light (2009) Discussion > Sailing scenes staged? (POTENTIAL MINOR ...

Sailing scenes staged? (POTENTIAL MINOR SPOILERS)

posted 14 years ago by bbball
3 replies | jump to latest

While I did not think that this was a great movie (not enough real sailing 'stuff'for my liking), it did have some beautiful beautiful shots. But there is one problem: How did they get the race footage, specifically pictures of the boat sailing in the middle of the ocean and especially the encounter with Samba Pa Ti?
Only explanation that I can think of it is that they re-enacted and filmed those moments after the race (and maybe also spliced in some of the training footage). Thoughts?

[–] ebright99 14 years ago

The encounter with the Samba took my breath away, but I've seen no reason to doubt it. As for how did they get the race footage: I don't find it especially unlikely that a chase boat followed them to film long shots and that there was one cameraman aboard. Would having a cameraman aboard (a 12th crew member) disqualify a team? Clearly the wide night shots were special effects, ie daytime shots treated in the computer to look like night.

[–] bbball 13 years ago

I do not doubt that the encounter with Samba happened just like depicted in the movie (or at least very similar). What I doubt is that the wide-angle shots in the movie (i.e., not the shots taken from Morning light, but the ones showing _both_ boats in the same frame) are from the actual encounter - my contention is that they were probably staged. There might have been a chase boat at the beginning (and end) of the race, but the encounter with Samba happens hundreds of miles away from the closest land - far too far for a chase boat to make it.

To address your other points:
- Having a cameraman would not have disqualified them, but they did not do that. Rather they had a bunch of cameras mounted in several positions around the boat (behind the driver, off the side, down below, etc.) and had one crew member (maybe several, taking turns) operate a hand-held video camera - this camera is clearly visible when they are celebrating on deck after finishing/reaching Hawaii.
- Would do base the statement that "the night shots were special effects" on? They look like pretty regular low ambient light/night time film footage to me.

[–] BKinzeys 12 years ago

Chase boat is what I thought. Since they knew there was going to be a documentary it would be logical to have a chase boat. As for too far out for a chase boat people do take non-sailing yachts from California to Hawaii and beyond. I don't doubt they used a boat owned by Roy Disney.

I did wonder if they had a cameraperson onboard or if they just trained the actual crew. I don't know if the racing rules make you count everyone on the boat as a sailor. If I had to guess it would be they trained the sailors to run the cameras to save on space, weight, food, etc anyway.