Other Titles • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) • Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Treasures of the Lost Abyss • Dead Man's Chest • Pirates of the Caribbean 2 • Rummty II • P.O.T.C 2 • Pirates 2 • P.O.T.C. 2
There were two versions, one a “cart” version supported by “training wheels,” with the actual mill wheel pulled by cables on a winch system, with camera platforms built onto the training wheel cart that surrounded it. “The other version,” notes Ruge, “was affectionately called the ‘paint roller.’ The wheel was attached to steel tow bars and literally towed by a flatbed truck that also served as a makeshift camera platform at times.”
To enable the wheel to roll more smoothly, paths were created through the jungle, because if the terrain were too tough, “it made it impossible for the performers to stay on the wheel or maintain the necessary hand-eye coordination for the swordfight.”
Before the sequence went in front of the cameras, there were several pre-production rehearsals within a five-week span and a series of location rehearsals over the course of three weeks whenever time permitted Ruge to muster the three actors and his stunt team.
“Oh boy, I’ll never forget the faces on Gore and George when it was time to load me into that massive wheel,” recalls Johnny Depp. “Gore just started laughing, because it was such an absurd and bizarre request for grown men to ask of each other: ‘Okay, what we’d like to do now is bind you inside the wheel, tether you to the walls of this thing, give you a sword, and as the wheel is rolling you’re gonna go upside down several times.’
“It was so bizarre that it was completely appealing,” Depp laughs. “I’ve done some really obtuse and strange things in this movie, at some point there are no surprises. But because of who Gore and George are, and how brilliant they are at their jobs, you have complete trust, which is the whole key to filmmaking.”
“It’s a truly remarkable sequence that only Gore, Ted and Terry could have come up with and that George could have made work,” says Orlando Bloom. “We spent many days harnessed inside of that wheel, doing crazy fights up and down, around and around. It would make a fun ride in an amusement park…if it weren’t so uncomfortable.” Also occasionally harnessed inside of the wheel doing 360-degree revolutions were camera operators Martin Schaer and Josh Bleibtreu, just one of the extremely unusual positions in which they and their compatriots often found themselves during the DEAD MAN’S CHEST shoot.
Jack Davenport points out that although there are CGI elements which enhanced the scene, most of it was live on-camera. “It’s a classical swordfight scene with shots which can’t be faked. When you see us upside down, with the veins in our forehead popping out, it’s real.”
But the boys weren’t the only ones who got to have all the fun. The sequences shot in Dominica also gave Keira Knightley ample opportunity to flex her action muscles, and the fearless performer was up for anything stunt coordinator George Marshall Ruge wanted to throw at her. “On the first movie, I was begging for a swordfight, but I never got one. This time, I’ve got two big ones, and two swords as well, so I was very happy.”
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