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Desert 'Flood' a unique filmmaking challenge
December 5, 1996
Web posted at: 7:20 a.m. ESTBy Correspondent Paul Vercammen
PALMDALE, California (CNN) -- Natural disaster spelled hit at the box office for "Twister" last year.
"The Flood," now filming in the California desert, hopes its take on Mother Nature's fury is just as successful when it hits the big screen next spring.
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That's right -- the California desert.
"It's definitely one of the weirder locations I've ever been on," said Christian Slater, the film's star and associate producer.
In one of the most ambitious movie projects ever filmed on water, Slater and the crew are creating raging rivers, rainstorms and high drama -- all in a sprawling water tank inside a massive aircraft hangar designed to build B-1 bombers and now equipped with overhead rainmakers.
Bizarre elements
"It's four feet deep in water," said Slater. "It's got a lot of bizarre elements. I mean, dealing with the water every day, it's been sort of a tricky endeavor."
"The Flood," co-starring Morgan Freeman, Randy Quaid and Minnie Driver, features an armored car heist and chase in the small town of Huntingburg, Indiana, that's complicated by the soggy deluge.
"It has more twists than 'Twister'," Slater said.
Producer Mark Gordon of "Speed" and "Broken Arrow" fame says the filmmakers reconstructed two blocks of the river town, reproducing everything from car lot to church lot.
"It's like 'The Twilight Zone' in here, isn't it?" Gordon said. "We do it inside so we don't have to deal with the weather outside. We (also) do it inside so we can shoot during the day as opposed to doing it at night."
Soggy equipment
Not to mention that shooting in the five million-gallon water tank also saves an estimated $15-$25 million in production costs.
There are expenses, though. When they finally drain the tank, crewmembers say, they'll probably find about 45 walkie talkies and 17 hammers.
The waterlogged process is nothing new for director Mikael Salomon. He was director of photography on "The Abyss," a 1989 undersea movie filmed primarily in a water-filled abandoned nuclear reactor tank in South Carolina.
"I said never again," said Salomon, who was nominated for an Academy Award for "The Abyss." "But then a great script came along like this and I said, 'How do we crack it?' And we found a way to do it."
In the criminal vernacular, they made it an inside job.
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