LENS MAGIC
By Terry Rossio


This really happened.

In 1993, my best friend from high school, Scott Brown, planned a Caribbean summer sailing trip for his family, charting a twelve-person catamaran sailboat to ride the trade winds from exotic Martinique southward into the cobalt-blue waters of the Grenadines.

I got invited along.

I can still remember Scott on the phone, finalizing the plans. We were to have our own Captain, as well as a lovely young French cook. Scott was very particular with the charter company regarding food and drink, to the point of tossing out scenarios, such as, "So it's three o'clock in the afternoon, and I want a Margarita. Do I get up and make it, or does the lovely French cook mix it, and bring it to me?"

They gave the correct answer -- the lovely French cook -- the trip was booked, and we were on our way.

It was a fantastic voyage. Highlights ...

Warm tropical breezes. Sleeping on deck under clear starlight skies. Open sea storms with giant raindrops splashing down. Dancing with ten thousand people on day fourteen of festival in the streets of Kingston. Hiking to waterfalls. My utter lack of ability to learn how to sailboard. Celebrating my birthday, with cake and candles, in the shadows of the Grand Titons of St. Lucia. Slapping sunblock on my back, creating a frightening sunburn everywhere except the handprint where I had slapped sunblock on my back. The aforementioned lovely French Cook taking showers at night off the stern of the ship.

Now here is the first key point of this tale: I want you to know I took a lot -- a LOT -- of photographs on that trip.

This was back is the days before digital, when you had to buy the film cannisters, take your photos, then send the rolls off to be developed. Yes there was the drama of not knowing if you got the shot, but that was also the good part, you could look forward to the day your prints arrived, it was like creating your own little Christmas. The other bad part was that it was freakin' expensive, and I had brought along 44 rolls of film for that trip, tucked inside a giant-sized Ziplock bag. 44 rolls of film at 36 exposures each, that's 1584 photographs. I got teased about it, but we were sailing for 12 days, and I had been warned that you didn't want to run out of film -- there were rumors it was like fifty bucks a roll down there, if you could find it at all.

So you also had to anticipate the type of shots you were going to take. Half of my rolls were ASA 100 for bright daytime use, half the rolls were a little 'faster' at ASA 200 in case I wanted to shoot in the rain or evenings or telephoto, plus it was a little more sensitive for shots using flash. I had a dozen rolls of Kodak for portraits and sunsets (Kodak was more balanced toward the reds) but the majority was Fuji film (for those glorious blues and greens we hoped to find).

Ohmigod, don't forget the polarizing filter!

Now, my theory as a photographer is pretty much "One good shot per roll." Try to get at least one photograph out of 36 to come out good and then only ever show that one shot. If you only ever show your good photos, if that's all people ever see, they will get the mistaken impression you're a good photographer.

So I want you to imagine me taking lots of photographs, every day, all up and down the Caribbean on that trip. Clothes on a railing blowing in the wind. A local man in a canoe selling trinkets. Laughing and splashing in a rushing waterfall. Colorful wraps on lovely dark-skinned ladies. Raindrops frozen in time as they bounce up from the deck. Bays, beaches, sailboats, sea shells, sunsets and smiles.

The trip ended. The film rolls made it safely home. An intermitable wait for developing, then I finally get to check out the prints. I actually did a little better than average, better than planned, there were enough good shots to fill an entire album, about 80 photos.

One of them stood out from the rest.

It wasn't the photograph you might expect, some spectacular sunset, or a white sandy beach. I had plenty of those. It wasn't even one of the shots most other people picked as their favorite.

But it stood out for me.

I couldn't to this day tell you exatly why I liked it so much, but let me see if I can describe it to you:

A row of rough-hewn bungalows, whitewash walls with distinctive sharp-angled roofs, topped by vivid pottery-red shingles. Dark green jungle behind. Shot with a 200mm lens and so fairly compressed for a landscape shot, making the jungle seem to loom over the structure. Along the bottom foreground was a ragged sea wall comprised of a variety of rough stones. A young very dark-skinned man stood on the wall with one leg dangling out, arms crossed, casual. Through the open door of one of the bungalows to the far left, the faint outline of a woman, seated, is seen, perhaps speaking to someone masked in the shade.

Call it a slice-of-life shot. A captured moment, unimportant, no different than a million other moments that might be happening anywhere in the islands. But one thing for sure: the colors were amazing. Never have I taken a shot with such deep, saturated colors. Part of this was the subject, part that the photo was taken around magic hour, everything bathed in the rich golds of sunset light.

The other thing that kept taking me back to the photograph was the complexity of patterns. The bungalows had windows with varied wood frames; the roof beams were irregular, there were dark vents in a rectangular grouping, it was built on a wood platform with handmade steps, the walls were layered with shadows. No matter how many times I looked at the shot, I could always find something new in it, something that I hadn't noticed before.

Looking at the photogrpah, I also happend to remember the exact circumstances of taking it. Our ship had sailed into the bay of some new island (I don't remember which) and the modest structure, oddly enough, housed a combination dive shop and government Customs office. If you arrived at the island by ship, this little outpost saved you the trouble of going all the way to the airport to find a Customs Official.
So our Captain had gone ashore to get our passports stamped, leaving us anchored in the bay, just waiting. I took my camera to the center of the boat, which had the least sway (this is something you learn when you get seasick like I do). I laid down onto the deck and supported the camera on my chest. Hand-holding a long lens on a swaying boat to take a landscape shot in fading light was photography suicide, but I figured I'd give it a shot.

Click!

Something else unique about taking this shot: it was not part of a series. Usually I would take four or five shots of a subject, trying to get the composition just right, experimenting with framing, or bracketing the exposure.

Not so here.

Frame it, focus, click. Done.

The fact that the resulting photo came out sharp, and vivid under those circumstances is part of why I remembered taking it.

In fact it was so sharp and I was so (oddly) drawn to this picture, I considered having it enlarged, printed and mounted, poster-sized. This is something not normally done with a 35mm negative; they look fine at 8x10 or 9x12, but you get grain issues around 27x36 or higher. Out of all the photographs I've ever taken -- and that's a lot of photos, folks, after all, you know I'm the kinda guy who takes 1500 photos on one sailing trip -- there are only four I have ever considered blowing up to poster sized.

Repeat that: only four.

Two are of my glorious daughter, Janay (one in a pumpkin patch, the other on an Easter egg hunt).

One was a baseball action shot, taken during spring training in Arizona, a pretty amazing shot of Gary Sheffield sliding into home plate, catcher waiting for the ball, another player giving the slide signal, the moment perfectly captured, if I may say so.
And then finally this Caribbean slice-of-life shot.

Now here is the second key point I want you to remember. Consider that out of all the shots I have ever taken, I have only blown up four to poster-sized. And of those four, only one did I actually put up in my own house, on my own wall, and leave it there.

That was the Caribbean shot, of course.

Repeat that: only one.

I hung in on my bedroom wall.

That was in Year of Our Lord Nineteen hundred and ninety-three.

And then, the Years of Our Lord passed.

I went to bed every night looking at that shot, I woke up every morning looking at that shot, every single day.

For over ten years.

*****

A quick digression. Photography is strange. The act of taking a photograph, of committing a subject to film -- is truly bizarre. There is a weird time-travel element. We stand there, smiling in front of some landmark or about to cut a birthday cake, looking at the lens, through the lens we are in a sense gazing forward into the future, toward our older and wiser selves who will no doubt rifle past the print while looking for something else in the drawer. We look out at unknown others who will glance back at us and comment on the odd clothes, the funny hair, the old-fashioned cars. We look out past the moment of our deaths, all the way to people we could never know, who will stare at us in that moment, wondering who we are, what life was like way back then, and what we might have been thinking when the flash went off.

There is a cruelty to photographs too. The young smooth skin that is no more, the relative or pet long lost, the friendships locked behind the bars of the past ... the hopefulness in the eyes of the lover that did not last, a moment of childhood joy that once filled the mind, now long forgotten.

I will tell you this. The most important photos are those taken around the house. What does your desk look like? What do the cars in the street out past the front yard look like, and wow, look how small the trees look! Mom or grandpa or sister or nephew doing dishes in the kitchen. Not the birthday parties and the opening of Christmas gifts, but your father working out in the garage, and what are the magnets holding up on the refrigerator door?

*****

So the years roll past. Life happens. Shit happens. Life happens. The screenwriting career goes well. Aladdin leads to Zorro, El Dorado leads to Shrek. My kid is in high school and driving a truck. Chronic fatigue syndrome hits me then goes away. We find ourselves doing a Pirate movie, called Curse of the Black Pearl.

Let me tell you the layout of the main set of that film.

Each day we'd catch the work ferry from this fantastic resort on Young Island. About a 40 minute commute watching the sunrise, slamming against the waves, to where the 18th century town of Port Royal had been constructed. You come around the point to see all these tall ships, and pull up to the long dock, where Jack Sparrow was captured by Norrington, threatened Elizabeth, and escaped by sliding down the long rope above the dock leading to the bridge.

To the left (which the camera never sees) were the trailers and tents for catering and the prop and equipment trucks, etc. To the right, over the bridge, was the tiny Port Royal set, seen mainly when Barbossa's pirates attack. Thatched roofs, barrels, a second dock (the one Johnny steped onto for his grand entrance) and a few goats wandering around.

The way it worked, this Port Royal set did double duty. The buildings were dressed to look old, but also served as the production offices, first aid office, and dressing rooms for the major stars. Also Bruckheimer had an air-conditioned room that he rarely used, and that's where Ted and I did most of our writing on set.

So one day after about a week on location, I'm walking from the production offices back out toward the make-up trailers. Picture me moving right-to-left in your mind's eye, backpack over my shoulder, head down, lost in thought.

Suddenly I get a really weird feeling.

I mean, REALLY weird.

I stop dead in my tracks.

And look around.

My attention falls on the small building, last in line of the re-dressed production offices. What is it about that building? Something familiar --

Then it hits me –

I'M STANDING IN THE PICTURE!

I'm standing pretty close to where the young man stood. The door is the same, the window the same, the roofline the same –

(IN THE PICTURE IN THE PICTURE IN THE PICTURE IN THE PICTURE)

The universe sort of wobbles around me and I almost lose my balance. I take my backpack off and lay it on the ground.

In a flash I put it all together.

I never knew where I took that photograph, the Caribbean shot, the ship had sailed in and out of so many places. I had no input on where the main set was going to be built, didn't even know the name (turned out it was called Wallelabou Bay). And I hadn't made the connection because the buildings, once used as customs and as a dive shack, had been re-dressed with aged facades and thatched roofing for the film.
But there was no doubt -- this was exactly the same spot.

It hit me --

For eleven years, every day, I had been unknowingly staring at the future main set of the film I would someday co-write, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Did that given you a chill?

Hope so, because that's the best I can do to convey the experience of it, take that and multipy by a thousand, the sense of the universe warping around me as I stood there, trying to reconcile the moment (and please note that I have not changed nor embellished a single fact here). Maybe you could only appreciate it if you were me, having stared at that single photograph on the wall for so long, knowing every detail so well ... and now I was standing in the spot.

It really freaked me out. I was standing in the photo. I was standing in the photo. I was standing in the photo.

Had I taken a picture of the future?

I looked out at the bay, half-expecting to see a sailboat moored, with a ten-years-younger me out there, lying on my back, trying to get the shot just right in the last rays of the Caribbean sunset.

Now you might think, so what, so I went on a sailing trip and took a photo, and the photo ended up matching a place that later became a movie set.

But come on.

There are a LOT of islands out there. There were a thousand other bays. I had gone on many trips in my life, and taken hundreds of thousands of photos.

So what compelled me, out of all those photographs I could have chosen, to pick just that one and put it on the wall?

What I believe is that sometimes, the future echoes back to use. What has happened will happen, and we can sense it. When we meet a person for the first time and feel a connection. Come to a location and it feels like home.

Or --

Take a photograph, and put it up on the wall.

*****

I really should end the story right there, but I feel compelled to add an odd postscript.
One of Scott's brothers, with us on the cruise, Dan Brown, took some home-movie style video of the trip. Later, he kindly made VHS copies for everyone involved. Mine went up on the shelf.

Years later, when I got back from the Pirates shoot (after I went into the bedroom to stare at that mysterious photograph for a good long time) I got curious. Was the visit to that particular location somewhere on Dan's video as well?

I slid the tape in. Scanned forward --

The marina. Our ship. Loading luggage. Smiling. Sailing. Hiking. Back on the ship. More sailing. Waves. Sailboarding. Onto shore, back onto the ship, more sailing. Someone speaking into camera, and then the camera swings over --

Wait, was that me?

I rewind and press play, and watch it real time.

A couple of fellow passengers are speaking into camera, talking about some hike, and yes, that looks like Wallelabou Bay in the background. Then the camera swings over -- And there is me, at the center of the ship. Lying on my back. Camera balanced on my chest, focusing and I swear, the camera stays on my just long enough to hear --

Click!

-- and then the camera swings back to the other passengers, and I'm nowhere to be found on the entire rest of the tape.

So, for reasons I cannot fathom, not only did I stare at this particular photograph for ten years of my life, but the universe provided me with a record of the exact moment the photo was taken.

To what purpose? None whatsoever, as far as I can tell.

But for the record, out of all the hundreds of thousands of photos I have taken in my life, there is only one image, and one image alone, that shows yours truly *taking* a photograph.

That video.

Of me taking the Caribbean shot.

It may not seem much to you.

To me – it's amazing queer bizarre wild creepy and wonderously weird.

Thinking about it, even now, kind of freaks me out.

All I can say is --

This really happened.

Pirates of the Caribbean
ENDS OF THE EARTH
More Tales from the Set

On location out in Utah, executive producer Chad Oman tells a story from working on a previous film, shooting on the same location, the salt flats which are indeed perfectly, weirdly, amazingly flat in all directions. "What you do is go out at midnight with a case of beer and an SUV" he says, "and get going about thirty miles an hour, block the gas pedal down, and climb out the window up onto the roof. Lie back with the car rolling along, no driver, and look at the stars. After about half an hour, climb back through the window, turn the car around and head back the other way. Repeat until you run out of beer."

For the Utah shoot, they put us up in a local casino. Fine, but it's a labyrinthine maze to get from your room out to the designated pick-up spot for the crew bus. Sure enough, 5:30 in the morning, I start off smug thinking I'm easily going to make the bus on time, then get lost amid the stairs, slot machines, mirrors, gambling pits, elevators, escalators and walkways. I finally give up and just get out of the freaking building, of course on completely the wrong side, so then I have to hike around this huge building through the vast parking lot -- and luckily, there comes the crew bus, full, lumbering toward me. I swallow my embarrassment and flag it down.

The issue driving out on the salt flats is when you leave, there will be salt embedded onto the bottom of your vehicle, which will rust the metal away rather quickly. So the production team comes up with a clever system: just where the road ends, out in the middle of really nowhere, they've constructed what is essentially a car wash. You drive your car through and it gets sprayed, then workers come and high-pressure hose every nook and cranny. Trucks and RVs fit through, and the whole process adds to the surreal nature of an already surreal experience.

On this set you get burned from above and below, and the reflection from the white sand is perhaps worse than the sun overhead, the soles of your tennis shoes melt.

My daughter Janay comes to visit the set, and she brings a photograph of a horse, owned by a friend of hers, this particular horse is registered with the name 'Captain Jack Sparrow." Janay wants me to have Johnny Depp sign the photo. I have never asked Johnny for anything, but how can I turn this down? The sun goes to my head and I agree to give it a shot. After a story meeting, I hang back in Johnny's trailer. Everyone else leaves and Johnny kind of looks at me. What else to say? I blurt out, "I have a picture of a horse." Right away he shoots back "Would you like to be alone?" I explain the situation, this is the only horse that can ever have this particular name, Johnny is amazed, befuddled, and happily signs.

On set, one of the crew takes me aside to debate the story structure of Deja Vu. He wants to explore what he thinks is an issue with the story structure -- and he even has a chart. I reassure him that there are no plot holes in that story, that everything was worked out -- at least in the screenplay. (Spoilers ahead.) He wants to know how there could be fingerprints at Claire's house at the beginning of the movie, in the reality where her body is found in the river, doesn't that mean Claire was killed in the shack, meaning Doug was not there to save her, meaning there would be no fingerprints for him to find? This is actually a fairly good question. He has a solution involving multiple timelines and multiple trips back, but our own explanation is much simpler. The answer (I tell him) is to ask just where in the timeline do events irrevocably change, and the film demonstrates that it has to change sometime *after* the apartment but before Doug and Claire go onto the ferry. In other words, when the film opens, Doug arrives at a crime scene where Doug did fail, but *after* saving Claire in the shack.

Shooting AWE in Palmdale, today is a wrap for Bill Nighy. After the final 'check the gate' they wheel out a huge cake, topped by a painted-with-frosting rendering of Davy Jones, complete with squid beard. Bill cuts into it with glee. Hugs and champagne all around. Paper plate and plastic fork in hand, I finally get a chance to chat with Bill a bit, first time since the Bahamas. We get on the topic of music, and I find out, him being a Brit, he is a big fan of the rock group ORSON!

My Orson connection: Jason Pebworth, lead singer and songwriter, ex-Broadway singer, is also my ex-personal assistant. Jason worked for me for several years, running errands and doing odd tasks during the day, working his ass off at night making the rock star thing happen, chasing the dream. After many shows, rejections, close calls, and trips to the dry cleaners with my wrinkled dress shirts, Jason was about to give up. "They want me to be younger," he said, "that's one thing I can't do." Then Jason takes $5,000 and a Mac computer and with a brilliant producer/engineer, he and the band record their own album (Bright Idea) and the group takes a last-chance trip to Europe to play in a music festival. Where they promptly land a fancy publishing and distribution deal ("Bring me the standard fame and fortune contract!") and began a tour of Europe, opening for Robbie Williams, and go on to become Britain's Best New Artist of the Year.

So one night I'm flipping channels, sitting in our cool new screening room of our cool new house in Topanga Canyon paid for mostly by Pirate films and there on MTV bigger than life is Jason and the guys playing to a stadium of screaming fans, and it hits me, anything is possible in this world my friends, anything.

My brother visits the Pirates Palmdale set, seeing it all for the first time, and he happens to come on an odd day. All the actors are in the Black Pearl and the entire ship is filled to the brim with round blue plastic balls. It's the shot where the crabs overflow and pour out into the sea, but the crabs are created later via CGI, on set all we see are these blue plastic balls. So everyone is swimming around in these balls acting like kids, actors and crew in a goofy mood, a mock fight breaks out, people flinging the balls at each other, and they're bouncing everywhere. To my brother it must look like making a film is just goofy fun, and I guess it is.

Later, Michael Singer shows me a press release written on that day, titled "Blue Balls to Crabs."

Weeks later, we're still finding those blue plastic balls on the set. Gore's kids play with them, the extras and PAs throw them at each other. I stop by a group trying to juggle and offer a few tips, and impress them with my (limited) juggling skills. I show off a few moves and move on while they're still impressed, before I have a chance to screw up.

Blue Balls is the name of the kitten who lives (illegally) in the 'office' in the middle of the hanger. The officer is not really an office, but rather a giant cubicle created by the stacks and stacks of crates that were used to deliver the blue balls. The cat lives in there somewhere, every now and then you can look in through the boxes and see her.

Overheard at Palmdale, entering the hangar to spend another day beneath the rain machines "Clever of us to shield ourselves from all this sunny weather!"

Hollywood likes to trumpet success, especially to others in Hollywood, so everyone reminds everyone else who is doing well, in the hope it will translate to clout, and further success. Which is why ads are taken out in the trades to announce box office milestones. "30 million, first five days," or "200 million worldwide to date,' etc. Trick is, you don't want to start crowing too soon, there's no point in putting an ad in Variety that your film did 450 million if in a few more weeks it will pass 475! On Dead Man's Chest, there was no ad forthcoming for the longest time ...

