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| ABOVE THEM THE WAVES
SWIMSUIT ISSUEScott Caan, Ashley Scott, Paul Walker and Jessica Alba go treasure-hunting - but discover more than they bargained for - in Into the Blue. into the blue
Shooting movies can be pretty tough. Then again, it can seem almost like an unexpected vacation. Action/adventure story Into the Blue, over half of which was spent in and under the clear azure waters of the Caribbean, checks most of the boxes in the vacation category. There was even the let’s-all-go-together bit: the film’s two male leads, Paul Walker and Scott Caan, playing competitive friends, are competitive friends in real life. And the setting (the Bahamas) was the kind of place in which most people would pay a lot of money to spend a week, let alone a couple of months. “We came here for the crystal clear water quality and the sharks, which are in almost every scene,” says producer David A Zelon, “as well as for the unmatched beauty of the island and the wealth of skilled workers and actors in Nassau. We wanted a very natural look, and [director] John [Stockwell] wanted to use as many Bahamians as he could to create a natural feel for the film.” Plus, he adds, there were a few fringe benefits. “It was nice just riding home each night with the wind blowing and the sun setting. It certainly beat sitting on the freeway!” Not that making Into the Blue was all about sitting on the beach sipping pińa coladas. The film, scripted by Texas-born Matt Johnson, whose previous credits include action/thriller Torque, is about free-divers searching for treasure on the ocean floor. And the four main cast members were involved in some pretty intensive training. Free-diving is a little like snorkelling: you wear a mask, but dive into deep water without the aid of an oxygen tank. Beginners can quickly learn to dive into water as deep as 30 feet and to stay down for as long as 45 seconds. Experienced free-divers go deeper - a lot deeper: the current free-diving record stands at over 300 feet, with divers staying down for three minutes or more. One of the appeals of doing it this way, say fans, is the serenity. There is none of the hiss-and-bubble of scuba-diving. Wearing just a mask, snorkel, fins, wetsuit and a weightbelt, divers can swim alongside dolphins and schools of fish - or, in the case of Into the Blue, alongside sharks and stumble across hidden Spanish gold. Into the Blue is director Stockwell’s second water-sports movie (he scored a hit a few summers back with the female surfing flick Blue Crush) and focuses on Jared Cole (played by The Fast and the Furious star Paul Walker) and his girlfriend, Sam (Jessica Alba, from this summer’s hit Sin City). Jared is a part-time treasure hunter with his own, barely seaworthy boat; Jessica is a shark handler in the Bahamian resort of New Providence. They live in a trailer on the beach and are getting by in a not very ambitious kind of way when they are visited by Jared’s childhood friend, Bryce (Scott Caan), who is now a successful New York lawyer, and his new girlfriend, Amanda (Ashley Scott). Bryce doesn’t have much time for trailer life and leaky boats: he hires a mansion and a luxury yacht for his visit to the Bahamas. And it is while free-diving from the latter that the four friends discover a Spanish galleon, stirred up from the seabed by a recent storm. But that is not all they find recently uncovered on the ocean floor - which is where their dreams of treasure (and Jared’s dreams of starting a proper salvage business with the proceeds) begin to take on a more sinister dimension. For Stockwell, though, shooting the film was an adventure very much of the right kind. “There was something about going back onto the water, as well as going underwater, that was a real challenge,” he says. “I thought the script for Into the Blue had real drive and originality. Also, I like being on the water, and 70 per cent of this film was designed to take place on or below the waterline.” “In terms of underwater scenes, the only other movie I can think of that comes close to this was Thunderball,” says Stuart Cove, a Bahamian whose diving operation is one of the largest in the Caribbean. “But Into the Blue has it all: free-diving, sharks, airplanes crashing into the sea, huge fight scenes - and almost half of the filming took place underwater.” |
