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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 anonymity, 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 sickness: 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 assistant 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 too 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 Keira 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 guidance, in the hope that when it is finished, it will in fact be FAA-approved.

-- the whole $700,000 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 U.S. 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 THE 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 astride 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 the horse 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 200 feet 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 finished 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 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, and someone must have figured out they couldn't have Johnny disembark every day onto a decrepit, 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 are 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 Nicolas 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 Nic Cage waiting for us!"

-- reality-check moment: walking from an outdoor cafe, Passion Fruit drink in hand, 100-degree plus humidity weather, headed down a back Caribbean 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 gimbal 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 appearances, 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 particular 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 intends 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.

-- 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.)
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SEE how important it was for them to make the dog do that...because JACK does it to Will/Liz later on in the story..mainly Liz though as she is the only one who sees him leave and come back

-- 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 doesn't arrive for an hour (not anything fancy, a quesadilla and a ham sandwich). So we have to leave because a meeting is scheduled. The waitress and manager look at us with 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 U.S. 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 mosquitoes, 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 rehearsal 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 make-up 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-slick 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 brakes, 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 maneuver. 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 veterinarian, 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-ton pipe with multi-tons 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, grappa 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."

Great post thank you

welcome mate!

Holy S@#5 that longs.DOnt you get tired of riting all that.

LOL i didnt write it its ted and terrys doings lol

loved it

i love getting a glipse into what the backstage stuff is like...all the hard stuff they have to go through....

"-- 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."

HILARIOUS and a possible hint at the jacl/lix kiss?? ...because the characters HAVE chmistry....which the writers and directors should feel blessed with

Hm, this makes me think. It's true about the chemistry and stuff, so maybe Terry's just reflecting on how lucky it is to have the two main characters that are just naturally gifted with great chemistry.

And it's true about the dog, why would they spend so much money making a dog do something special or an old trick? Why do they even need the dog? To foreshadow what will happen in the trilogy.

Yay, I feel so giddy now.