Opposite the lunchroom in Jerry Bruckheimer's production company, there is an entire wall of framed trade ads trumpeting the success of his work, from Flashdance to Top Gun, etc. And I'm proud to say that the first Pirates film, at 650 million, turned out to be the top grossing number among a lot of very high numbers. So I was especially looking forward to the Dead Man's Chest trade ad, as it promised to be even higher ...

Finally! The powers-that-be are certain that Dead Man's Chest will top 1 billion and the ad was purchased and ran, in both Variety and Hollywood Reporter. I bought a copy to see it ... and I have to say was a bit bummed. Yes it was a big colorful two-page ad, and it had a big pirate skull ... but ... here we are with probably a once in a lifetime event, and they didn't even mention the film's name! And no credit block! Just a skull with the number 1,000,000,000 underneath. The minimalist approach, which I found not so frame-worthy. Also, me, personally, I would have added the last two zeros (after the dollar decimal point) just for overkill. It would have looked better, don't you think ... $1,000,000,000.00? Ah, vanity. But how often would you ever get a film to top 1 billion dollars? Got to enjoy it when it happens!

Report from Jason Pebworth, ex-assistant: he attended a movie premiere in London, "It's A Boy Girl Thing", produced by David Furnish and exec produced by Elton John. Partway through, when the big football training montage comes on, Jason is surprised to recognize the soundtrack song, "Tryin' To Help" by Orson. At the after party, he gets up his nerve and goes to introduce himself. He makes it as far as "My name is Jason and I'm in this band called Orson..." when Elton just raves, says how much he loves the Orson album, how thrilled he is that an Orson song is in the movie. How cool is that?

What do you get Johnny Depp for his birthday? I wanted to make sure he saw what I think is pretty much the coolest bit of pirates merchandising out there, the Jack bobblehead figure. Bought one, gave it to Johnny through Buck his driver, along with a signed Aladdin DVD for his kids.

So I'm in Johnny's trailer, and he tells a story about being on stage at a Disney function, and Dick Cook puts him on the spot, and asks about a Pirates 4. Johnny answers by using one of his favorite phrases and says "I'm in!" But here in the trailer he looks at me and asks, "So what about a fourth film?" We talk about it a bit and both agree, there should only be a fourth pirate film if there is a story that begs to be told. Better to leave the audience wanting more than make another film because the money is great or the character is fun to play. I have to point out it kind of all depends on the screenplay, the pressure is on us, not because the screenplay is the most important aspect, but because every other element is guaranteed to be top notch and effective -- the acting, directing, stunts, art design, etc. The one unknown variable is the story, and it's also (perhaps) the variable of most intense interest from the audience.

During one of the difficult ship-tilt shots, there is a sudden scaffolding collapse, five stories up in the air. Not a complete collapse, more of a tilt and a kind of compression, but enough to send some stunt people tumbling and grabbing for purchase. So over lunch, a temporary platform is built to replace the scaffolding ... and the new platform, made of wood 2x4s looks far less stable than the original. With discretion over valor I choose to view the filming safely standing on solid hangar cement.

SET RUMORS: Ted and I are told, with complete conviction and certainty, that there will definitely be a Pirates 4 movie, that all the deals have been closed, the contracts have been signed, it's decided, and even a start date has been picked! Of course the first people the studio would first approach would be us, the screenwriters -- and our agents have heard nothing. And Gore won't talk about anything past the two films he has to make, he can't afford the distraction. But this fact shall not be allowed to get in the way of the facts.

Speaking of rumors, I'll pass along one that I heard. We've known for several months that the release date has been bumped off our beloved good luck day of July 7th, and moved up to Memorial Day -- but why? Why the change? It's a bad date, as it robs over a month of post-production time. And it lands us square against Spider-Man and Shrek, two films with the same audience demographic. And Memorial Day is not a great holiday weekend for box office. RUMOR has it that Disney did not want Pirates to go up against Transformers and Harry Potter, so the plan was to 'scare' Shrek off of its release date. RUMOR also has it that the plan worked -- and Katzenberg made the decision to shift away. But, according to Mister RUMOR, Dreamworks had already planned a marketing campaign and signed a deal with McDonald's, and McDonald's wouldn't allow the release date to be changed. And that's how you get three big franchises coming to theaters within three weeks of each other!

In Palmdale, Gore calls me to set, he needs a quick exchange between Pintel and Ragetti as they pass by camera, and he needs it in the next two minutes, as the shot is up. I confer with Lee and Mackenzie, none of our ideas are particularly inspired. We finally hit on the "And in case you haven't noticed, it's raining," "I think that's a bad sign" exchange, which struck us as funny -- as if the appearance of a fifty foot tall goddess isn't a bad sign, or the fact that they face an unbeatable Armada, etc. So it gets shot and it's in the movie, and for me it doesn't quite work, it's one of those lines that's only funny in theory, not really that funny in fact. Also one of those lines you keep re-writing long after the film is done ... maybe it should have been, Pintel "... EVERY ten years he can come ashore ..." Ragetti "No, AFTER ten years, if his love is true ..."

Nina Jacobson, our longtime executive on the Pirate films and others, came to visit the set, this after she left the studio, she runs into Bruckheimer, who says, "You look rested." To which Nina promptly replies, "Why wouldn't I?" Each said with a smile -- do they love each other or hate each other or what, who tell what's going on with these heavyweights?

So I take a quick meeting with Nina, who has set herself up with a producing deal at DreamWorks. We discuss a new paradigm for filmmaking, brand protection by creators, ownership of the copyright by creators, then license the motion picture rights. The JK Rowling model. "Who better than the creator to protect the brand?" Nina points out. It makes sense, if you create a Harry Potter writing a novel, no one would think to do a sequel with another writer or with 'executives' in charge of the content. And that works out better for all around, including fans, as well as the companies who distribute the property.

FLASHBACK: Bahamas. How Ted and I squandered several hundred thousand dollars. In the course of many revisions, our screenplay scene numbers were off, and so the costume department did not know the correct order of the scenes, resulting in part of a morning shoot done with Keira wearing the wrong outfit. The blame falls mostly to us, but when you're shooting two movies at the same time and revisions are being done as each film is being shot, and with a script approval process, first to Gore, then to Jerry back in LA, then scenes getting published for the department heads, that's a lot of paper flying around, not everyone is working from the same draft and it's easy for different drafts to have conflicting scene numbers. I think it was either Martin (Rosenberg; visual effects director of photography) or Sharron (Reynolds; a script supervisor) who caught the outfit mistake, or both. So the shots had to be re-scheduled and re-staged, and on a production this large, even for half a day, that is a lot of money!

FUN SET FACT 1: shooting in Palmdale, in the maelstrom scene, the water that sprays down from the roof -- fourteen hour days, shooting weeks and weeks on end -- is freezing cold. After a particularly brutal session, a drowned-rat-looking Kevin McNally gets on our case again, "Why are the writers always trying to get me wet?"

The technology to spray all that water is truly a marvel. Just outside the aircraft hanger is a pumping station that looks like it could handle the City of Long Beach. Part of the system is a path for the used water to run down into drains, and make its way back to the pumps, get filtered, and then sprayed again. I heard a rumor that they were trying to figure out some way to heat it, but I'm not sure if they were able to pull that off.

In the parking lot at Palmdale, I go out and buy some cool pirates sweatshirts, caps, and shirts. Really great stuff, well made, lots of compliments. It's only later I find out these are contraband, the reason they're a being sold in the parking lot is they're not authorized. Trouble its, they're better quality than the Disney stuff.

Love the double credit for Dave Venghaus on Dead Man's Chest. Second Assistant Director: Dave Venghaus. First Assistant Director: Dave Venghaus. What happened was, our AD from Curse of the Black Pearl couldn't finish the Dead Man's Chest shoot, and so Dave was promoted about halfway through. Overhead on the walkie-talkie: "What happened to the smiling Dave Venghaus?" Dave: "He died and he's never coming back."

Watching the scene where Beckett walks down the stairs as they explode, I'm chatting with effects expert Charlie Gibson. The cameras record at high speed and move along the track at high speed, to create the slow motion effect. "Wow, you've got it timed down to the second!" I say. "No, to the increment of a second" Charlie corrects.

Security is tight at this airfield ... every now and then you can see one of the Stealth fighters take off or land.

So many of the cast and crew have other talents than what you see on set ... one of the prop designers shares my love of body painting ... Scott Saunders plays in the rock and roll band FULL THROTTLE ... Gore plays amazing guitar, Disney head of production Bruce Hendricks plays base in a band ... Vee, award winning makeup artist throws an annual Christmas party, complete with snow machine ... the more you get to know everyone, you realize these are all amazingly cool people.

My worst day in Palmdale: While picking up my Volkswagen from the repair shop at the dealer there, I mistakenly leave my backpack sitting on the ground, since I had been dropped off with all my stuff. I notice it's missing when I get home, so I drive all the way back out there in the middle of the night, and sure enough, the backpack is gone. Subsequent checks with the dealer turn up nothing. I had a lot of recent files and photos, story ideas and information not backed up -- such as these blog notes, which I had to try to re-create. So if this entry feels a bit disjointed, it's because all my notes were lost, and whatever loser found my backpack didn't have the decency to turn it in.

Okay. Confession time. Truth is, I tend to make really really bad toasts. So if you know me and you had it in your head to gently take me aside to let me know just how bad they are, trust me, I know already. They sound great in my head when I'm planning them, they just don't come out right. But I am nothing if not determined, and so I will continue on --

CASE IN POINT, FLASHBACK: I try to give a toast at the table at Orlando's surprise birthday party, on the night we left the Exumas (after the production team had failed to get the needed shots on two previous occasions). I start off with, "Congratulations to Gore for finally wrapping the movie --" and everyone jumps, shocked -- "The movie? The movie is wrapped?" "No, I mean, wrapping this location, the Exumas, after three previous efforts, we were turned away..." "You mean two previous efforts." "Right, but on this third effort Gore has prevailed ..." Rather than sounding like a compliment it came out sounding like everyone was inept ... I should have just shouted, "The Exumas have been defeated!"

CASE IN POINT, FLASH FORWARD: I raise a glass at the dinner, opening night for At World's End ... I have the grand idea to do reverse compliments, like, "Should we toast to Jerry? No, with that amount of charisma, his job must be easy. Should we toast to Johnny? No, with that amount of talent, how hard can acting be?" It sounded good in my head but was a disaster in execution. I muddled through "Chad and Mike, no, that's just work ethic," and ended it by saying "Instead let us raise a glass to the genius of Gore Verbinski ..." Bad as these were, I will not be deterred, I will continue to toast!

SET RUMORS: So, I am told in all seriousness, the ending of the third film has been leaked, and apparently the way the trilogy is going to end is, Jack sails off in a small boat, alone save for his most trusted pirate friend ... Marty! (Not sure if perhaps Marty himself started this one ...)

Many of the actors are not happy about the extended schedule to complete At World's End. Shooting the films back-to-back, the original idea was to be finished with principle photography in January, before the release, even, of Dead Man's Chest. That was before the two hurricanes and various other production issues. First everyone was asked to contribute a couple of weeks for free, then a month, and in the end it turned out to be ten more weeks for a lot of people, cast and crew. That's an entire film worth of extra work, as most feature acting gigs don't go ten weeks. We're all in the same boat, everyone is putting in extra time, but that's hard if you have to turn down paying jobs, and especially if it takes you away from spouses and kids.

FUN SET FACT 2: Palmdale is so huge, there is a microphone/PA system on set, and sometimes when kids visit they get to call out set commands, and it's really cute to hear ... how great to be twelve years old on the Pirates of the Caribbean set and call out, "Rolling rolling!" or "Check the gate!" I think it was one of Gore's sons who got to call out, "Johnny Depp is wrapped!"

Helping to edit the Pirates of the Caribbean Visual Guide, we get to see a proof copy. We're able to add small details, like AnaMaria's boat's name is the Jolly Mon, which is a Jimmy Buffett reference, tribute to the song of the same name. (And once again I feel compelled to note that AnaMaria's name was not chosen as a combination of Ann Bonny and Mary Reid, instead, it's my daughter's middle name!)

Everyone loves Buck, Johnny's driver-slash-assistant. He's an old school actor (showed me his residuals check from 'the Wild Bunch'), ladies man (in his mind certainly) and all around raconteur. He's the only person I know who can talk about his 'man in Singapore' and mean it. Something to do with missing WWII gold ... you'd have to get him to tell the story.

It happens often enough on set that we need some sort of period sailing command, period personal insult, or exclamation, I come up with the idea of the 'cheat sheet.' It's a listing of various flavorful expressions of the era, organized by category, for myself and for Gore to keep in his back pocket, in case he needs to have a character call out something more interesting than Raise the mainsail!' I'm always trying to add to it because we're always running out, scanning Shakespeare lines, writing down colorful expressions the Brits use on set, stuff like "ill-bred hugger-mugger" and "Mother Carey's chickens!" and "Toad-spotted bum-baily!" Johnny particularly likes the commands that sound vaguely scatological, like ""Furl all futtock-shrouds abaft the girtline!"

Though there is a line in the film, from Kevin, "Slap me thrice and hand me to my mama!" which I like because it sounds authentic, like it had to be period expression of some sort, but it's not, it's completely invented.

What do I remember of Keira's last day on set? The celebratory cake and applause, yes. But then, smiling, she came over to me and gave me a hug and a kiss ... wow I got kissed by Keira Knightly! Mental snapshot: I watch as she walked, actually sort of danced away from the pirates set for the last time, in this cavernous soundstage, looking very small against those huge five story tall curtains, hand in hand with her boyfriend, head on his shoulder, and then she was gone.

We're back on the Disney lot today, and finally, after all the crazy speculation and endless queries, "So, is Keith Richards in the movie?" it comes to pass that indeed, Keith Richards himself is there on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean, in full pirate garb. The world (and Johnny Depp) pretty much willed him onto this film. When I see him the first thing that hits me is ... boy, what a mustache. Yeah, he looks exactly like the character design in the concept drawings, but in real life, when you see it, boy, what a mustache. Either it's a bad idea to take away Keith's signature look, that upper-lip bit of a sneer, or a great idea to give him a different look to push him into the reality of the film. Never seen Gore so happy as when he gets a good take from Keith, and most of the takes are good.

Later I see the dailies, and it turns out the mustache is not nearly so pronounced on screen as it is in person. Yep, those art design and make-up folk know what they're doing.

So eventually rumors swirl, stories hit the internet that Keith was drunk on set, and that Gore had to prop him up to keep him in frame. Then a backlash, where others contest that these rumors are not true. Inside scoop: absolutely true, Gore was just out of frame, holding him by the legs, helping him not sway out of the composition of the shot.

In the midst of filming, we all become more and more aware of the fan base. People are talking about something called 'shipping' which, if you're working on a pirate film, can be a bit confusing, as we do have a lot of ships, and they do have personalities. Eventually it becomes clear that 'shippers' and 'shipping' is derived from the word, 'relationship' and is shorthand for fans who are promoting different romantic entanglements among the characters. So if you were in favor of the Jack Sparrow/Elizabeth Swann pairing, that would make you a Sparrabether, or Sparrabeth shipper. As opposed to the Willabethers, who were in favor of Will and Elizabeth romance. I explain it to Gore in between shots and he responds with a bemused, pained look and goes back to work ...

Someone at Disney had a great idea, I'm not sure whom, they planned and put together a 'storytellers' conference. Two days of seminars down at the Disneyland Hotel, with people from all divisions of the company in attendance. Ted and I speak on the topic of Mental Real Estate (to a much larger audience than expected, I confess I would have prepared better if I had known). We got to re-connect with Ron Clements and John Musker and hear about their new project, I was tongue-tied meeting one of my idols, John Lasseter. Highlight for me, Michael Arndt comes up and says hello, and even compliments our Wordplay ( Wordplayer.com ) website. This guy just won the Academy Award, again I confess I was pretty much tongue-tied. Then Michael went on to give an eye-opening presentation on the art of creating a movie ending -- really well done.

Overheard on the walkie-talkie: official times are kept, including first shot of the day, first shot after lunch, official wrap time, etc. There are very strict rules for 'turnaround' for the cast and crew, everyone has to have at least twelve hours off before being called back to work, unless the call is 'pushed' (in which case the crew is paid extra). There are strict rules regarding how long the crew can work until lunch, etc. Jocelyn passes along this bit of movie trivia: mealtime officially starts when the last person goes through the line, not the first!

MORE MOVIE SET TRIVIA: What is a prop? What items fall under the domain of the prop department, instead of the art department/set designer/set decoration? Answer: any item that is called for in the screenplay and is touched by an actor -- is a prop.

So we actually have to deal with this Pirates lawsuit, some poor soul is claiming his work was stolen. Aside from everything else there is to do, I now have to search around for original screenplay drafts, memos, phone logs, notes, research materials, and a dozen other things. Legal aids end up crawling around the attic and garage and storage unit, getting old drafts. But it also turns out -- what a fun blast to the past, to see all that early stuff! Little sketches and notes written on the backs of screenplays, legal pads with arrows pointing this way and that to work out the basic storyline, early snippets of dialogue ... it all looks so charming and innocent. Little did we know ...

Ah, the whole subtitle thing ... we are shown to different mock up posters, one with the subtitle "World's End" and the other "At World's End." It's obvious to us that "At World's End" is better (although I still would have chosen "Calypso's Fury.") We like "At World's End" because it feels more vast, grand, sweeping, it feels like a destination, sounds more nautical, has a double meaning, etc. "World's End" sounds like a neighborhood bar, reminds me of London's West End theatre district. Or some generic apocalypse movie. But then we find out Oren Aviv and the studio prefers "World's End" though he says he is not married to it, and would defer to the creative team. Oren is an expert at marketing, and his opinion is not to be taken lightly ... but to us 'At World's End' sounds better ...

So that means getting Gore's attention, and apparently there is an issue where it has to be done right away, well ahead of the release of the film, due to manufacturers getting ready to print up packaging for all the merchandising, etc. So we make a presentation to Gore and he agrees, and the studio agrees to add the 'At'. But then an odd thing, the studio rep asks whether there should be an apostrophe or not. "At World's End" or "At Worlds End." We prefer the apostrophe, the studio doesn't ("It doesn't print well, looks messy" he says, "We prefer films to not have them.") Gore advises us to quit while we're ahead and approves the no apostrophe version.

Now it turns out I happen to be online on my websites message board just prior to this meeting, and I ran an impromptu poll as to which subtitle sounded better ('At World's End' was the consensus choice). So after the meeting I posted that the forces of good had prevailed and that 'At Worlds End' would be the subtitle (without the apostrophe). Little did I know that the boards were monitored by someone in the press and that this post would somehow transmogrify into a newswire item: "Pirates Screenwriter confirms Pirates sequel title." Disney got on my case about making announcements, they wanted to orchestrate the reveal of the subtitle in their own way, and now they couldn't. Mea Culpa.

So the following day Ted and I were talking and we decided we just really hated that missing apostrophe. It made no sense, it was grammatically incorrect, and besides, Dead Man's Chest did just fine with an apostrophe! On behalf of grade school grammar teachers across the land, we talked again to Gore, and Jerry, and Brig Taylor, (Ted told Brig, this is your chance to yell, "Stop the presses!") Though I think it cost Disney some good amount of shiny coin, cooler heads prevailed and the proper apostrophe was restored, and all was right with the world.

I hate to reveal how movie magic is done, but this one is just so cool. That shot of Jack the Monkey, frozen, on the Hai Pang, shivering on the barrel? They got the effect by making the barrel vibrate!

FLASHBACK - PIRATES FUN FACT: Shooting Curse of the Black Pearl, Jimmy Buffett came by to visit the set. Have I mentioned there are two Buffett tributes in that film? The name of AnaMaria's ship, the Jolly Mon, is an homage to Buffett's song of the same name (and the story the song is based on). Second tribute is Jack's triple slap in the course of the film, "I didn't deserve that," "I may have deserved that," "That one I deserved." Jack's responses are an homage to the progression in Margaritaville, "It's nobody's fault," "It could be my fault," "It's my own damn fault."

