James Cameron Waited 12 Days for the Titanic Sunset

It’s hard to imagine there’s any new information on Titanic. It was well covered in 1997 and 1998 as it became a phenomenon, and in the ensuing years every time it was revisited. But one fun story on the new 4K UHD and new interviews with James Cameron and Kate Winslet recalls the sunset kiss on the bow.

“We put the sunset on day one, knowing that if we didn’t have a good sunset it would slip to day two,” Cameron said. “Day 12 we still haven’t had a sunset. We’ve got one more day on this set. I’m looking at the sky, it’s kind of overcast and ugly. I said, ‘I think there’s going to be a sunset.’ Russell [Carpenter], the DP looks at the sky and goes, ‘I don’t think so.’”

Cameron trusted his gut and was prepared to have the crew stop another scene when he saw red in the gaps in the clouds.

“I said, ‘The sun’s coming out, it’s going to pop out under those clouds. Move, move move move,’’ Cameron continued. “The entire unit goes the length of the ship. We were working at the stern. Everybody’s racing down to the bow. Kate goes off to do a quick wardrobe change. She comes back, we get the camera set up. We had a little bit of light, a little bit of soft warm light on a stand. We’re owning up, 20 feet off the ground at the bow of the ship. We’ve got wind machines. Kate comes running out, and I’ve never heard an actor say this before or since. She walks out onto the little bow set which wasn’t very big. She takes one look at the sunset, she turns to me and screams from 100 feet away, ‘Shoot!’”

Winslet shared her memory of that scene.

“Jim would go, ‘Sunset’s amazing, go go go,’” Winslet said. “We’d be like, ‘What?’ We’d climb up this damn latter, we’re going to miss it, run. So we’d get up there, action. We’d have two minutes of endlessly doing this clinch and again and again and then god forbid if we started laughing. It was really honestly hilarious.”

Cameron revealed which take is in the movie.

“We shot two takes before we lost the light,” Cameron said. “The first one completely out of focus. The second one is out of focus for about four seconds and then it pops in. That’s the one that’s in the movie.”

With the recent releases of Cameron’s 20th Century Fox movies, film lovers should be happy that Paramount kept the grain in Titanic, even underwater. You can see the texture of the hull, even if it’s only a partial facade. The pitch black ocean and night sky brings out the 4K HDR, although the sky gets bluer towards the horizon.

The scene where they tried to CGI DiCaprio and Winslet’s faces over the doubles running through the flooded hall is even more glaring in 4K but it always has been.

The surround mix is immersive too, with helicopters flying Rose to the ship and seagulls chirping above the Titanic. Gunshots in the water spray behind you. The boat creaks and implodes throughout the sinking, especially when it breaks in half.