We get invited to do a talk for the merchandising group ... a theater full of people, video games, comics, toys, clothing, all that. Very exciting to see shots from At World's end -- shooting it as we have, in and around Dead Man's Chest, it's heartening to see that it has its own vibe, it's own sensibility, but still proper to the Pirates world. My first reaction was -- that looks great, we've got enough movie to release right there! Of course we have months to shooting to go. Ted and I get a chance to suggest specific toys, Ted gets an 'ahhh' with his suggestion of the 'ship in a bottle' for each of the pirate ships, I campaign again for the reversible dead/undead hand puppet monkey.

The Shipwreck Cove set for the Brethren Court scene is amazing, but the 'walk up' scene got cut (rightfully so, as it existed pretty much only as an establishing shot, and did not convey needed story information, and it was more powerful to cut straight into the scene). So a lot of this fantastic set isn't going to make it onto the screen. Storyboard artist Jim Byrkit has the notion to make a short film using the set, maybe something for trilogy 'Treasure Chest' DVD. He comes to us and we start knocking around ideas, not sure if we'll have time to pull it off in between the rest of the shooting.

I get the word that the Disney Premiere for At World's End is going to be different this year, more security. We are told: "NO VIDEO CAMERAS of any kind anywhere in the event. Regular cameras are okay on the red carpet and at pre-screening party FOR CANDID (not posed) PHOTOS ONLY. NO STOPPING/STANDING on red carpet. NO POSED PHOTOS. NO AUTOGRAPHS. DO NOT ASK anyone to pose for a photo, or for an autograph. Please tell your guests not to do so. And please, out of solidarity with your fellow filmmakers and the actors, just politely DECLINE IF SOMEONE ASKS YOU." Yikes, I put the word out on Wordplay and Keep to the Code, I know a lot of fans travel a long way to get photos and autographs at the red carpet, and if that is not going to be allowed, at least people should know.

So, I get a chance to look at the At World's End trailer. It's exciting, it should work, but it also seems like it should be better. Here are the notes I sent:

1. Try to find a better Johnny line that simply 'we must fight to run away.' Fans expect something more clever than that. What about, 'Four of you tried to kill me in the past ... one of you succeeded.' Or, 'Were I in a divulgatory mood, what might I be divulging?' etc.

2. Where is Jack Davenport? Should be at least one shot of him, he is a key player and has his own fan base.

3. Also why not at least one quick 'flash' shot of Bootstrap Bill, and Governor Swann. Our beloved cast is back sort of thing.

4. Keira look over to the monkey is unmotivated because the monkey hasn't done anything, it hasn't made a noise or lifted its hand until after the cut, so why did she look there? How did she know it was going to do something? Fix with a chatter noise or cut to the 'hand raising' almost in progress.

5. There is a second shot of the 'ice ship' at the end of the trailer, but since we've seen that before, it makes the trailer look like it is running out of ideas. Some suggestions for better shots that could go into the flash cuts: a) those freaky boats with the lanterns and the dead people (maybe see Swann?). b) pirates all lined up standing in front of the nooses. c) the shot of the dead bodies floating past underwater? d) the Pintel Ragetti boat wipeout in that huge wave e) at least one shot of Norrington, Bootstrap Bill

6. I'm still not a big fan of opening on the compass, that's such an image of the last movie. When you think about it, why not use that point of view shot of the 'Pirates Code' book carried toward the pirates (fans would go crazy to see that) or a shot of that Codebook slamming shut. Or, in the world of objects, why don't we see the dish that has all of the Nine Pieces of Eight? That's visually interesting and would engender a lot of fan debate (especially if you could make out Ragetti's eye).

7. A possible Jack line, in keeping with the gravitas of ending, maybe to come back at the end ... 'Captain Jack Sparrow, the last pirate. I like the sound of that.'

8. The end thing with Jack and the cannon just looks kind of choppy and unpolished. Wish the full line was there ... 'If I'm not mad, if this isn't all some fever dream, this will probably never work.'

We got to see a rough cut of the film, which is always exciting -- a film is made one excruciating shot at a time, and to see even two shots cut together ('cut footage' as we say, which is not footage that was cut, but footage that has been assembled) is a thrill. A lot of effects aren't done, a lot of final decisions not made, music isn't finished, etc. Main thing is to see whether we have a story that works, and where the problem areas are. Seems clear that once we get to the maelstrom we're set, and the opening is strong; it's the usual Act II issues, and we don't have an action sequence there to help get us through -- so that's where most of the work needs to be done.

I attended the presentation to Gore on the P3 next generation X-Box game. I thought the look of the game was stunning. Are video games destined to be the next great art form? To be able to explore and interact in a world that seems endless, that sounds like more fun than being locked into a narrative -- if there could be a way to keep a narrative, make the story good. Gore was impressed by the fighting but you expect that in a video game. Afterwards we all spoke about thinking long term regarding the brand, the franchise, the world building, this is based on the game, but are they missing an opportunity? My idea, is there a user-based version of this world, where fan can invent their own islands, ships, characters, pick the top ten characters and places others have invented, etc?

We are told, regarding royalties, that Disney's position on merchandising is that the characters, items, ships, locations, etc., are not described in enough detail in the screenplay in order to be considered anything other than generic. This allows them to sell a Jack Sparrow figure, dressed like the character from the movie, with scenes we created referenced on the packaging, and when you press a button Jack actually speaks six different lines of dialogue straight from the film -- but that's really just a 'generic' pirate, and so you pay the writers nothing. (The way the legal definitions work, only the 'look' of the item matters, not what is spoken, and payments are made on the spoken words only if they are part of the separated rights agreement, such as a live performance.) My flight of fancy would be to manufacture the exact same figure saying the same lines and watch how fast Disney would sue for copyright infringement. Somehow they are able to hold the contradictory positions that the same figure that is indeed unique enough to be protected via copyright is somehow also not quite unique enough to qualify for merchandising payments to the writers.

We agreed to do a Dead Man's Chest DVD release signing at Disney studios. Seems to be mostly Disney employees, not sure how others would get onto the lot. I take time to try to talk with each person and personalize each signature -- from where we were sitting, it only looked like a few people. I didn't realize that the line went out the door and around the building, and that I was taking too much time! Later I'm told we signed for over a thousand people.

So Marty went to the trouble to get a signed DVD for himself. Lee Arenberg was the last to sign, and he wrote Marty's DVD sleeve, "We've had a fucking great time!" Marty was upset. "I can't believe you wrote a swear word on my DVD!" So he had to go to the trouble to get a whole new DVD and have everyone sign it again. Again he gives it to Lee, who writes on it, "Sorry I wrote 'fuck' on your other DVD."

Here's an odd thing: I have not listened to any of our DVD commentary on either Pirates film, I have not watched any of the making-of features, I haven't even seen any of the deleted scenes. But I broke my own rule and saw a featurette on Dead Man's Chest. As expected, it was disappointing. They showed a story meeting -- hey that's our field! -- but all they chose to feature was Jerry talking, with Ted and I nodding our heads. Now how the typical story meeting goes! It's hard to watch these things and see how far off they are from the actual workings on set. There was nothing on the animal trainers, nothing for the catering dept., very little of Mackenzie, Tom, Bill Nighy, Stellan. Too many extended shots, yeah we get it, make a cut and move on. And lots and lots of producers speaking. Why a series of Mike Stenson observations and nothing from Ted and I? Nothing against our producers, they're the best in the business, just looking for balance. It's like a reality TV show, the edit can make you hero or villain.

I finally figure out, Ted and I should do our interviews separately. That puts you larger in frame than when you are a team, and eliminates the distraction of the other guy sitting there listening. Exec producers Chad and Mike don't do their interviews together.

Word comes out regarding the DVD sales, Dead Man's Chest, first day: 5 million. Total shipped is 20 million units, a live action record. Geez, that's about 700 million dollars, plus the original billion box office ...not to mention cable and VHS, rentals, pay television, iTunes downloads, etc. Plus merchandising, novelizations, the soundtrack, funny, that's probably 3 billion in revenue, and it's still they say the film is in the red.

Character names are important to actors ... they read a lot into the name, sometimes they think the name is incorrect and they change it in their heads. Chatting with some of the 'atmosphere' actors, a couple of the pirates asked that their characters be given names. They had worked out what their names were, and wanted to be cited in the script (and the credits) as more than just Pirate 1 and Pirate 2. Speaking of which, I mentioned anywhere, that the Captain slain in Dead Man's Chest was supposed to be named Jim Hawkins? And now you know why he never returned to the Admiral Benbow ...

And speaking of names, again not sure if this has appeared elsewhere, but reading online, fans started to refer to Barbossa as "Hector". Apparently Johnny and Geoffrey were goofing around and came up with Hector as Barbossa's first name, and it was caught on one of the DVD features. All we knew was that suddenly seemed to be his name, the fans had decided, so we made a point of writing it into At World's End. We ran the idea past Johnny and Geoffrey, and they loved it.

Working on one film, one always has to also look forward to the next project. Way back when, like so many screenwriters in Hollywood, Ted and I were hired by Disney to write an adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel, A Princess of Mars. Director John McTiernan managed to screw up the screenplay and the film never got made, and the project went into turnaround. The underlying rights eventually expired, and the project was picked up by Fox. Oddly, the folk at Fox are restricted from even considering our Disney adaptation, as they can't even read it to decide if they want it, for fear not buying it, and then creating material that is too similar. Not to mention there are huge 'turnaround' costs associated with the Disney screenplay, as so many drafts had been done over the years, not to mention McTiernan's fee.

So fast-forward to today: we hear that the project has fallen through at Fox, and the underlying rights to A Princess of Mars are again available. Producer Michael Engelberg checks with us to see if we're interested in updating our screenplay -- we are -- and possibly now the project can see the light of day at Disney? Bruckheimer is interested, he gets another screenplay from us basically for free, and we check with the Execs at Disney ... and there is a snag. Disney is already pursuing the rights for another group. Well, heck, we can beat out anyone else, can't we? What other producer or writing group has a better track record, more clout than us? Turns out there is one, and pretty much one only, group that can trump us: PIXAR.

And so, once again our A Princess of Mars adaptation is dead. On the other hand ... go PIXAR!

Finally Deja Vu opens, and after the weekend, I get a call from my daughter. I asker her, what did she think of the film? "I don't know, I went to see Happy Feet." Thanks, kid!

As the weekend progresses, the phone doesn't ring at all, the Deja Vu numbers are disappointing, something like 3 million on opening day. Chat with co-writer Bill, who is also scanning the box office numbers, and we share the bad news. Early projections had the film tracking to be perhaps number one, somewhere around 35-50 million, and now we're looking at third place at best. We got trounced by Casino Royale, but over the weekend the final numbers pick up, and the total looks to be 23 million ... not terrible, and finally the phone rings with some congratulatory calls.

Funny, one of the directors first interested in Deja Vu was Martin Campbell, whom I campaigned for, but the production team was not interested ... and no one appreciates when I point out that Campbell ended up directing the film that beat us out for the weekend, Casino Royale. There's a weird attitude in Hollywood, no one ever makes a mistake. Maybe it's because so often nothing happens that people act like what happened had to happen, because it happened that way.

Later I meet another director whom I would have preferred, who wanted to the do the movie -- P.J. Hogan, who, oddly, has been hired to do a different Bruckheimer movie.

We travel out to the 'Fort' set built in the hills near Magic Mountain, location of the opening hanging scene. FUN SET FACT: the whole thing is constructed using railroad storage containers, stacked ten high, that's what's on the other side of those 'ancient' brick walls.

Attending the tech scout of the opening Fort/hanging scene. Funny, in P1 the first scene shot was the last scene of the film, and featured a hanging at a fort. In P3, the last scene shot is the first scene of the film, also a hanging, at a fort. I love symmetry. I must say it's a lot easier to do it this way, use the first scene to set up the film, than in P1, where we had to have the ending in the can and then hope to somehow get there.

Gore stops to look at the gallows, says, "Creepy.' Then he calls for seven people to get up there to visualize the shot. I volunteer, standing next to effects superstar John Knoll. "All right, now step into the center of the trap door." Uh, sure. We all step forward. And then you get to look up and see the bar where the noose would go. Sort of reminds me of the feeling I had when we started work on these two sequels ...

I listen in on an interesting tech conversation, they need to construct a large blue screen to paint in a wall and imply distance and perspective -- but the blue screen is going to block the sunlight to the subjects being filmed. "Well, so would a real wall," Gore points out.

Gore is asking the set designer for a source for smoke, perhaps burning clothes? I suggest "Bodies" and everyone makes a face. "Uh, let's keep that off screen," Gore decides, "and just have the smoke floating through."

So working as producers, we go out to the industry with a screenplay we like, with the title Plant Life, written by writers Steve Barr and Tina Anderson. For anyone who thinks Ted and I are in positions of power, and we can set up anything we like, turns out that's not true. Everyone in town passes -- even thought it's one of those one-of-a-kind concepts. We get Disney to agree to a deal by pitching a revised approach, but boy you'd think it would be easier.

What to give our amazing director as a gift? One item, one idea is to collect interesting and thoughtful comments and analysis from various Pirates fan websites and message boards, I call it the "Internet Chatter" list. There's a lot of amazing stuff there, and Gore doesn't have time to read through all that, which doesn't seem fair, it only seems right he should get to see some of What He Hath Wrought.

Speaking on set one day with Rafi (Rafael Sanchez), our electrician, he's most proud of the scuttled ship, in Dead Man's Chest. Underwater power cables. Night. In the rain. On the water. "After this production," he says, "There's nothing that I'm going to run into that I'd have to say, 'I can't do that.'"

Tom Hollander is the last actor shot. We're chatting, he mentions that his job isn't that hard, because when an actor steps before the camera it is a culmination of everyone's efforts. "But you have no safety net" I counter. "And you have to be the transition for us, into the world of the movie. That's some mystical shit."

One of the DVD producers is shocked when I comment I've heard other people say they made Ted and l look bad on the Dead Man's Chest material. "That wasn't our intent," he says. In truth I don't care that much, as I tend to not watch that stuff. The guy admits the producers get a chance to review and make additions/changes to their material, and even re-shoot stuff if they don't like the early takes, a courtesy they don't extend to the writers.

Nearing the end of this long trilogy shoot, various gifts start to arrive. Vee calls us over to the makeup trailer, and presents an amazing life-size barnacle encrusted Davy Jones heart presented under a glass jar, designed and constructed by Joel; Johnny Depp gives out a cool leather pirates bag complete with bead and feather dangles; Various t-shirts arrive from different departments, a bottle of wine from stuntwoman extraordinaire Lisa; signed photo from Tom Hollander, a pen set from actor Reggie Lee, Teddy the caterer offers his digital photo collection gathered from various crew members; in the end there really are too many gifts and too many people to really keep track.

Ladies and Gentlemen ... in the wee hours this morning, under the watchful eye of the 'making of' video crew, the final 'check the gate' was called, on Pirates of the Caribbean II & III, Dead Man's Chest & At World's End. A gorgeous cake was wheeled out. On the cake was written:

6 countries.
141 2nd unit days.
281 1st unit days.
256 3/8 pages.
4000+ crewmembers.
2,868,690 feet of film.
3,409 hours, 24 minutes of filming.
February 24, 2005-December 12, 2006

Geoffrey Rush's gift to Ted and I had all the class and elegance one would expect from Geoffrey Rush: a single, shiny, shiny, elegant black pearl in an elegant black case. The accompanying note from Geoffrey is even more cherished (reprinted here):

"Dear Terry ... this is the sort of speech I think Gibbs should get! Most likely it would be cut but with a good West Country Accent, who knows? I turned down a Beckett play to do Curse of the Black Pearl and was pilloried by my peers -- little did I know I was venturing into the world of popcorn, Wagner, mythological expressionism, finely wrought textual intensity and the true Shakespearean pleasure of laying bare the state of the world! Here's a small emblemic memento of our crazy ride together on the Black Pearl." -- Yours, Geoffrey Rush

Speaking of cool gifts, Chad Oman and Mike Stenson have delivered to my house a full-sized Pirates of the Caribbean pinball game. Pretty cool machine, complete with ships to sink, battle with Davy Jones, a heart in a chest and lines from Johnny Depp, etc. A classy gesture, though I suspect it might be a bit of a bribe to do more work on National Treasure II. If so, it works. For the record, I currently own all top five high scores, the best being 417 million.

We score tickets to the Academy Awards this year. Highlights: seeing Peter O'Toole in the men's room. Running into and chatting with Linda Lichter, our entertainment lawyer, who has clients with four different films nominated. Also saw Marc Haimes, Zak Penn (what a great screenwriter name that is) and Roger Allers.

I get to tell Roger a story I'd never told him before. Back after we finished Aladdin, my phone rang, and a voice said, "Hi, this is Roger Avary." Only I mistakenly heard the name as "Roger Allers." This can partly be explained by the fact that I had worked with Roger Allers on Aladdin, before he went on to co-direct the Lion King, and I'd never had any dealings at all with Roger Avary (co-writer of Pulp Fiction) and who expects a call like that out of the blue? So I say "Hi, Roger!" and proceed to have an entire phone conversation with Roger Avary, thinking it is Roger Allers. The funny part is, I went into fair detail complimenting 'his' movie, lauding the merits of the Lion King (without actually saying the name, just 'loved your movie' and 'it was so groundb-reaking' sort of stuff) and somehow all of my points also made some sort of skewed sense when applied to Pulp Fiction, I got through the entire conversation, didn't realize till after my error.

Watching the Academy show in person is pretty exciting, and I did feel one unexpected emotion ... when you're sitting in the theater, twenty or thirty rows back, you really do want to be down there in the A-list crowd. You want to be nominated, you want to win. You want to be in the club. No matter how inside you are, there always seem to be others more inside, others who are on the inside of the inside ...

Weird, as I'm sitting there, half trying to figure out dialogue for Helen Mirren as she is announced winner, best actress, and she goes up to accept the award. The story: Bruckheimer is courting her for National Treasure II, written by the Wibberleys, with Ted and I assisting on some scenes, and I'm trying to figure out a line for a scene that she's going to read the next day.

Driving back from the Academy Awards, I have an interesting conversation with Jocelyn regarding the Spaghetti westerns ... one interpretation of those films is that they tell the story of demigods walking among the mortals ... which never goes well for the mortals. You can tell who is the most powerful demigod by how little they speak, the less words the more powerful. The same interpretation works for Pirates, where Tia Dalma, Davy Jones, Barbossa, Jack are the gods or demi-gods, and mortals such as Will and Elizabeth are just a backdrop to their dramas. Only the talking part doesn't fit, all our demi-gods love to talk, and the more they say, the less you can trust them.

Next day is the cast and crew read-through for National Treasure 2, with Nick Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, et all. This is a very weird life.

SET RUMOR: As is the case with most rumors, I have no idea if it's true, but rumor has it Nick Cage bought his own cave. Apparently, shooting National Treasure 2, Nick toured a cave, thought it was cool, and so then bought land with a cave on it. Actually, two caves, one that is open to the public, the other for personal use. "Why would Nicolas Cage buy himself a cave," I ask. The answer ... "For when he wants to go into a cave."

So once again we arrive at the Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean Premiere. There is a real sense of Deja Vu, that we've done this before, in a good way, because this time there is also a sense of finality, of completion.

I get personally called out for a LOT more autograph requests this year! Jocelyn thinks it's perhaps the 'MySpace effect' where people get to see a photo, making me easier to spot.

We get to the front gate early this year, and it's fun watching different folk arrive -- Martin Landau is again in attendance, this is the only place I ever run into Martin Landau. I introduce him to my brother, who wears a giant T-shirt, and he gets Landau to sign it with a magic marker.

We've put together our bags of swag, and once again they let us in carrying them. This year we've got pirates foosballs, and pirates necklaces, and pirate gold coins, and pirate playing cards, along with the usual beads and scarves. We took the time to sign each and every scarf and foosball. Rounding it out are a dozen signed Dead Man's Chest DVDs.

Walking down the red carpet, once again people love it when an item comes their way -- it's fun to try to catch stuff, and whatever it is makes for a fun memento. I wonder why Disney doesn't facilitate this and make up bags for the actors, what fan or kid wouldn't want to get a photo or necklace from Jack Davenport or Bill Nighy? Maybe they think it's tacky, but to me it's a blast.

We cross paths with Geoffrey Rush on the red carpet, and he's walking along with Jack-the-Monkey on his shoulder. "It's all going to be about Orlando and Johnny," he says, "I figured this was my best chance to get my photo published!"

So I mis-introduce Craig our film editor as 'Chris' ... my personal nightmare, I always freeze up at the moment of truth trying to do introductions. It's not like I don't know his name, after all the meetings we've had, but the brain just refuses to function. Painful.

Handing out stuff, the signed DVDs get the most 'ooohs' from the crowd. I make it all the way to the end of the red carpet, and I've got one single DVD left in the bottom of my bag. Who to give it to? I see a somewhat elderly lady near the very end, hanging back, and not looking like she's having much fun. I go over and present her with the DVD -- she grabs it out of my hand, making sure no one else gets it, and clutches it to her chest, like something truly valuable, and smiles. I don't know if it was a significant moment for her -- but it was for me.

Finally we're all in our seats, and the film is ready to start. Last time we had a falling star. This year, I look over -- and there is a gorgeous sliver of a crescent moon, with Venus hanging below, "hanging like a diamond on an earring." "That's a Treasure Planet moon," says Jocelyn, which makes me smile -- she knows the zoom-in shoot of the moon in Treasure Planet is one of my favorites.

This is the sort of thing you get before a film opens -- actual e-mail:

Subject: Tracking for Monday, May 21st
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END looks huge on tracking. Unaided awareness continues to increase suggesting great top of mind awareness, and first choice is up with younger males and females. They look poised for another incredible opening weekend. GRACIE still doesn't have much awareness - 21% overall. Younger females are currently the most aware quadrant - 28%. All other numbers are likely to flop around until awareness increases. KNOCKED UP picked up some awareness with older males (56%) and younger females (58%), and awareness in evenly balanced across all segments. Younger females are currently the lead audience with 32% definite interest and 6% first choice - up two points. MR. BROOKS had some good increases in awareness from over the weekend - 48% overall. Older males inched up in unaided awareness to 2% and are currently the most aware (up 10 points) and interested at 57% and 27% respectively. They look to be the best choice for the over 25 crowd on this weekend. HOSTEL 2 came up 6 points in awareness with older females to 33% and 8 points in definite interest with younger females to 36%. There wasn't much movement elsewhere though this campaign will be late breaking. OCEAN'S 13 looks good on tracking and has the highest numbers with older males at 7% unaided awareness, 97% awareness, 48% definite interest and a solid 18% first choice. Younger males are at the same level of interest and females are not far behind. SURF'S UP inched up in awareness with older males and females. Though family tracking would provide further insight, younger females are the most on board with 53% awareness and 26% definite interest.

Looking at Rotten Tomatoes, assistant/producer Susan sends an e-mail, "Yet again, ZERO consensus among the mainstream press brainiacs. I'm hugely amused that Entertainment Weekly sent a different critic (instead of Lisa S.) and his complaint is that he liked P2 more? Why didn't they have HIM review P2? And Roeper... ROEPER loves it?!"

We get word that the Disney plagiarism lawsuit has been dropped. Papers arrive, we sign and notarize, and I guess that's all I'm supposed to say about it.

Here's an example of the sort of report one gets from the studio on opening day:

Buena Vista Pictures Marketing
Attached please find the following reviews for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END:
June 4, 2007 PEOPLE Jason Lynch MIXED
June 4, 2007 ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Owen Gleiberman MIXED
May 24, 2007 NEW YORK TIMES Jeanette Catsoulis FAIR
May 24, 2007 NEWSDAY Gene Seymour FAIR
May 23, 2007 THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Michael Rechtshaffen GOOD
May 24, 2007 USA TODAY Claudia Puig POOR
May 24, 2007 NEW YORK POST Lou Lumenick FAIR
May 24, 2007 METRO Dan Dunn POOR
May 24, 2007 VILLAGE VOICE Nathan Lee POOR
May 24, 2007 NEW YORK SUN Grady Hendrix MIXED
May 24, 2007 ASBURY PARK PRESS Eleanor O'Sullivan GOOD
May 24, 2007 BERGEN RECORD Richard Roeper VERY GOOD
May 24, 2007 LA WEEKLY Nathan Lee POOR
May 24, 2007 LA DAILY NEWS Bob Strauss MIXED
May 24, 2007 ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER Craig Outhier POOR
May 24, 2007 NJ STAR LEDGER Lisa Rose POOR
Rebecca Rosen
Walt Disney Pictures Publicity

E-mail from Executive Producer Mike Stenson: "Anyway, on the way home, my son who is a senior in high school called to let us know he'd be home late because he was going to watch Pirates at midnight. He told me not to worry because tomorrow is Senior Ditch Day. Thank God the studios scheduled the release on the same day as Senior Ditch Day, Now he has a legitimate excuse for missing school."

Mystery of the end credits is solved. I get a report from Susan, "In the Multiple Jacks scene some of those Jacks have tattoos different that those we know of as being Jack Sparrow's. Johnny picked the content of those tattoos himself. In some cases, they are visible/readable in the finished film, and where they are readable, they have to be cleared. One includes a line(s) from the Saroyan play, the other from the poem credited at the end."

Opening night, we again do our drive around to various theaters. Again we're amazed how many theaters are showing the film out of focus or improperly framed, or the prints are not color balanced, etc. And the same exact theater that had the sound out on the right side, still has the sound out on the right side.

The early numbers come rolling in during dinner, and there is no celebrating ... they are huge but less than hoped for; almost impossible to do well with the Thursday preview and the long Memorial Day weekend. But again, as per tradition, I lose my bet with Spencer, and we all try to remember which President is on the face of a $500 bill.

At dinner, chat with Jerry and his wife about the Internet fans, of course he doesn't have time to track message boards and such. I describe the notion of 'shipping' and try to describe the depth with which the fans analyze the films, such as the 250 post thread on the topic of, "Should Norrington have left the Black Pearl and positioned his troops at the mouth of the cave at Isla Muerta or should he have trusted Jack and stayed on the ship."

Johnny Depp and his wife Vanessa join us this year for dinner, and afterwards we head over for the midnight showing at the El Capitan. So, if any of you out there reading were watching At World's End there that night, opening night, you might not have noticed, but Johnny Depp, Gore, and Bruckheimer were there in the theater with you.

Much later, I get another e-mail on my new iPhone from the Disney marketing folk. The sort of thing that comes floating your way over the weekend when you have a big film in release. Here it is, word-or word:

PIRATES 3 internationally has now crossed PIRATES 2 and is at $642mm..... adding in the domestic total to date of $306mm we are at a worldwide cum of $948mm, we will cross the $950mm level this weekend. P3 is now the 5th biggest film of ALL TIME and our Pirate franchise holds the 3 and 5 slots...... No other franchise has two in the top 5 slots...... Titanic is 1, LOR3 is 2, and Potter 1 is 4...... We will likely take in another $5 to 7mm to generate throughout the summer...... this has been a GREAT RUN......

Quietly, over on Box Office Mojo, yours truly passes the 2 billion dollar mark, domestic gross on credited films, with no fanfare. This puts me in second place behind only George Lucas on the all time list (I'm slightly ahead of Ted due to Deja Vu). Everyone else on that list is a household name. But me, I can still go to a nude beach and not worry about having my picture taken. Which is probably a good thing.

FLASHBACK MOMENT: At the cast and crew party for At World's End. Gore and I look at each other for a long moment. How can words convey so many years, so many events, so many conflicts, agreements, breakthroughs, setbacks, shared experiences? He gives me a long hug. I tell him he's the man, he's the guy who made it all happen. Gore says in my ear: "We're both just chasing the deer, man, trying to catch a glimpse of it in the woods."

Pirates of the Caribbean
NINE PIECES OF EIGHT
More Tales from the Set

The release date of Dead Man's Chest nears, so we do the traditional press junket, which for us amounts to a day of interviews, both traditional media (newspaper, magazines, radio and television) and new media (internet sites). For the group interviews the actors, Gore, Bruckheimer and Ted and I rotate from room to room filled with reporters who have attended press screenings of the film. I can tell from the near-hostile questioning that the screenings did not go well. "Why is the film so much darker?" "Why is the film so much more comedic?" "Why is there so much plot?" "Why is there so little plot?" Etc.

One thing becomes clear, many critics seem angry to be given a film that is not, by their estimation, a complete story. Although it's well known that the third film is already in production, they feel duped to be given only a 'middle' section of a trilogy. Ted's response is to say that the second film is in fact complete, it's just that it's a tragedy. The reporters do not looked convinced.

The reporters also seem very concerned with running time -- why is the film so long? Perhaps that is the essential difference between critics and fans, fans are happy to have more story to watch, and excited to know that a third film is on the way, but critics have appointments to keep.

One reporter wants to know why the film is "overly complex." This allows me to climb my favorite soapbox and rant on the topic of complexity -- which I believe is an asset to any film. "Audiences love complexity," I tell them. "You wouldn't say a film is too funny or too dramatic, and so it's nonsense to say a film is too complex -- as long as it makes sense and is logical." You would think that critics, who must suffer through many films that are boring because they are far too simple, would appreciate this point, but again they do not look convinced.

Day of the big Disneyland premiere arrives! My girlfriend Jocelyn has decided to make use of her unused Burning Man outfit -- platform boots, short skirt, leather vest, and colorful cape crafted by our friend and assistant Oceana. She looks stunning but what can I wear to match? That morning we search Hollywood second hand stores and I end up with black leather pants (!) and a puffy armed shirt. Homemade red sashes and headbands complete the effect (not saying what the effect was, just that it was complete!)

On the limo ride is my brother, his girlfriend, my daughter Janay and her boyfriend. We wonder if Disney will let us take in our large bags of swag onto the red carpet. A long line of cars outside the park, finally we exit and meet our own personal guide ... Ted and I take a picture with Aladdin, shake Dick Cook's hand, and we're in -- swag and all!

On the red carpet, we're hit by a WALL OF SCREAMS. Much bigger and crazier than the Academy Awards, even. There is no way to prepare for this -- fans are lined up behind the ropes twenty rows deep. Last premiere it was about three or four rows deep. Fans in costumes, fans holding out stuff to sign, kids up on shoulders, and everyone happy to grab for the flying swag. Once we start throwing out our eyepatches and headbands and beads, the SCREAMING goes up a notch, people surge, riot-like, and plead and beg -- not that the stuff is valuable, but it represents some small reward for their hours of effort and waiting. We've got several huge bags stuffed but we could easily hand out everything in the first twenty feet, and that doesn't even get us partway around the first turn, on the way toward the looooong stretch that is Main Street, which is just as crowded. Wow!

As we move along, even guests on the red carpet are asking for our beads. I pick out people who look deserving (fans who have dressed up, kids who look overwhelmed, etc.) I start to have fun with throwing stuff, I pick out people way in the back, and see how far I can manage an effective toss. Later, I get a MySpace message from someone who was there, she said, "I was the girl up on my boyfriend's shoulders, way in the back, I caught one of your bandanas!"

Moment of Humility: All along Main Street we hear chants of 'TER-ry! TER-ry! TER-ry!' and I'm feeling pretty good and then some. But then a glance to my side reveals: legendary wide-receiver Jerry Rice is pacing our group. All the shouts are for him! Poor guy, cutting a swath through that frightening jungle of notoriety while I follow in a serene wake of anonymity.

We leave the media and fan crush of the red carpet and enter Adventureland. I can't wait to go onto the newly refurbished Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Back in the Bahamas, Johnny had called us into his trailer to discuss the proposed changes he'd been sent. We agreed that the Jack Sparrow vignettes felt uninspired, and made suggestions on how they could be improved. The original Marc Davis sketches were all about the suspended moment, a particular situation that indicated a larger story (think of the dog with the keys). So we were really curious to go on the ride and check out the results.

So we hop onto our boat, and some of it is impressive and some is disappointing. The Davy Jones character is effective and the Jack Sparrow appearances are uncanny. You stare at him and you can convince yourself that they must have hired a life actor/Depp imitator to stand there and look back at you. But the vignette poses were still bland; to end the whole affair with Jack Sparrow sitting on a bunch of treasure, that's about as straightforward as you can get (Ted and I call it 'first draft theater.') It's not that captured moment style that Marc Davis did so well. Later we heard that the imagineers wanted to do something more creative, but ran into budget restrictions.

Midway through the ride, I note with some amusement that Barbossa is on a ship which could have been the Black Pearl, but the sails are not black. Reason is, Disney does not want to pay any small tiny percentage of gate fees to the writers, so they can't use in the ride any physical items or props that were described in specific detail in any of the screenplays. Same thing with some of the toys, that's why you see Black Pearl toy sets for sale where the Black Pearl has grey sails. For the record, as of this writing, Disney has not been willing to pay a single dollar in royalties to the writers (that's us!) for any book, video game, toy, amusement park installment, poster, jewelry item, t-shirt, lunchbox or any other product associated with the Pirates of the Caribbean films, even when specifically called for in our contract. Which is kind of sad, really.

Night falls. The crowd gathers in the bleachers facing Tom Sawyer Island. Happily, I find out I am not 'on the boat' so to speak. The way it works is they put a big screen over on Tom Sawyer Island, and they present key cast and crewmembers to the giant crowd by sailing them out on the Rivers of America aboard the Columbia. It's one of Gore's least favorite things to do, be in the spotlight like that, kind of cool yes but kind of goofy. I find out from our personal guide that Ted and I are not invited onto the Columbia, which is fine by me. So we sit in the stands, there is a long long wait -- some issue with Depp being late, it turns out later he was doing a charity gig, I think it was for Make-a-Wish. Our seats are right next to screen legend John Landau, so that's very cool. Jocelyn and I know that he owns the house above ours, in the Hollywood Hills, but he's never there so we've never met. Finally the ship appears, introductions are made, and that BOOMING VOICE of the Disney announcer guy says, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest!"

Right away there is a Good Omen. I'm pretty excited to see the new Disney logo trailer -- it's done a bit in the style of the old Columbia trailer, three dimensional, and features Tinkerbell over the caste, etc. And, and, and, just as the trailer starts, just before Tinkerbell appears (and others at the event have confirmed this so I know it's true) a FALLING STAR sparkles across the night sky, a real star in the real sky behind the screen, out over the trees, out beyond Disneyland. A bit of Disney magic, there, right on cue!

Okay, so in some ways it's not the best of viewing conditions. The sound is not clear and there is a delay because the screen is so far away, and the screen is not a bright as you might want, it's cold, the benches are hard, and we got a late start. Parts of the film are great but expectations are so high. Afterwards I give the film a solid C+, to the utter shock and horror of Chad Oman, one of the exec producers. He thinks the film is an A and assures me a second viewing is needed, that the film plays far stronger the second time you see it.

This is confirmed two days later where, at the cast and crew screening at the El Capitan, I have an entirely different experience. The sound is better, you can hear all the dialogue, I watch the film ... and it works. Jokes play, the tension is held, themes emerge, Bill Nighy's performance is thrilling, setups pay off and payoffs are set up, the ending is gangbusters, and overall it's that collective shared experience you hope to get from a trip to the movies. Outside, I raise my rating to B+ or A-, and Chad just grins at me. We bask for a moment in the satisfaction of finishing the massive thing, well actually the fact that Gore finished the massive thing, and knowing that the film is likely to be a phenomenon.

Watching the film, though, I really feel some of the edits and cuts. The original concept was to open the film with Gibbs singing, "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest ..." and so match the opening of the first film, with the singing on the 'Pirates Life for Me' song. And then we'd have another song for the third film, so they would all match. Gore and the editors said they tried it that way, but it didn't work; it was too difficult to cut from Jack's story to the wedding, Jack's story was so compelling it made it difficult for the audience to buy into the wedding, to care about the wedding. They might be right, but part of me is doubtful, I would have liked to have at least seen it once the original way.

And there were lines of dialogue that didn't make it: "I was nothing more than an almost innocent bystander." "I make no promises." "Keeps my aim sharp." "Never mind let's go!" "I love marriage, it's like a wager to see who will fall out of love first." "You just want Elizabeth for yourself." "Pot. Kettle. Black." Fans expect there to be quotable lines in the film, and we can't afford to lose any of them. Would 90 seconds more running time to include some of the better lines really have been a problem?

My girlfriend Jocelyn figured out the 'falling into the grave' issue. In the trailer, there is a shot from the front, of Jack striding forward and flopping into the grave. It was a fabulous pratfall performed by one of Jack's stunt doubles. We noticed in the film that Gore and the editors used an alternate shot, Jack striding forward and falling, shown from the side, and then you see the grave. It wasn't as funny, and I asked Gore why it was changed. Their theory was that the audience could 'register' the fall better from the side view, and then it was funny to reveal the grave. There was no time to test the film for audiences, so it was left that way. As it turned out, no one laughed at the 'see the fall from the side' version. Jocelyn hit on the reason why, she figured out that foreshortening is the key. When you see Jack from the front, he starts to fall, but what's funny is (because you are viewing from the front) you don't register the fall for just a half-second -- and then suddenly he's gone! That's the joke. So yes, you do 'register' the fall better from the side, but in this case, it was not registering the fall, and then getting the surprise, that was effective, that's what created the joke. I think she's right.

For the record, there are six instances in the film of foreshadowing Jack's death at the end. 1.) Jack's entrance, where he pops out of a coffin. 2.) His first line to the corpse, "Mind if we take a little side trip? Didn't think so." (A side trip implying that he will eventually rejoin the corpse to their main destination.) 3.) Bootstrap Bill tells Jack: "Then it's the Locker for you!" 4.) The first sailor Will talks to when searching for him, "Jack Sparrow? I heard he was dead." 5.) Gibbs lines in the cage, 'Release him from his fleshy prison ... Jack Sparrow will die ... when the drums stop" 6.) Jack falls headfirst into the grave.

So the release date is upon us. We have a couple of traditions. One is that I make an opening weekend bet with Spencer, Gore's agent. For the first movie I had 65 million and under. He won a hundred bucks. For this film, I upped it to 103 million and under. The other tradition is we all get in a big van (Jerry, Gore, Ted and I, other key production personnel, wives and girlfriends ...) and we go from theater to theater in and around LA, to check on the crowds, see what the reactions are, see if theaters are sold out, etc., and end with a late dinner and wait for the numbers to roll in.

In one theater, Gore notices that the sound in the left front speaker is out and tracks down the manager to have it fixed. In another theater, he notices that the framing is slightly off. Man that guy is good.

Driving in between theaters, Gore's mentions the early reviews, "They're tearing us apart, man. Vicious." We try to figure out what the deal is. We made a smart, ambitious film that was not formula. We used literary techniques such as foreshadowing, thematic unity, dramatic irony, etc. We made a payoff line of 'the dichotomy of good and evil.' Our film is visually spectacular and funny. We invented distinctive characters, Davy Jones, Tia Dalma, Bootstrap Bill, and Lord Cutler Beckett, adding them to our pirates universe. This is all stuff the critics would usually love. And they're mauling us. We wonder, is there an anti-Jerry Bruckheimer bias?

At dinner Jerry gets the phone call, and the early estimate is near 130 million for the weekend, a number no one dared dream of, a new record. Spencer wins the bet, again. Later we hear from Johnny, who was in France at the time. "Scary numbers" he called them. "We ordered a bottle of wine, drank it, and the numbers kept rolling in, the estimates kept going up, and we just kept drinking more wine."

Reactions from the fans are mixed ... but weirdly, the 'it's really good on second viewing' phenomenon appears to be true. The Rotten Tomato rating drops below 60%; too bad, because now all future descriptions of the film will be along the lines of, 'the critically disappointing Dead Man's Chest ...' or 'dismissed by critics, Dead Man's Chest ...' etc.

No rest for the weary, there's still another film to shoot -- on location at Redondo Beach. After a few days shooting we realize, this is the first time we are 'on location' in a public place in the United States, and not at the studio at on a secured site. So for the first time we get a glimpse our fan base, who begin to ring the production site. Word of the production makes the news, and the crowds swell, many people spending all day behind the barricades. Unfortunately the shooting is all out at sea, so the only time for the fans to see any of the actors is early in the morning when they set out, or after sunset when they return.

One evening, fate hands the waiting fans a real treat. One shot was done just beyond the harbor. End of the day, sunset and into twilight, fans lining the beach get to see the real Black Pearl maneuvering, lanterns lit, the whole ship lit up against the darkening sky. (Addendum: that shot was later cut from At World's End, as of this writing.)

Me, I can walk through the crowds anonymously, even tell people I'm one of the film's screenwriters. Not much reaction from most, adults mostly, the kids tend to look surprised at the thought that these films even have writers. I did get asked to pose for a few photos and the occasional request for an autograph, so my hungry, shunted away in a dark corner starving ego gets to chomp down a few bites of fame.

Footage made the news of Orlando slipping away from set, crouched down in his vehicle. Same night, Johnny stays for an hour after wrap signing autographs. By comparison Orlando looks bad, which is really not fair; he had an appointment he had to keep, he's usually generous to his fans, he just couldn't do it that night, and didn't want his departure on camera.

Some fans line the production trailer area all day. I can't help but wonder, what do they get out of this? Maybe a glimpse of one of the stars, a wave; best-case scenario an autograph, a moment's interaction. There is value there, I've done it myself (I flew out to New Zealand while Lord of the Rings was filming just to see the sets) but putting a description to the value remains elusive.

I'll always remember this. Late in the evening, in the director's trailer. Watching dailies. Inside the trailer, it all gets lit up by flashes of lighting coming from outside -- a sudden thunderstorm? We crowd to the window, look out to see: Johnny has stepped out of his trailer to sign autographs, and the bright flashes are from the legions of camera flash bulbs going off. Blinding!

Funny how actors like Kevin, Mackensie, Lee don't get much response from the fans, especially the kids, who only respond to 'Jack Sparrow.' One of the stunt guys plays with the crowd by sticking one of Johnny's dreadlock wigs around a corner -- and that high pitched Beatles arrive in America female squeal rises up.

That squeal is interesting; I've been listening to it a lot. What's odd is that no matter the crowd, morning afternoon or night, or the people in the crowd, who are always different, that squeal is always the same. Same rising pitch, same speed to the same volume, it's like some kind of genetic memory, primal, female DNA calling out to mate ... or something.

Correction: It's not just Johnny, Marty also gets the squeal, as does Jack-the-Monkey.

I don't know how the cast and crew do it. Some days the seas are rough, but relatively few have to bow our due to seasickness on the Black Pearl. Not me. One day, I didn't even make it onto the ship ... just the ride out was enough for me to give in, I took one look at the Pearl, bouncing around like a cork the waves, the ship transfer dock thrashed, the landing rising up and down thirty feet with each swell, and I said, no way, take me back to land!

During the short break between filming, we took a rewrite job on a project called The Spiderwick Chronicles. A fantasy story based on kids children's book series. We had to restructure, revise characters and character relationships, take meetings, and rewrite an entire screenplay over about a month's time. Hard! But word comes now that the Spiderwick Chronicles has gone into production. That's the goal of any screenwriter, you've done your job on a project if you can help nudge it toward production ...

Sam, who works upstairs at Disney, is a huge Pirates fan, so when we were asked to put a name to the tiny sandy island where Jack and Elizabeth are marooned, we called it 'Black Sam's Spit.' Sam was delighted, and then a year or so later, she sent Susan this sweet e-mail: "Will you thank you guys for me? You have all made me something of an unknown immortal. In the new Monopoly game, there is a card about the marooning titled "Black Sam's Spit". I may just swoon."

Time is such a valuable commodity. Along with the movie, we're trying to help with the various video game platforms. I spend evenings going over the scripts for the X-Box and Playstation games, trying to punch up the dialogue, give it more of the a flavor of the movie. All the more annoying that Disney pays no royalties on that whole sector.

Thankfully Deja Vu returns to down from shooting in New Orleans, so it's easier to get from set to set. Funny how we end up on the same sound stages for different movies ... first a pirate ship, then a historic oval office, next a time travel machine, all on stage 42 at Universal ...

And then add that Bruckheimer is coming to us for help on the sequel to National Treasure. It's a bit of a sore point in that after doing the production rewrite on the first film, the WGA did not allow us credit. But they're in need of an approach and so we read and give our notes ...

Shooting moves to Guadalupe Dunes, and we feel a bit of the power of the production, as the County agrees to shut down the entire beach -- for us! Spectacular.

Exiting the beach I pass by a van full of what are obviously pirate fans. I pull over and pause to talk with them -- but they go speeding by, searching for another path to the beach. Oh, well.

The way the schedule is worked out, we realize that the beach scene at Guadeloupe dunes is special -- with Jack, Will, Elizabeth, Barbossa, Tia Dalma, Gibbs, Pintel and Ragetti all in the scene, likely never again will we have those same actors together in one place in the world.

So the production moves to an aircraft assembly hanger in Palmdale, California. And words cannot describe the feeling upon stepping into that facility. I can only give details: five full sized ships. Two built high upon three story gimbals. Lighting that spans a quarter square mile. Rain machines big enough to provide water for a small town. Blue screens as tall and wide as a Montana sky.

I stand next to Gore, gazing at it all. He says, simply, "We will never work on something this scale, ever again."

Interesting set fact #1: When there is an injury, and production calls for the medic over the walkie talkie, they never say who they calling for, who might or might not be injured, to avoid rumors and speculation ... the say, "We have a customer for the medic!"

Interesting set fact #2: Talking to Rick Heinricks regarding the Hai Peng, he mentions they figured out to create it with a rubber floor. Meaning what look like wooden planks are fashioned out of a kind of rubber. "Better for the stunt men to land on, better for the legs of the camera crew and actors who have to stand on it all day."

I spoke to Eric McCloud, one of our executive producers, and ran past him the idea of my girlfriend, Jocelyn, bringing a trailer to the set. She's a doctor who owns a medical spa (Skin Solutions) in Brentwood, and wants to offer free treatments to actors, extras, stunt people, etc. as a promotion. Amazingly, despite the extra security hassle, he approves the idea! It helped that Jocelyn spent six months with us in the Caribbean, riding into set each morning on the bus ...

John Knoll looks particularly beleaguered today. He's the visual effects wizard leading the team from ILM, always on set, available to consult, one of the liaisons between the set and the guys up in San Francisco on the computers. John is frustrated looking at the ragged, wrinkled, shadowy blue screen behind the ship. As the production has continued on, efforts to keep the blue screen smooth have fallen off. That makes it more difficult in post. "We bid on doing blue screen ... but not blue screen that looks like that."

For the Davy Jones crewmembers, especially characters in the background, it's far more cost effective for them to be created via make-up and costumes than in the computer, but getting them prepped can take more time. But saving time on set by using the CGI guys is just deferring the costs to post, and they'll be expected to do more with less, which is one reason why postproduction houses never make a profit.

In between takes, Gore reflects on the long journey ... I remind him how this sequence started as a pen sketch on a napkin in his office ... Gore reminisces about how much he liked the late nights with the wine, playing the dice game Perudo (which made its way into the film) when all was possible and we were trying to figure out the story ...

Random bits overheard on the walkie-talkie: "I want to ride on the big boat." "Should I have makeup on the monkey for Gore?" "Wind and rain!" "I hear a generator, or air conditioner, or something. Shut it down." "I'm on it." "Just shut everything down!" "First shot, two o'clock, two hours after lunch." "No CGI pirates in this shot." "They're British, what do you expect?" "Make-up for Geoffrey, one of his nails popped off." "All right, take Kiera to the warming tent." "Charlotte, go to two!"

People on the walkie talkie are constantly leaving the main channel for private conversations by saying, "Go to two ..." I teased Charlotte, our stunt coordinator assistant, "So, what reeeeally happens on channel two?" She smiles enigmatically, "Ooh, all the most interesting conversations are on channel two and wouldn't you like to know."

We leave Palmdale briefly for shooting at Disney. That night we wapped Jack Davenport ... there is champagne and a cake ... Gore says to Jack, "It's like you've escaped, gone over to the other side." Amazingly, the process of ending these films has begun.

At Disney, I get a call that Gore needs me on set. I grab my badge and head down to soundstage two. Approaching the set, I see there are barricades put up around the soundstage. Lucky for me I have my Disney employee badge with me. I flash it to the guard and he tells me to stop. Do I have my crew badge with me? Only if you have your crew badge can you get onto the set. This presents me with a dilemma ... but first some context. Several times I've had run-ins with security. At times I have arrived to the lot and sometimes I can park next to the set, sometimes I get shuttled out to the parking garage, which adds an extra 15 minutes to the commute, sometimes I need a badge with me, sometimes I need a pass, my complaint was that it was always changing, and with no notice.

So now it's happening again. Suddenly there is a new policy, and I'm imagining Gore waiting, the whole production waiting with some problem, or some new line is needed, whatever. I explain it to the Guard, that I'm needed on set. The guard sees I don't have my Crew badge with me. I tell him I can come back after I visit the set. The Guard tells me, gestures for me to follow him to the security office. No way am I doing that. So I take my Disney ID off, toss it in his general direction, and tell him I'm going to set. I dive into the sound stage and wind my way to find Gore. Takes about five minutes to solve the problem, and I immediately go back to the Guard, and say, okay, now what do we need to do here?

He's having none of it. Says I'm in big trouble. There are now Burbank police officers there, and they're talking to the producers. Whatever, I head back to my office. Later I get called back to the Guards and we get into an argument, a shouting match. I point out that Gore doesn't have a badge, that Bruckheimer doesn't wear a crew badge, that at this point, the guards should have some idea about who needs to get to set without delay, and besides, I had my Disney badge with a photo ID, what more do they need? I remember the days when it was a Hollywood tradition for security guards to go to the trouble to learn everyone's names and faces!

So I leave the lot to go get my badge. Irony: that was the day I was supposed to met with Motion Picture Group President Dick Cook to get the Studio appreciation gift and bonus check for our work on Dead Man's Chest.

The guards of course were just doing their jobs. Talking with them later, it turns out they had become worried, there were several stalkers who were pursing some of the stars, hence the requirement for Crew badges. Eventually security created a page of photographs of key crewmembers. Next time I arrived at the gate they waved me through without even checking my ID ...

Outside the trailers in Palmdale, Marty shows off his cool, long lean custom Black Pearl motorcycle. Really more of a 'chopper' as they would say in the sixties. He is the envy of all, and the main topic of conversation quickly becomes whether or not he will arrive at the premiere riding it, or even ride it down the red carpet on it ... c'mon Marty, do it!

Hanging out on set, there's a reporter present, working for the New York Times, writing a profile on Jerry Bruckheimer. We start chatting, comparing the qualities of various powerful industry professionals we've both met, guys like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Eisner, Walter Parkes, Jerry Bruckheimer, etc. Later I read her piece and see I managed to land a quote in her article, about Bruckheimer, on what he once told me about power, that power doesn't come from conflict with people, bullying them, instead from aligning with people who want the same thing that you do.

Speaking of which, filming on Deja Vu is into its last few weeks. I'm very unhappy with the job Tony Scott is doing, the missed opportunities, the inept revisions, his general inability to understand basic ideas. We do a podcast on Pirates and someone in the crowd asks how Deja Vu is going, I'm honest and say, "Not good. It's not a film I plan to go see." Which is true enough. Word gets back to Disney on this and they're angry, and my reps point out that it's not very politic to say something like that, especially when we're hoping to set up additional deals there. I'm not really apologetic because they can't have it both ways -- if they let poor choices get made, if they let someone put bad product out, they should take responsibility, either put a stop to it or own up to the mistake, not try to hush it up.

So I finally after all this time figured out the distinction between practical effects, special effects, and visual effects. I knew practical effects were done live, on the stage, in front of the camera (hence the word 'practical'). Stuff like explosions, forced perspective shots, snow falling, etc. But I was using special effects and visual effects rather interchangeably. John Knoll set me straight: what he and his group from ILM do are specifically 'visual effects.' It is not a 'special effect' to do a blue screen shot, or any postproduction CGI; all of the 'digital effects' are 'visual effects.' A 'special effect' is effectively synonymous with 'practical effects' and is handled by a different department. Sometimes they do merge, but basically, in Dead Man's Chest, when the ship smashed in half it was a 'special effect'; seeing the Kraken do the deed was a 'visual effect.'

Seconds after the final 'check the gate!' call for Kevin McNally, his final shot of the trilogy, Kevin takes out his custom made 'pirate' false teeth, drops them to the ground and stomps on them. "Take me to the hair trailer and give me a shave!" he shouts, and ten minutes later the muttonchops are gone ... perhaps forever?

Picture wrap for Geoffrey Rush was on the same day as Kevin ... Geoffrey slashed through the good-bye cake with his sword.

Thing about working in the movie business is, you're always out of a job. Losing one's job is one of the most psychologically challenging events one can face ... and for people on a film set, it's a way of life, you're never more than a few months away from another job search. The gypsy life. It affects everyone, grips and production assistants, producers and camera crew. Even actors. Even top actors. And writers. Orlando asks what we're planning to do next, and I tell him we'd like to try our hand at a western. He starts to pitch a book he loves, with a role he'd like to play, an English gunslinger who comes to the old west. The end of Pirates is still months away, but we're already planning the next gig. On the day of Orlando's picture wrap, he gives me a hug, walks away -- turns and shouts, "English gunslinger!"

Our assistant, Susan, says to Kevin as he leaves the set for the last time, "You're our Scarecrow, we're going to miss you most of all!"

Pirates of the Caribbean
WALKING THE PLANK

We keep putting off the interview for the electronic press kit and DVD. One of those things that's easy to find reasons not to do -- most of the time we're exhausted, bad hair day, or I wore a stupid shirt, or we really are under deadline on a scene. They're willing to shoot it at the hotel, but that's no fun, what's the point of being on location if you can't get interviewed on the set? Thing is, we sort of know that writers always look boring on camera, who are those smug guys, people want to see the movie stars or the director or producer -- I think in an odd subtle way, most people in the audience would prefer that stories would simply 'exist' rather than 'be written,' as if everything was a Greek myth or a local legend. Shakespeare is all right because then the stories are really ancient and that works. I think audiences want to discover the world of the story, and the fact that there are writers sitting who make the stuff up sort of destroys that illusion, like seeing the guy who pulls the trap door cables backstage at a magic show.

So we finally did the DVD interview, on the Empress, trying to be witty. The questions were good, that helps. I always wonder where to look while Ted is talking; he's sitting too close to turn my head, but staring into camera seems like I'm ignoring him. You don't realize how many jackhammers, diesel trucks and beeping forklifts moving in reverse there are on a film set until you try to speak in front of a camera.

Jerry Bruckheimer is in town, and that means dinner. Even after a long day's shooing and an early next day, Jerry expects to have company at dinner, it's sort of required, and one sort of has to attend if invited. Best thing about it are the stories. Jerry recalled the audience preview to Glory Road. Jerry had seen the film and liked it, the studio thought they were in trouble, turns out the test score was through the roof. Gore said he had the same thing happen in reverse with Mouse Hunt. They had a decent score from a previews screening, but the studio forced some changes and then the studio loved it, but Gore hated it. The new score was 22 points lower, thank goodness, and Gore got to put it back the way it was. Audience testing giveth and audience testing taketh away

Gore put forth a theory on test audiences, that they put themselves under a sort of pressure, they want to be 'right' in test rooms, which is not the same experience as when they pay cash. Ted noted that audiences are forgiving for up to twenty minutes in real theaters -- since they chose the film, it's like picking a horse in a horse race, they're rooting for it to do well. Jerry noted the key value in test screenings is the response that tells you exactly where you forced them to be confused. "You just cant believe you left out some key detail," he said, shaking his head.

More dinner conversation: what profession would you have tried if you hadn't made it in the film business? Gore would have gone for rock star (guitarist) or sound designer. I would have tried fashion photography or fashion design. Ted would have drawn a comic strip. My girlfriend Jocelyn, if she hadn't been an MD, would have tried professional golfer. Jerry would have loved to have been a pro Hockey player or pro photographer.

Arriving on set in the bus, everyone's first glance is toward the water. How bad are the waves today, how dark is the sky? Only Gore is happy with high winds and choppy waves, "It looks more like being out at sea. If youre going to shoot on location, it might as well look like it."

Marketing gurus made a presentation for Dead Man's Chest, our first glimpse at the film's one-sheet. Features Johnny, Kiera, and Orlando, much like the first movie, but done in a cool greenish color palate. They demonstrated the break-apart standees, where you could assemble four into a column or spread them out acrosss the lobby. Theater owners can arrange them as they wish. We only got to see the twelve-inch high prototypes and made the requisite Spinal Tap jokes. Orlando snuck in to see the posters, came out grinning like a kid. SMOKING!" he yells. His photo was especially cool looking, very Errol Flynn. "No WAY do I look like that!" he says happily. Orlando is always the most enthusiastic person on the set -- and why not?

Got to talk a little bit about merchandizing. There really should be a Pirates of the Caribbean board game of some type. And I want to see a really high-end chess set. The pawns could be British Navy and look mostly the same, slight variations to suggest Murtogg, Mullroy, Groves, etc. Beckett as King? Or Davy Jones? Put Tia Dalma on that side as Queen. Jack and Elizabeth as King and Queen, or should it be William? Or make William a Bishop? What side does Barbossa go on? Made the suggestion about Jack-the-Monkey puppet, reversable, undead on one side, live on the other. Found out they're doing a Pirate's Dice (Perudo style) game! Our plan actually worked!

Playing Perudo with Orlando one night (which he is remarkably good at) Orlando tells a story about the difficulty in keeping in touch with people, often he has to register at hotels under a false name, and friends and family can't find him. Overzealous fans try to call so he has to make up a name, he uses something generic, like Tom Smith. Jonathan Pryce, not to be outdone, mentioned he also must use a false name. "What name did you pick?" Orlando asked. Jonathan deadpans, Orlando Bloom.

In the midst of shooting, Gore's 'little' film with Nic Cage opens, 'The Weatherman.' Opening numbers were about half what they hoped for, but he's still happy with the movie. It was a niche film, never designed to be mass appeal. Gore had some issues with the release date, why not a week earlier, but the studio wanted the same weekend as Ray the year before -- but who cares about that? There's often an issue when a film is inherited by a new regime at the studio. "It's like buying a house," Gore said, "and there's this frozen steak in the refrigerator do you eat it?"

Mark, our amazing animal trainer, is worried about taking Cotton's Parrot home for Christmas -- with the avian flu scare, the bird might not be allowed back into the country. The current plan is to have the bird board with one of the locally-hired assistants.

Damn, we see the Harry Potter teaser, and they've got the sailing ship rising out of the water gag. That's one of our key images, and now it's going to look like we copied it. Do we mention it to Gore? We bring it up to him, but Gore has already seen it and talked with the guys at ILM, and he says ours is going to look better.

Overhead on the set: Jerry Bruckheimer: Interest in this film is over the roof Gore Verbinski: We have to deliver or well be in Movie Jail.

Gore was talking about the story of 'P-3' as it's come to be called, said at key points the audience needs to check in back to the plot, like the bright little pasted 'sign-here' notes on contracts. We knew just what he meant, we've all signed those movie employment contracts, they're a stack of pages, and someone goes through and puts little 'sign here' or 'initial here' stickies so you can go through and not miss any key pages.

Bus ride talk, the Legend of Zorro had a mediocre opening and mediocre reviews. This is a film Ted and I worked on, did the first two drafts of the screenplay, but those drafts weren't used. In the way of WGA arbitration, we still end up with co-story credit, as the WGA has a bias toward early writers (whose work may be discarded) rather than later writers (whose work ends up on screen). In our draft, for example, we got Katherine Zeta-Jones into the Zorro costume. The consensus: they should have got Katherine Zeta-Jones into the Zorro costume.

Daruis, our cinematographer, was inspired (in part) to get into the business by the film Apocolypse Now. He tells the story of how, for one shot, Coppola wanted a flock of this particular type of exotic bird to fly out past the boat going up river. So all these birds were collected and put into little wooden boxes in the trees, with an elaborate system to open the trap doors all at once at the designated moment. Comes time for the shot, the boat roars by, and no birds. What happened? The boxes had opened, but it was really hot that day, it took a long time to set up the shot, and all the birds fell to the ground, dead. This strikes us all as an appropriate cautionary tale for moviemaking in general, including our own

Review script page revisions at dinner. Gore is generally happy but some changes needed. We'll make them overnight and print them out on our handy little Canon i90 portable printer, then review again on the bus ride to set. (Alright Canon, where's our product placement fee?)

Playing hookie from the set, out on the Lucaya Reef course trying to learn to play golf, see Marty, Kevin McNally, Lee Arenberg out on fairway next to us. Fun thing about being on an island, you almost have to run into each other. I get a call on the 12th hole and have to ditch the game to drive to the set. Somehow Ted knows where I was, I wonder who snitched?

My girlfriend Jocelyn likes to go down to the hotel breakfast shack for coffee early in the morning, and hang out with actors and crew members, listen to the latest gossip. Today she returned with this tidbit: "Word is that, without a doubt, Pirates Four is on track, the deals have all been negotiated and it's ready to go." And of course that's not true at all, the first place they would go to discuss another pirate movie is Gore, who won't even talk about it, too busy, or Ted and I, and we haven't heard a thing.

Morale amidst the crew is low. Talking to one of the production assistants, Francine, "When they took Thanksgiving away, that was hard." We spoke about the weird contrast, you know you're lucky as hell, occupying a spot that a hundred thousand other people would kill to have, and yet the actual day-to-day work is dull, tedious, exhausting. On the other hand a highlight for Francine, romance, she met her boyfriend on set.

Snuck away for a side trip to London for Thanksgiving. (Thanksgiving in London, does that even make sense?) I'm playing hookie from the production, really not supposed to leave, often holidays are used for story meetings and catching up on the screenplay. Thankfully Ted will cover for me and there is e-mail. But it's a chance to meet Jocelyn's parents, and from Los Angeles, we're already halfway there. I get 'permission' of a sort from the producers and make travel plans.

First problem: what to do with Phoebe the cat? Turns out Disney is going to keep the hotel rooms over the Thanksgiving Holiday, so we just leave all our stuff. One of the CGI actors staying will look in on the cat, and we leave him our rental car. "You realize," Jocelyn says, "This cat now has a hotel room, a car, and a personal valet, for the next four days, all paid for by Disney."

The less said about the plane ride to London, the better. I should not shout out explatives during turbulance.

London is big. And old. We extend the stay one extra day to see ORSON play, a hot new band. Jason Pebworth, the band lead singer, worked as my personal assistant for several years and just got his big break. I was lucky enough to share some of his highs and lows, and now it's so great he has hit the big time in Great Britain with a record deal, publishing deal, and a tour opening for Duran Duran, Robbie Williams, etc. All with an album (Bright Idea) that Jason wrote and produced on his own dime. Weird to see my ex-assistant's face on magazine covers and in news stories, but it shows you -- sometimes overnight success can take a half-dozen years.

When you fly back to Freeport, the Bahamas, you have to take a 35 minute puddle jumper flight, and there is only one flight scheduled per evening. And they always overbook. Waiting in the crowded terminal, Jocelyn and I are told there isn't room enough on the plane for us. I had already pushed being away from the production an extra day, I couldn't afford to miss another! Boarding passes are handed out, and neither of us get one, but they are willing to put us on a bus and take us out to where the plane is, and then ask the Captain if there is any room -- something about weight restrictions based on cargo and luggage, etc. So we're sitting in this bus, alone with no driver along with two Germans who need to get to the island to work dock construction, and we look out, and there is another bus on the tarmac, and inside the bus is -- Orlando Bloom! We wave our arms and pound on the glass, and that's when we realize, we're actually trapped inside this bus, the doors won't open. So I actually muscle the doors open and we dash across toward Orlando's bus while airport officials chase us down, and of course we're saying, 'We're with Orlando Bloom!' Orlando sees us, lights up, and lets us onto his bus, where we get to hang out with him and his very personable father. I tell the aiport officials, look, we want to be on the flight, but Orland has to be on, if you don't let Orlando on, he's supposed to shoot in the morning, and the it will cost the production $600,000.00. Eventually they decide we can all make it onto the flight, which of course, when you're sitting there on the plane, you wonder, do I even want to be on a flight that is so overloaded? But the twin prop plane muscles into the air, drones through the night and makes the crossing, Orlando makes it to the shoot and all is well.

Talkin' 'bout swag, Part I. Joel Harlow, Pirates make-up artist and all around artist extraordinaire, started designing and self-manufacturing these way-cool, hefty silver-pewtar pirates skull-head rings, and they swept through the set, everybody who sees one wants one, including Bruckheimer, including me. People are customizing them with gold plating and adding diamonds, etc. The cool thing, Joel has set aside one of the designs to be exclusive to those who actually work on the production, he created other designs, subtly different, for friends and family. The really cool thing, his product was so superior to anything else that was being done, in terms of merchandizing, Disney came to him to make him an official licencesee, and now he gets to sell his designs worldwide (www.myswag.net). Way to go Joel!

Talkin' 'bout swag, Part II. So what will our cast & crew gift be this year? Last movie we gave away Black Pearl Rum t-shirts (designed by Joel) and 'Bring me that Horizon' Zippo lighters. This year we ordered leather Pirates of the Caribbean call-sheet portifolios. They are oversized leather wallets, designed to carry call sheets, other papers, business cards, a pen, and has a note-pad. We get boxes and boxes, I think we ordered 600, and quickly discover, it's very difficult to hand them out, the cast and crew are never all together at the same place at one time. Over time it's easy to forget who got one and who didn't, or if Ted handed a bunch out, and we don't want to miss anyone. On the other hand if we leave boxes out people tend to take more than one ("My wife would love one of these!") Out of respect we give the first one to Gore, who seems to genuinely like it, and because he has one, it helps make it a cool item now that everyone wants. We personalize the item by inserting a thank-you note and also a copy of the very first call sheet of Pirates II and III, it says, DAY 1 OF 200. People seem genuinely happy to get them.

On set, actor Kevin McNalley (Gibbs) proudly reports a personal best: an eight months time lag between shooting one side of a scene, and then the reverse side of the same scene. (For the curious, his previous record was five months.)

Saw Gore setting up his shot list at breakfast. Problem: to have the wind properly fill the sails, the ship can only be pointing in one direction. And with the shore nearby, you cant stage scenes to do reverses across the ship, either the shore would be visible or, if you turn it around, the sails would be filled the wrong way. Man, the shit a director has to worry about.

Out in front of the trailers, Kevin McNally checks in with us on a Gibbs backstory question, a fan site sent him a list of questions, one of them was, "How did Gibbs go from being in the Navy to sailing as a pirate?" Kevin said his answer was, "It was the only way to get rum." Ted's answer, Gibbs figured out, "If you don't want to fight pirates you become one." Another question: "You've served under both Captains, Jack and Barbossa, what are the relative merits of each?" I liked Gibbs' answer, "Jack is more fun."

Dinner, then it comes time for dessert, and Orlando says he had to give up caffine and sugar. The exception are Tim Tams, available only in Australia and New Zealand, "Like an orgasm in your mouth," he exclaims and Kate agrees, a set-up for a punch-line to be sure, but I think better of trying for one.

Overheard: Bill Nighy and Geoffrey Rush speaking about doing voice-overs. Nighy had just finished some voice-over work for DreamWorks, the animated film, Flushed Away. "I got to be a brain damaged rat, in a sewer, singing Abba's 'Fernado.' I LOVE THIS JOB!"

Back to the Exumas to try to finish the Parlay scene and the Wheel finale. Production had to set up their office in a recently-closed bar-restarant, complete with bar stools and pool table. Odd but cool to see Zoila working at her computer with her feet up in a vinyl-seat-covered corner booth.

Another day, another schedule change. The grapevine reports that Johnny has a flu, and may not be able to fly in for the Exumas shots. Rather, his doctor recommends not. There is no doubt Johnny could tough it out, but how would he sound? It makes no sense to sacrifice performance, especially the featured performance of the film. One of our producers observes, "I can't believe we're leaving this island for a second time without getting these scenes."

There is so much talent on set, a lot of it you never know about until you get to know people. One of the marine unit guys has a fish named after him, turns out the guy goes diving down 90 feet, and then into a 270 foot underwater cave, leaving tanks along the way. The precise oxygen mixtures allow him to return to the surface without getting the bends. Oh, and he does this alone. Wow. The camera unit marvels at the audacity of it. "One day he just won't show up to work, he'll just be gone and nobody will know where." Martin nods, "Yeah, you know the guy who wrote the book on cave diving safety? He died last year, diving. Tough sport."

Off day, Gore invites Jocelyn and I down to watch an old movie in the dailies hotel room. Amazing Panasonic high definition projector projecting onto a screen propped up by decidedly low-tech 2x4s. It was an old Burt Lancaster film I was not familiar with, THE TRAIN. Turns out to be an amazing film. Shot just after the war, incredible production values, heavy machinery, train yards, switching stations, marvels of the industrial revolution. The story is a perfect illustration of controlling subtext through plot and character. Halfway through the film we have to stop because Eric is there with a weather report -- rain may continue and Gore may lose his charter flight. And then the power goes out on the entire island, plunging us all into blackness. We pack up to go, say goodbyes, and are just out the door, and suddenly the power is back, and we get to finish the film, which turns out to be fantastic.

I found this out: if you ask for gum while travelling on Johnny's private jet, the lovely attendent will return and present you with a silver tray, linen napkin, arrayed upon it many different selections, Orbitz, Extra, Trident, Big Red, etc. Whoa, intense.

Gore says, the night before, he woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, laughing at Johnny's delivery, "Where's the thump thump?"

Johhny says, "You know how I knew it was a good take? Trevor was laughing, guy who does pull focus, he's the hardest guy on the set ot make laugh. I know if I can get Trevor to even look away, or smile, I'm doing good."

Jet ride back to LA, flying into the sunset Gore on the Jack Sparrow character, "Jack needs a pyramid to dance on ... the editors come to understand Jack, you have to leave Jack on screen, you cant cut back and forth, let Jack be odd " Looking out the window, the sun is a little lower now but not much Johnny says, "The press I the hardest part of the job " We start a story meeting with Gore, he describes the P3 screenplay, the complexity, all the set-ups, audience has to follow too much, Gore describes late Act Two of the script "The monster is still eating ... and it wants to take a dump " Bizzare image but perfect description. Glance out the window again, sun is still hovering, we're chasing it Johnny tells a story about Willy Wonka, he wanted to ad-lib 'fudge-packers' for the oompa-loompa workers, hey they were packing fudge, but then he thought better of it still the endless sunset as we travel west, the jet is so fast it's like we're landing the same time we took off, as if this job isn't surrealistic enough.

I campagin to the studio executives, the subtitle of the third film should be Calypso's Fury. It's specific, it's supernatural, it overshadows the narrative in a provocative way, contributing to the experience of the film. And it seems to fit in a progression, Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, Calypso's Fury. They nod their heads, but later, word comes down from the marketing gurus, Calypso's Fury will not be the subtitle. They say it is "Too soft." So we're back to World's End, which I think feels a little too vague, non-specific. But someone on the video game side uses At Worlds' End and I like that a whole lot more, not sure why, it feels more grand and more specific, and the 'At' emphasizes both time (when the world ends) and place (at the ends of the earth kind of thing). So now I have a new campagin, if we use World's End, it should be AT WORLD'S END.

On set, you see right away that action is hard. Just the simple bit on the page where Will breaks a lamp, uses the oil to set a sword on fire -- easy to write, really difficult to film. Each take requires a new prop to break, each take requires a working flame, each take requires timing among the stunt people, each take requires timing the camera move, all done on a highly slanted deck, wet, rain from the rain machine pouring down, camera crew, CGI techs, actors, stunt doubles, hair and make-up getting in with their last tweaks, people all crowded onto a tiny shipwreck in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night action is hard.

When the production shifts hours and you start working nights, people say, "Good morning!" at 5:00 pm. Took me a couple of days to get in on the joke, and then I was doing it, too, saying 'good night' as the sun came up and we staggered off to our hotel rooms.

On set, you notice, the big name actors hold back in rehersal, and the secondary players go all out, every take. The name actors don't want to burn it in rehearsal, they want to keep something extra, something new for the actual take, a surprise, the secondary actors have a different job, they need to deliver in rehersal, to anchor the scene, create a safety net so the stars can go out on the wire

Jack the Monkey arrived in the mail. Since the message boards on our website (www.wordplayer.com) are down on weekends, a group of writers created their own message board on Yahoo, called Wordplay Retreat. Someone came up with the idea of sending a stuffed monkey (dubbed 'Jack the Monkey') from member-to-member, photographing and chronicling his journey. Jack has been photographed now in Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans I snuck Jack onto the Black Pearl and took a photo of him at the wheel, and then got a shot of Jack in the make-up trailer with Vee, getting prepped for his close-up, then boxed him up and sent him on his way.

We get a look at the teaser trailer, version 17 or something, and it's pretty terrible, very disappointing. On set, I pitch how it should go, and Gore and Jerry agree, want me to write up the ideas in a memo. I bring the memo to dinner, and they have a few more ideas, so I excuse myself and race back to the hotel room, make the changes, print it up, and bring the revised memo back as the main course arrives, send the memo off with Jerry. I don't know if it made a difference, but the final trailer, which I thought was pretty good, reflected a lot of our ideas.

This gets filed under 'gee life must be tough' category. The actors have a lot of down time in between set-ups or before they are called to set. Orlando Bloom has just started to play chess, and needs someone to play with. As a writer on set, after the scene is blocked and rehearsed, I'm one of the few people without a specific task, at a specific time, and that makes me available. So Orlando's assistant would often track me down and say, "Orlando wants a game!" It turns out we're nearly exactly equal in our ability (well he would say he's a little better and I would say I'm a little better). Actually, we're each just not good enough to screw up at least once a game, which makes for some grand, rollicking, sea-saw battles. Orlando is particularly good when he is in trouble, he can strike out when he's on the run. And we are both super-super-competitive people, but it was still a lot of fun, Orlando was equally excited about a good play, whether it was for him or against him.

Playing chess gave me an opportunity to study Orlando's face as he studied the board -- yeah I know that sounds weird, but there was an Orlando Bloom calendar on the table he was supposed to sign, and that got me to wonder, what exactly makes this guy so good looking? So I stared and stared, and I couldn't figure it out, like most actors he has a symmetrical face, and a megawatt smile. Then I noticed his eyelashes, wow, strikingly perfect and full, I wonder if that's a big part of it?

Off day, beach party, bonfire, hung out with the catering staff. Jocelyn asks one of them, what do they wish people did that they don't do? "Push in chairs" was the immediate answer. "We spend half an hour to an hour after each meal just pushing those folding chairs back to the tables." Next on the list: "Use paper plates ... we have local ladies, in their fifties, who do dishes for twelve hours a day, every day, they never complain, just stand there working and chatting with each other, but they would like to be able to go home early." So you can bet from that day forward we pushed in chairs and used paper plates.

Geoffrey Rush had the perfect description of the beach party, standing in the firelight under the stars, "It's like Gidget meets Love Shack meets opening scene from Jaws," he says, a sparkle in his eye, relishing the final syllable of his line, "Jaaaaaawwsss."

The first indication I had that something was seriously wrong just before leaving on the morning bus ride, Producer Eric McLeod tells us that make-up artist Richard Snell had not answered his hotel room door or phone calls. Later, on the road halfway to set, a phone call comes in, and we are told Richard was found dead in his hotel room, locked from the inside. Natural causes. How to go on with the day's work when one of our film's most respected and best-loved talents is gone? Word gradually spreads through the set. A fund is set up for his family, and the tragedy seems all the worse to learn he had five-month old twin daughters. Later, a very moving on-set memorial took place on set at sunset, with flames on the ocean, a cannon salute and moving testimonials from friends and co-workers, including actors Kevin McNally and Orlando Bloom. Richard was an amazing talent who pioneered make-up techniques, was an expert at pirate lore and music among other talents, and is gone way too young. I hope the film is dedicated to him.

One day Jocelyn and I leave the comfort of the air-conditioned trailers and head out to end of the docks, word is there is going to be a ship-to-ship battle scene filmed, and who doesn't like to see a bunch of explosions? We pick a discreet spot one level below the film cameras, stuff in our ear-plugs and wait. Action! is called, and we watch as the attacking ship comes closer and closer and CLOSER, to the point where the cannons are pointed right at us, point blank range, just a few feet across the water. Who knew? We dive for cover as they go BOOM! and that close, it's not so much the sound that gets you, it's the concussive force of the air slamming against your chest. On another day, after one of the ships had been pummeled, Jocelyn picked up a scrap of the hull, and we have it in our living room.

We were shooting a scene for P3 and I noticed Lee had to hold a plate out during the entire take, like a waiter, and I thought it just didn't look good. You wouldn't think about it writing the scene, but watching it, I thought, "Hey, there's magic going on here, that dish should just hover on its own in mid-air." And then you think, "too late now, too bad we didn't write it that way." But I mention it to Ted, and he says, "Go tell Gore." Blocking and staging is in the realm of the director and you have to really believe in your idea if you're going to approach a director after rehearsal to change anything. But Gore is great that way, willing to listen, even in the midst of the madness of production. He immediately agrees with the idea, hands it over to the prop guys. Prop guys live for that kind of challenge, by that afternoon they had manufactured a spring-device pole that held the plate out but also created a kind of 'hovering' effect. Score one for the prop guys!

It felt right to me for Marty to be the crew member to call out and lead the Pirate charge. Marty is a strong physical presence on the ship, without the benefit of a lot of lines; he is sort of the id of the pirate crew, first into the fray, first to be afraid, first to be suspicous, etc. I think it's because he is the shortest pirate, maybe, it feels right that he should be out front, the most bold? Discuss with Gore and he agrees, it works for Marty to lead the charge.

Fun to drop by editorial and peek in got our first look at the finished Davy Jones character, Oh My God. Tried to make sure all the editorial guys got their crew gifts, and later, we send them a gift basket full of goodies, appreciating the fact they are now working around the clock.

Gore has Ted and I in for a rough cut screening and we discuss the film afterwards for a couple of hours. I only have about twelve notes but I believe in them quite strongly and say so. Afterwards in the hallway Gore puts his arm around me and asks, "Are you proud?" I answer, "I'm proud of you." Not one of my notes, but some stuff has to be cut, due to running time issues, including my favorite line from Jack, "I love marriage, it's like a wager on who will fall out of love first."

Looking forward to the premier at Disneyland, our plan is to order pirate patches and scarves and pirate beads to throw to the fans. Why not? Also, maybe a couple of the portfolio crew gifts to fans who is really dressed up. If Disney was smart, they'd have some cameras out there early, showing the fans lining up to get into the park, with some free giveaways.

Surfing the net, I check out Keep to the Code, a fan website, and find an interesting discussion about Jack's character, what kind of man is Jack, is he essentially good at heart or not? Of course that's just the discussion we want people to have after they see the movie. Fans have a copy of the screenplay and have extrapolated from the images they've seen, and they're worried Jack may become too dark, too ruthless. They're concerned about Jack and Will, how far can a character go before he becomes unsympathetic? But the point of the first film, I'm surprised no one has brought it up, is that we each set our own limitation. Jack states his moral stance, beyond what anyone thinks, beyond the guidelines of society, there is simply what a man can do, what a man can't do. Also, the Jack character is much like Bugs Bunny, when things go bad, Bugs' strategy is to just hang on, until fate and chance comes around to work in his favor. It is an exploration of the unprectable antecedent state -- Jack will take actions to create chaos, not knowing how they will pay off or if they will pay off, but knowing that something will emerge that he may turn to his advantage. As such, his actions often seem inexplicable, or far fetched, and he seems to be taking credit for things he could never have predicted. It can be hard to define a morality to those 'stir the pot' strategies, because Jack counts on chance coming into play down the line, for good or ill.

I think the character fans might have to reassess is Elizabeth, for some reason she was let her off easy in the first movie, even though she barters herself to Norrington, lying in order to get him to turn around and go save Will, and a lot of good sailors died as a result of that deed -- so what is her essential nature? She has demonstrated, time an again, she is more of a pirate than any of them. I am VERY interested to see how the fans will react to our story -- it is in fact the key question, the one that will define the fate of the franchise!

On the scoring stage, talking to Hans Zimmer, he says when he dove into P3, just after finishing Da Vinci Code, he actually had more music finished for P3 than P2 Hans says at times he has recorded musicians in London and LA simultaneously, and was always aware of the time difference "You want to get them mid-morning, give them a chance to have a few pints," he laughs.

A musicianapproached Hans and said something like, "Mr Zimmer, sir, I play viola for you -- actually I have for a number of years -- and my sons would love if you could sign this for them...." And he gave him a sheet of P2 music to sign. Jocelyn's observation, "It is amazing to me how even the famous people working on this film end up asking someone even more famous for an autograph!"

So we go to the scoring session, all the musicians are there with their amazing instruments, and they're playing back the three-way swordfight, with score, and it's a pretty amazing sequence. I look over to Jocelyn and she has tears in her eyes. "Why are you crying, it's not a sad sequence!" "I haven't seen any footage cut together before this and -- it's just beautiful." I point out to Gore and Hans that they made her cry. "Let's hope it works that way for everyone," Hans grins.

TALES FROM THE SET
Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

A tip to any screenwriters out there, if you're ever on a set. Get hold of one of the crew walkie-talkies. That's where the fun is. A constant stream of chatter. "Picture's up." "What's that noise? Someone get on that." "We need more dead redcoats." "Reload." "Five minute warning for Johnny." "We need the monkey on set." "Is that the swinging monkey or the running monkey?" "Swinging monkey." "Copy that." "Where's Kevin?" "Catering tent. At the dessert table." "Francine, go to two." "That's a Bahama wrap for Johnny." "Or as some might say ... a Bahamian Wrapsody." "Do we need the writers for the walk through?" "I don't know. Checking. Negative on the writers." "If we don't shoot this soon, I'm going to ... cry." "Red Bull, Red Bull, Red Bull" "Too early!" "Just waiting on a cloud, then we go."

Gore and the Producers have moved heaven and earth with the schedule so Chow Yun-Fat can play the role of the Captain Sao Feng in P3. It's an intense combination of juggling Chow's schedule, set construction deadlines, ship construction, crew arriving at location, actor availability, and finding the money in the budget, etc. The studio folk seem curiously nonchalant about getting Yun-Fat on board, but in this case, the producers are doing an excellent job of looking out for the studio's financial interest. And Chow is only, like, walking film history, and it's a huge win when he commits to the film.

So now a writing deadline. Chow Yun-Fat needs to have his scenes delivered as early as possible -- his process is to memorize his lines phonetically as well as have them translated. This means we have to have the Singapore sequence (12 pages!) finished -- and locked down, meaning we don't have the luxury of making a final pass the day before, or even last second changes at rehearsal or on set.

We resume shooting in Los Angeles and sadly, the schedule shifts so that our summer hiatus ends early, and key scenes are being shot the week of the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. Our Group's six months of preparation for the theme camp, 'Chain of Thought Video Experience' are in danger. My girlfriend Jocelyn and I help drive the truck and RV north to the celebration on the weekend, then fly back from Reno, intending to return as soon as we can. But then we have to postpone our Wednesday return flight due to script revisions needed on Pirates, then a story meeting pushes the Friday flight to Saturday, which is really too late. Finally it sinks in: no Burning Man this year! A huge disappointment, apologies to our team who made the camp happen. Next year ...

We move to Universal Studios, to the huge Soundstage 12, and view what even veterans are calling the most gorgeous set they've ever seen: the Singapore set. The original Jack Sparrow line was a throwaway, "Clearly, you've never been to Singapore!" and who would have thought it would lead to such a mammouth, glorious, expensive construction. I take my daughter and her boyfriend onto the lot for a visit, and we have the thrill of walking across a lovely arching Chinese bridge ... until a crew member mentions, "Don't touch the railings, the whole thing is rigged to explode." Nice!

The Singapore set is built on a water tank and boasts an outdoor market, a prostitute ally, and a working bathhouse set. I'm reminded of the scene in THE STUNT MAN where the screenwriter confronts the director over moving his scene to a new, more vulgar, location, "My wife cried when she first read that scene ... how is it that your tawdry whorehouse version has so much more depth, drama and humanity?" (Or along those lines, going from memory here.) Our original scene was set in a temple, and Gore requested the change to a bathhouse, complete with giant water ladles, fat men in towels and rancid mushrooms growing out of the wood ...

Funny thing about this who-knows-how-many-milllions-of-dollars Singapore set, the sequence is being shot under the myth that 'there is no screenplay for P3.' Of course there is a screenplay for P3, there have been four drafts of the screenplay for P3, not to mention multiple highly-detailed outlines ... there just isn't a screenplay that Gore, and Johnny, and Jerry, have approved. Our fault, in a sense, as many key scenes just aren't good yet. So far, the production schedule has been kind to us -- the only P3 scenes that have had to be shot are ones that are finished and correct. Like they asked in Shakespeare in Love, how can this possibly all work out? "It's a mystery ..."

Rumor has it that one of the ADs brought in a sushi chef to be one of the background actors on the Singapore set ... so in between takes the crew could eat the sushi that the chef created during the shots ...

My girlfriend Jocelyn and her mom Joyce (visiting) hang out with some of the CGI actors at breakfast ... interesting to see the film from their perspective, they get a call, they fly first class seats, they're flown to Los Angeles ... and there are six limos, one per actor waiting to pick them up ... they get put up in the Hilton ... which is great, but several of them are starving actors, and would have preferred one limo shared and less expensive rooms, and keep the difference and be able to afford dinner ... for a couple days they have no idea why they are there, then a call sheet under the door in the middle of the night, omigod, find a way to the studio and to the set ... where they each get a small dressing room, though one large one shared would have been better ... everyone is happy and grateful and amazed at how well Disney is treating them, but there might be some ways the money could be spent more efficiently ... amazing thing, most of the actors are several months into filming, and they have not been issued a screenplay ... they get the story a piece at a time, out of order, though the 'sides' or bits of the screenplay that are issued at the start of each day's shooting ...

Chow Yun-Fat is so incredibly charming! Upon meeting him, he bows, and in broken English says ... "I am the luckiest man," then smiles and points to the heavens, shouting: "I'm the last person invited to the party!" I learn that his first name is Yun-Fat (you can tell by the hyphen, which usually indicates a first name, and Chinese names commonly list the surname first).

File this under, 'Great Moments in Life': we arrive today at the Singapore set, and Kiera is moving a long boat through the water, lip-syncing a song. Blasting over the sound system is a playback of Keira's recording of "Hoist the Colors" ... when the production needed a song, Ted and I wrote the lyrics, Gore Verbinski and Hans Zimmer worked out music and the arrangement, and here it is playing throughout the stage ...

Little known fact, director Gore Verbinski used to play in a hair band in San Diego, and still travels with several guitars -- off days he's up on his balcony jamming, I will testify, the dude can play ...

Back out to the Bahamas, and finally we get a look at the infamous 'tank.' Or, as someone on the production has dubbed it, the 'wave generator.' The way it is supposed to work, an underwater sea wall protects a man-made harbor from the ocean swell, and in the protected area, an underwater gimble is built, where the ships are attached. Long cables are then connected to the hull and can alternately pull the ship, rocking it back and forth. In reality, it seems as though the shallow water of the tank actually causes waves to grow larger, and the gimble has yet to be tested. Water does not exit the tank properly, and instead of a beach, sand has washed away leaving a sea wall, which during high winds and surf, plumes water thirty feet into the air.

We begin by shooting Black Pearl out at sea, in the supposedly uncontrolled Caribbean waters ... which, ironically, often look too calm, with a glassy flat surface just like the big tank at Universal Studios. One solution is a 'wave boat' or even several, which zoom past just ahead of the shot, creating background chop to match shots shot on days when the ocean was choppy ...

What's that on the horizon? Another ship to add to our fleet ... the Flying Dutchman arrives, in full rancid splendor, and gives everyone a lift. It's the most fantastic prop I've ever seen, a genuine ghost ship, tattered sails, barnacle-coated, forward gatling cannons, human forms imbedded into the hull, lines made of seaweed, amazing detail throughout ... you look at it and just have to ask: who would win in battle, the Black Pearl or the Flying Dutchman? For the answer to that question you have to wait for P3 ...

Chow Yun-Fat, following a tradition in his home film industry, always takes the time to thank each and every member of the crew at the end of the day's shooting. Part of his particular thank-you style is often an embrace and big kiss, and some of the more manly men of the crew have been taken to ducking out of range after that last shot ...

Dick Cook, top Disney brass (as they say), is visiting the set, and will get to witness our efforts to break a ship in half. Dick is one of those professional men who at first, seem too good to be true; too nice, to smart, too gentlemanly, too sincere to ever be successful. You think there must be a catch, some hidden dark side, a painting in the attic. Then you start to suspect it's possible he's successful because he's so genuinely good-natured, genuine and sincere. He tells us a story about how Johnny Depp was so generous as to make an appearance as an industry trade show. Now only did Johnny participate, but he walked out on stage in full costume -- and the (normally jaded) industry types all roared, rose to their feet, and gave him a standing ovation. "Interest for this movie is HUGE," Dick warns -- implying, 'don't screw this up.' Yeah, we know that ...

Dick Cook story ..2: talking shop, Dick told us how he had seen an early cut of the computer generated animated film CHICKEN LITTLE. He had recently read about a technique used in the old days of animation. What you do is take each character and put his or her name at the top of a large piece of paper. Under the name, you list all the lines of dialogue from that character. Completely out of context, even 'shoe leather' lines like, "close the door" or "pass the salt," etc. Then you read down the list -- and ask whether each character has a distinctive voice, if some of the lines could do double or triple duty -- invoke drama, move the story forward and be funnier. "It was a technique from the old days," Cook admitted with a twinkle in his eye, "but I let them think it was my invention."

An extraordinary amount of work gets done on the bus ride from the hotels back and forth to the set. Each day everyone gathers at the bus at some ungodly hour (usually 5:30AM). It's rare if anyone is even two or three minutes late. As screenwriters, we sometimes join, if there are revisions to approve or if there are story issues to work out. During the ride, each department has a chance to get the director's attention before the madness of the shooting day takes over. Today, one of the main topics of conversation is a mysterious fog that showed up in two of the dailies reels. A very slight vertical light band down the center of each frame. Laptop computers are handed around as the bus rumbles along so everyone can see. The problem is not so bad that it can't be corrected, and no footage is lost, but it's not something to repeat, either. It's not likely a lens flair because those are usually irregular, changing as the camera moves, points in a new direction, or also changing with different lenses. On the other hand it seemed unlikely to be a lab error (not all reels were affected) but also not likely a batch error (two reels were affected, not just one). I never found out the answer ...

On this set, it's all about the heavy equipment. We've got backhoes digging and bulldozers moving mountains of sand. Trucks and buses and tractors. Cranes are lifting cargo. Battering rams are shoving pylons into the ocean. Other huge cranes lift men in the air to set rigging on sails, or lift cameras to shoot from on high. There seems to be one forklift that zooms around the camp endlessly with the forks jutting out at eye level just to keep everyone on their toes. Constant beep! beep! warning of vehicles backing up. At one point I counted eight different construction-type vehicles all operating at once, different colors -- bright yellow, bright orange, bright green, bright blue. Caveat: don't come work on a film set unless you enjoy the smell of diesel.

Getting out to set, around the tanks or to the different docks, even just from base camp, is accomplished with a variety of vehicles. Including an array of small ATV jobs that constantly zip around at high speed, and one must be careful to dodge. "Anyone who wants to drive one of those," Ted observes, "should not be allowed to drive one of those."

The catering tent is a marvel: it houses a huge buffet, a drink station, salad bar, and dessert table, as well as six rows of eating tables thirty seats on a side. Air conditioned and tied down, secure against the wind. A point which is about to come into play: I'm sitting here at breakfast with the cast and crew, and the producers step up and get everyone's attention. This never happens, so the tent is suddenly quiet. There is a hurricane headed out way: Wilma, now forming off the Yucatan coast, building to an eventual Class 5. It's expected to turn and head east, crossing southern Florida and into the Bahamas. All equipment needs to be moved inland to safety, all ships stored in harbors or inland waterways. We're particularly concerned about the Flying Dutchman, too delicate to withstand a Class 5 even tucked away in St. Charles Bay. We're to leave our belongings behind, in our hotel rooms, as long as they're not on the bottom floor. Each department is to track their own personnel and make sure that they get safely off the island. The producers offer to answer any questions. One crew member immediately pipes up "Is the off-day party still on for Thursday?"

The catering food is the best food on the island; steak, pork chops, chicken, au gratin potatoes, lasagna, mexican, day in and day out, the variety is amazing ... because of the remote location, the menu has to be set a month ahead of time, for the food to be ordered and flown in ...

More on catering: what can we do to help? "Push your chairs in," says one of the crew, "It takes a half hour to push all the chairs in." Also, we learn that two 50-ish women spend 12 hours a day washing dishes, causing us to switch to less-environmentally sound paper plates and plastic forks ...

Due to scheduling issues, the studio must have Keira on set, but Keira has already commited that time to doing promotion for her previous film, Domino. Solution, Keira attends the film's premiere, flies the red-eye, and makes it on set for rehersal the very next day -- still wearing the makeup she wore on the red carpet the night before.

Gore is a mad-man. Passed him at the hotel on our one and only off day of the week. What does a director do after six grueling days of early calls, dawn to dusk shooting, post shooting meetings, reviewing dailies and CGI, and endless prep shooting on two 200 million dollar back-to-back films? Anyone else would need a day of sleep, massage, or psychotherapy. Instead Gore is carrying his snorkeling equipment and fishing rod and cooler of beer, headed out to sea for a full day of skin-diving ... one day on the bus, his assistant was carring the spear to a spear-fishing gun ...

Some of the reviews are in on Domino and Elizabethtown, movies starring Keira and Orlando, and the reviews are not all good. Johnny Depp dismisses any concerns, says, "I had that for seven years, didn't bother me ... I think like seven people went to see Cry Baby."

When we land the corporate jet in Florida to clear customs, into the United States, I am told to carry my bag off the plane and into the U.S. Customs office. "They like when you carry a bag. They like when you take it seriously." I have no idea what this means, but I do as I am told, and am accepted back into my country.

Executive Producer Mike Stenson slips a surprise into tonights dailies. He's found an old episode of Rocky & Bullwinkle, where they travel back in time in the Wayback Machine. They end up on some British ship, pursed by Captain Kidd. The contested treasure is a slot machine that Kidd's instinct says will pay off on the next pull, but he's run out of quarters. Our heroes walk the plank and step off onto a desert island -- which turns out to be the island of Manhattan, where they hail a cab to Tortuga ... after shooting two pirate films for a years, all of it makes surrealistic sense ...

In between takes, Geoffrey Rush paces the deck, practicing his lines, over and over. After his shots are completed, Rush stays to feed lines, off camera, to the other actors. This guy is a gem, a true pro.

I'm sitting on the Black Pearl, and next to me is Orlando Bloom's very attractive girlfriend, and it occurs to me that she looks very much like his old girlfriend, the one with him on the first Pirates movie. She looks just like Kate Bosworth ... and then it hits me, it is in fact Kate Bosworth. So I'm sitting on a pirate ship next to Lois Lane, how cool is that? Wait a second, her film opens opposite us next summer, she's the enemy -- walk the plank!

We get a couple of off days, and I get the bright idea to charter flight for Joceyln and I to nearby Harbor Island, a resort location on the neighboring island of Eleuthera. We park our rental and walk out onto the tarmac ... all these beautiful planes lined up ... and there is our pilot, he grins a bright smile, and points to our plane, a silver WWII vintage transport, yikes. But the pilot exudes confidence and we climb in, and 'Old Faithful' (as the plane is affectionately nicknamed) dutifully buzzes along in sturdy fashion over the glassy seas ...

We arrive at Eluthera, and this is more like it. Whereas Freeport feels like a run-down suburb of Miami, with the occasional Burger King dotting a flat landscape covered with sickly trees (or as Michael, Orlando's assistant describes it, "Like Fort Lauderdale coughed up a lugy fifty miles"), here it is tropical, hilly, and quaint, with white beaches and tall palm trees. And everybody waves to us. We travel by plane, rental car, boat taxi, and golf cart. I see the pink sand beach, with horses running free, and the amazing resorts, and realize, this the island everybody imagines we're at when we say we're at the Bahamas. This is what honeymooners hope to get when they're picking from the brochures. We rent a room that is a cute little loft looking toward the water and suck up the air conditioning ...

Day Two on Eleuthera: the hotel internet connection is one dollar per minute. Explore the town on our little golf cart. Buy some reggae CDs from a local guy, who I note seems to have, for rent in his little shack, a pirated version of every film ever made. I see neat magic-marker labeled versions of films by screenwriter friends of mine, Cold Creek Manor by Richard Jeffries, and Sky High by Paul Hernandez ... and even a few films of my own ... I don't begrudge the pirating, because it's so far away from home and the handwritten lettering is done so neatly ...

Night on Eleuthera: questioning the locals leads to a late night snack -- barbecue ribs at Brian's Place. Open air cooking, delicious, amazing side dishes, and open all night. Why is this island so much better than Freeport? Colonial design? Palm trees? I figure it out: a lack of four lane highways.

Wake up to high winds. Call airport ... it's just a cold front, no problem. Of course ... At the airport, there is our shiny WWII 'old faithful' plane and our smiling pilot. I ask whether he uses radar to get from one island to the next. "No," he says, and points to a hand-held GPS system, "this, and dead reckoning." The plane darts in and around, under and over the clouds to keep visibility and avoid down drafts. Landing in 20 mph cross winds, our pilot wrestles the plane down. He's still smiling. "I needed the practice." I ask what the cross-wind limit on the plane is ... "35 mph." Arrive just in time for a story meeting with Gore.

There is a gradual exodus of people away from our hotel, Pelican Bay, when it's learned that there is good wi-fi at the nearby Westin. But Pelican Bay is pet-friendly, and we have Phoebe the cat with is, so we will stay.

Script revision required. For you screenwriters out there, in the editing room, it's a constant battle between story logic and 'throws'. A throw is a filmed line or situation that compels the story to the next sequence ... which sometimes can take you to a place that defies story logic ('wait! there's no time for that ship to get there if this happened that day and this person was there that night ..." Gore has had a few days in the editing room to look at some cut P2 footage. Need to reorder one sequence ... some times it's impossible to predict how something will play when you view it ... with the new throw, we need a new logic to how Bootstrap knows his son is on another ship ... scene will shoot in a few days ... must write, can't blog ...

Bus ride in ... Gore is exhausted from weeks of shooting, dailies, late dinner with Jerry ... he likes the new scenes. Only one line revision. Still a couple hours work doing technical work, making sure the scene numbers, A/B pages, omitted pages, are correct, and the drafts are updated, distributed to the usual suspects, and creating a 'Black Page' for Gore's reference only. (If you're directing a 200 million dollar film and you're not completely sure on the sequence order, best to give yourself a safety, not an official part of the shooting schedule but it could save a day's reshoot.)

The call sheet, which arrives on set every evening, lists the next day's work, and also a 'look ahead' section, so departments can prep for the next several days. There is also a 'second unit' section, so people can understand what those people are up to -- the second unit commonly shoots smaller, less complex insert shots, stuff like a hand picking up a sword, or a carriage wheel rolling through the mud. On this production, though, second unit might also shoot rather spectacular establishing shots, like a ship sailing into port in early morning sunshine, or barrels exploading in mid-air ...

Added to that, there is now an 'elements' shot list. 'Elements' are photographic images that are to be used in conjunction with CGI in special effects shots; turns out it's often easier, and more believable, to shoot real stuff and composite it into a CG shot rather than generate the image from scratch in the computer. Elements can span anything from splashes to clouds to fireballs. A scale model of the Flying Dutchman is being built, so it can be put in the water to help make element shots. I bring it up because the list of these shots is astonishing -- many pages long, it's like a whole other movie with its own full crew. Add to this the 'making of' documentary, tests being shot, ILM people recording events on video, and the first unit with its many cameras, and seems like there are cameras everywhere ...

The per diem people show up usually at lunchtime at the end of the week with these neat little yellow envelopes. The eye gravitates toward them the way a dog salivates at the dinnertime bell. I get what seems to me a lot of money each week ($780.00) especially considering that you can eat breakfast and lunch on set every day. My girlfriend and I have taken to dropping in at the local Casino and playing roulette -- but only with per diem money. As a stats lover I fully understand that this is a nonsensical thing to do, but so far, ten our of eleven trips have resulted in us being $20-$70 dollars ahead on each trip. What we do is play until we are up, even a few bucks -- and then quit. I wonder if a computer model would show that this is a successful strategy? It seems not, but, just maybe, the beta factor of naturally occuring ups and downs, based on a set (somewhat large) amount of money to bet, could result in a high chance of at some point betting that amount being 'up' on any one session -- and then the choice to stop at that point gives the player an advantage. Or, maybe we're just lucky.

So I have to be in Los Angeles, but Jocelyn decides to stay with her visiting mom in the Bahamas. The plan is to drop down south to Nassau and avoid the brunt of the attack. But then the hurricane is delayed, and there is concern about Phoebe the cat staying alone too long in our hotel at Pelican Bay. Yes, the cat now officially has her own hotel room, and rented vehicle, and crew members looking in on her. So Jolly and her mother fly back to Freeport -- just ahead of the hurricane. Deadly flying roof tiles, power out for days, trees uprooted, flooding, the whole thing. Phoebe survives, though she is reduced to dry cat food for a few days.

Results of the hurricane: the ship we broke in two, and was supposed to be dressed and used as a different, ship, has been damaged. In other words, we have sustained several hundred thousand dollars of damage to our broken ship. "That there is what you call ironic," Ted notes.

At lunch, in the big tent, David (who plays Cotton) has taken photographs of the island devastation, and set them up in the lunch room and is taking collections for a local church. Way to go David. Because he plays a mute so convincingly on screen, I have to remind myself that David can talk! We have a mutual passion for photography, and schedule a 'swim with the dolphins' out on the open sea ... it gets canceled at the last minute due to weather and high seas ... hey, at least this week's storm came on the off day ...

Name-dropping time ... one of the Those Great Moments Being a Screenwriter ... I'm on the Black Pearl, and I look down ... and there performing our scene is: Johnny Depp. And Orlando Bloom. And Keira Knightly. And Chow Yun Fat. And Geoffrey Rush. Any one of those actors could open a film, and there are five of them, all together on deck. And with them in the scene is Naomi Harris, who in my opinion is as good as anyone there. The same applies for Lee Arenberg, and Mackenzie Crook, and Kevin McNally. Wow, this is the first time, in any of the films, where all those actors are all together at one time. Dazzling.

Haven't had a chance to Blog in a while so I'm going to re-post an essay I wrote for the Writer's Guild a couple years ago. Thank you to everyone for the positive response on my first blog! On Location April 30, 2003 by Terry Rossio Our favorite line we wrote for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN is one we didn't write. This is how it goes, some days, when you're a writer working on set of a major motion picture: 6:15 A.M., my writing partner, Ted Elliott and I get called into director Gore Verbinski's office after a 30-minute morning commute to work via ferry along the coast of St. Vincent (yeah, sure beats the 405 at rush hour). Gore explained there was a change planned for that day's shooting. The stunt guys had figured out a brilliant way to pull Johnny Depp out of the water onto the moving ship -- but it meant Depp had to land back near the ship's wheel. The script had called for him to land mid-ships and move toward the wheel. The new staging meant Depp's character had to say something to order his crew away, and leave him alone for the final shot -- And this was the end shot of the movie, could we come up with a command that was interesting, meaningful, a bit more profound than "Back to work, Mates!" Sure. Ted went off to talk to the captain of one of the film's working ships, the Lady Washington, and try to scare up some authentic nautical commands. I went to find Depp and warn him that some new dialogue was coming. Johnny was cool with it, and even had suggestions -- as research for the role, he'd been reading stories of seafaring men, he said, so "How about something like, 'We venture forth over waves of adversity beneath clouds of adventure, always searching for that elusive shore of our dreams...?'" "Right," I said... "Uh, something just like that. We're working on it." So I go hook up with Ted on the Lady Washington, and they've come up with some possible phrases. There were a few that weren't right at all -- chief among them, I recall, was "Put the wind to our aft!" That's just not a line you want to use to end a movie. We all liked the phrase, "To stations! Let go, and haul to run free!" I particularly liked the 'run free' part, it seemed appropriate for Depp's character, who considered his ship a symbol of freedom. So we run that line past Gore, he stares off into the distance, says "I dunno, I get kind of a BORN FREE vibe out of that, maybe something else?" So, back to the Lady Washington. On the way we get the message from a PA via walkie-talkie that Depp wants us to meet him in make-up, but the ship is on the way, so we stop off there first, to try to find another line. Now I will always remember this: We hear a shout, look over, and there's Johnny Depp racing toward us full speed from the make-up trailers, only half in costume, waving a piece of paper over his head. He's shouting -- I kid you not -- "I've got it! Got it!" He races full speed toward the gangplank, and let me tell you something about gangplanks, they're not very sturdy. Whenever we went across the production was careful to have a sailor on either end, one to help you on, the other to help you down onto the ship. Depp wasn't waiting for that -- he bounded onto the gangplank, it bounced him into the air, and light as a feather he came down on it, bounced up again, and landed gracefully on deck. Hey, that's why he gets the big bucks. He comes up to us, breathless, says "I got it." and shows us the paper. Well, with a build-up like that, from your major star, you'd better hope that it's good. We look at the paper, and beneath a bunch of crossed-off efforts, it says -- "Bring me that horizon!" Ted and I look at each other. "That's pretty good," Ted says. Hell, it was really good. We put it together with the previous line and it sounded great, "Let go and haul to run free! Bring me that horizon!" We took it to Gore. He thought about it for all of half a second, said "That's pretty good. That's really good." Now he even liked the 'run free' lead-in, too. So by mid-morning we were rehearsing. The only thing left was the first line, the reference to the crew. Depp gamely tried our first effort, which I think was something like, "What are you looking at, you rickets-ridden layabouts! Back to work!" After spitting that out a few times he came over and demanded a better line. We worked through a few -- Depp's candidate was 'starving maggots' but I pointed out that seemed like a contradiction -- and then Ted came up with "scabrous dogs." So, the end line of the movie was finally set: JACK SPARROW: "What are you lookin' at, you scabrous dogs? Back to work! Let go and haul to run free! Bring me that horizon!" As of this writing, I don't know if the movie is good, or if the lines made it in, or even if they work the way they should. But if the film is good, it's fun to think that the final line of the film was written the day it was shot. I hope it does work. I hope the movie is great. Because I've got something pinned above my desk. The scrap of paper Depp was waving as he raced out of the trailer, that he wrote the line on -- I kept it, of course. It has our favorite line in the movie -- one we didn't even write!

Time is short on a movie shoot. Every minor task sucks up precious seconds causing the clock hands to spin more quickly. Sunset comes too soon. And then sunrise too soon after that. You can’t describe the experience, try to grab one moment and there are a quickly a dozen more to chase. Issues come and go, schedules, decisions made, constant movement, hotels, buses, cars, people, phone calls, opinions, setbacks, triumphs, change of plans. I’m convinced one reason people bond on set is because only the people on the shoot can really know what it was like to be there. So, no time for a proper journal. Impressions, rumors and observations, and some Very Minor Spoilers ... -- flight was tolerable but crazy ... weird to fly on a big jet plane with so many people but it’s not the usual anonimity, you all kind of know each other. The pillow fight was fierce. The Ferry ride from St. Lucia to St. Vincent was brutal but at least this time I didn't throw up!  -- a note on motion sickeness: the patch didn’t work for me. Nor the dramamine. Nor the little wrist pressure point thingies. I have found my cure but I don’t know what it’s called: some pills my assitant found sold only in San Juan, the package and instructions all in Spanish, but it works! -- the air is warm, the drinks are smooth, the days are long, the spirits high. No one seems to concerned about the occasional machine gun fire up in the marijuana fields, or that this is one of the top drug trafficking locations in the world with a completely corrupt government. Security guards for Kiera and Orlando and Johnny occasionally walk by with spear guns, but no one has asked them why.       -- horses got held up in Miami due to there not being a regulation FAA approved horse cargo carrier. Of course, there has never been a regulation FAA approved horse cargo carrier because those regulations have never been enforced. Right now, Disney-hired workers are constructing a cargo carrier -- AT the FAA facility, under their guidence, in the hope that when it is finished, it will in fact be FAA approved.       -- the whole seven hundred thousand dollar day's worth of filming gets handed over to a PA who has to fly to Miami every day, via Barbados. She arrives in the US with film cans that cannot be opened and cannot be X-rayed. She has to talk her way through customs each day because there is a new Customs official each time. They always threaten to X-ray the cases and she has to plead that if they do she will lose her job. That's how to get work on a movie, be willing to be arrested and sent to Guantanamo. Here's to all the great PAs working on this movie! -- when Ted and I wrote Mask of Zorro, we had an introduction we wanted to do for the villain. The idea is that he would arrive on shore in a boat, but actually asride a horse, standing in the boat. Ultimately they cut the scene in Zorro because it was too expensive. So when it came time to do the Pirates sequel, we thought we'd try again, and have a character introduced riding to shore on a horse in a boat. First they tried to cut it because it was too unbelievable. The note from our historian was, "Riding on a horse in a small boat is suicidal! It would never be done!" Then they tried to cut it for budget reasons, but Gore said, "This time I'm going to get you guys your horse shot!" Sure enough, one day ... after weeks of planning and training, hundreds of people to pull it off ... there it was, a real live horse, and rider, in a boat, floating on the water, all the way to where it jumped out on shore! -- actors were practicing stunts and thought they could go under the shade of a grove of palm trees. There was an explosion. And another one. Answer: the trees were 200ft high, and coconuts were falling randomly. They came down with such force that if one hit you in the head you'd be dead. The actors finihsed their rehearsals out in the sun.   -- animal trainer worked with the Prison Dog and got the dog to jump out of a rowboat on command. Out on location -- meaning in a bobbing little rowboat in the middle of the churning Atlantic, the dog performs the stunt flawlessly! Once. Smart dog.Take two, the dog looks at everyone as if to say, I might be a trained dog but I ain’t stupid! That’s the middle of the freakin’ ocean! I don’t see any of you jumping out of the boat! He stays put from then on. (To be fair, a week later, a bit closer to shore, working with the second unit, the dog was willing to jump out again. Being the true professional that he is.) -- best analogy for a movie production came from Marla one of the ILM team. “It’s like a bucket brigade” she said. “The film is a house on fire. Each department does their job and their job only. It’s like passing the buckets, you don’t know where they came from or where they’re going. You just do your part and hope it will eventually put out the fire ...” No one person ever really knows everything that’s going on. -- in the bar, talking to one of the stunt guys, we asked how he got life and health insurance. Guy just laughed. No way would any company, anywhere, insure him, for any price, for personal health insurance. He had done the stunt the day before where a rowboat wrecks in the waves. Told him it was the only time on set I’ve ever spoken out loud in the middle of a take (you’re supposed to stay quiet). When I saw the boat get completely upended by the waves and the two guys fly out of control into the water, I said, “Oh no!” really loud. We speculated the rest of the evening on how to get him more money up front, since each added element of danger pays more, we attempted to design the ultimate stunt, falling from a height, on fire, into water, with crocodiles ... -- techno-crane held up in customs. Did the shot with the operator up on a high ladder, steadied by two others. Necessity is a mother. -- out in front of the cottages here this is an old, broken down dock that only covers half of the pylons that reach out into the water. The local Caribbean medical students use it to hang out on and study during the day. (By the way, either all female med students are gorgeous, or only the hot ones go lay out in the sun.) So then Johnny Depp’s yacht arrived, someone must have figured out they couldn’t have Johnny disembark every day onto a decrepid, falling apart dock, no matter how charming it looks. So workers show up and lay down a dozen sheets of ugly new plywood. Functional but not nearly as picturesque. -- the moonlight and starlight on the water is very pretty, when viewed by candlelight from the local cafe. Or the completely blacked out Four Seasons. And you get to enjoy it nearly every other night when the single generator goes out and the power goes out on the entire island. Fireflies! -- it turns out one of the officers on Johnny's yacht, the guy who greets you at the aft landing, happens to look just like Nicholas Cage. Tall, lanky, bearded, same droopy eyes. So when you come up at night to board, every time you can’t help but think, “Hey, look, there’s Nick Cage waiting for us!” -- reality check moment: walking from an outdoor cafe, passion fruit drink in hand, 100 degree plus humid weather, headed down a back Carbbean road toward the production department, making stock market purchases via local island cell phone, passing by a 100 year old man going the opposite way carrying a machete. Surreal. -- a lot of speculation on whether ‘the tank’ will be ready by the time we reach the Bahamas. A tank is a large structure on the edge of the ocean where you can sail your boats in, put them on a gimble and shoot on the water but with more control over the movement. All the other tanks around the world (Mexico, Malta, etc.) were booked. So the plan was to build a new tank and be the first ones to rent it. But, will the water color be right? Will the retaining wall be finished? Will sharks be able to enter the tank? Rumors and speculations, two of the more fun ways to pass the time on set. In the end stuff gets finished somehow. How? It’s a mystery ... -- Barbossa’s monkey is not the same performer as in the original movie. We have two new monkeys.Tara from the first movie became a bit of a celebrity, doing special appearences, getting paid a lot. The production couldn’t meet her fee. Tara the monkey priced herself out of a job. -- love the crackle of the walkie talkies and radios. Makes you think something really important is happening. Fun to listen in. Overheard a request come to the barge from out at set, “Does anyone there have a small magnet?” Now why would they need a magnet out on set? Took me a second to figure it out and make my guess -- in order to get the compass to point in a particlar direction! Checked it out when I got there and I was right! -- turns out the guy who owns the land where the cannibal village was built intents to keep the structures there as a tourist attraction. Part of the deal was the production coming in and building access roads and cool rope bridges (of course anchored by tons of concrete and steel). Whoops, it’s not ‘cannibal village’ but instead ‘The Pelegostos tribe.’ We went ahead and invented a fictional tribe name out of respect to any actual tribe, as it's unclear whether anyone in the area actually did practice cannibalism. -- there seems to be a cultural difference on the island here regarding time. Okay, that’s not the most profound observation in the world. One case: food is ordered and and doesn’t arrive for an hour (not anything fancy, a quesedilla and ham sandwich). So we have to leave because a meeting is scheduled. The waitress and manager look at us wtih blank non-comprehension. That we would leave without eating because of an appointment. Realization: the concept of a schedule, or set times to organize together to work, is not a high priority. Realization: this is part of what makes the US a first world country. Concern: is this entirely a good thing? -- every night now there is a watch for the green flash at sunset, since a huge green flash was spotted a couple days ago by a lucky few. -- animal stories. Lizards in the room (useful for eating mosquitos, come on in, the more lizards the better!) Iguanas in the trees. Seven foot boa constrictor found behind the production office, was invited inside and fed live chickens. Flying fish. Goats that wander the streets, yet never seem to get hit (I’ve yet to see a single road kill on the island of Dominica, not even a snake). Glow bugs. One-and-a-half headed chicken became the set mascot for a spell. Crabs as big as cats scurrying across the road, scraping at your door to come inside. -- my big break: the parrot was in make-up, so someone had to stand in for a rehersal opposite Orlando Bloom. Vigorously playing the part of the parrot, with the classic line, “Don’t eat me,” was yours truly. I think I held my own. -- the Black Pearl is much improved this go around. Real heads (bathrooms) rather than the aft bright blue porta potties of before. A place for hair and makeup below decks, air conditioned. Ship was built around an existing ship, in Alabama, and sailed down here. Some damage along the way, two engines down, but still good to go. I lasted about an hour without my magic San Juan motion sick pills. -- talking with Johnny Depp about the Jack Sparrow character and whether he needs to change in the course of the trilogy. “Bugs Bunny never changed,” Johnny said, “and it never stopped working.” Which led to a debate on whether Indiana Jones ever changed, or James Bond, did Rick in Casablanca change or was the character merely revealed ... -- driving in the islands is perilous. Narrow rain-slickened roads. And yet the most popular place to hang out in every town is always two feet away from the road. I’m convinced that when two vehicles approach each other on a single lane road, and pass by each other with a whoosh, the molecules of the sides of each vehicle somehow pass through each other and then recombine. As someone said, “They don’t drive with their breaks, they drive with their horns.” Although I did see a clever move for the first time, wonder why it’s not more popular. Van needs to pass a car in front. Usually the van would pull out, over into the oncoming traffic lane, and then speed ahead, and pull back in. Standard passing manuever. But here, the van honks ... the lead (slower) car pulls over into the oncoming traffic lane, the van pulls ahead and the passed car then pulls back over. When you think about it, this system allows the vulnerable car (the one that is facing potential oncoming traffic) to be the car that’s slowing down, rather than speeding up, and that makes a lot more sense. -- case in point on road dangers: I manage to dump my scooter on a turn, crash, scrape up one hand on the asphalt and crush the other hand. X-rays done the next day revealed no break ... at least that was the opinion of the local vetrinarian, using his portable horse x-ray machine, the only place on the island to get it checked. -- you hear funny stories ... off day, on a nearby French island, restaurant overlooking the bay. Having lunch with a crew member who worked on the Mexican with Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. Apparently the two actors just had no chemistry. During a kissing scene, she pulled back and asked, “When are you going to start kissing like a man?” Brad’s quick reply, “As soon as you start kissing like a woman.” -- moonlight was designed to fall on palm trees. With stars above. -- production meeting, getting ready to travel to the next location. Engineers explain the plan on how a particular effect is going to be achieved, basically, how do you split a ship in half? It will be accomplished the old-fashioned way, filling a multi-tonne pipe with multi-tonnes of cement, and dropping the whole shebang onto the ship. “Okay, that should work.” There's a shoot day not to be missed. -- always remember this image: after shooting, outdoors on the beach, after a delicious barbecue (rice cooked by Gore Verbinski, Lamb by Martin Scheer, Grapa from sound man Lee Orloff) we look over and see doing the dishes, Executive Producer Mike Stenson and Producer Jerry Bruckheimer. As Gore says, “These are the moments.”