Lifes Abyss and Then You Dive
The T-shirt slogan made up for the cast and crew of Camerons 1989 underwater sci fi adventure paints a pretty picture of what the experience of working on the film was like.
The production of The Abyss rivals every other film for the title of Hardest Shoot in Cinematic History. This is the type of film hell that has cast and crew members experiencing breakdowns in the midst of shooting, and bursting into tears as they drive home from set after nearly drowning to death.
In order to accurately depict the deep-ocean environment for the film, Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd created the largest underwater set in cinematic history, by retrofitting an abandoned nuclear power plant with a total of ten million gallons of water. Since the water had to be clear enough to film in, the water was treated with so much chlorine that it caused cast and crew members hair to turn white and fall out - amidst the odd case of skin burn.
Ninety per cent of the film takes place underwater - caustic water. Cameron was said to average up to nineteen hours a day in the tank hanging upside down in his dive suit while watching dailies as he re-pressurized. Script supervisors had to laminate their script pages in plastic while submerged.
The film had two near-fatal instances of drowning. The first saw Ed Harris almost drown when it came time to do his scene without his suit. When Harris gave the signal that he was out of oxygen and his dedicated safety diver (known as angels on the set) failed to get to Harris fast enough, another of the safety crew swam over to the actor to give him oxygen. Unfortunately, he fed Harris the regulator upside down, which caused Harris to inhale water. A cameraman then swam over and correctly fed Harris oxygen.
Cameron himself almost drowned on the set when his assistant director failed to give hime his hourly reminder to refill his oxygen tank. It should also be noted that Cameron was the only one without an angel on set. Cameron was at the bottom of the deep water tank, about thirty feet away from the nearest crew member, when he went for a breath and got no air, before looking down to his pressure gauge to find it reading zero. With his helmet still linked to the PA system, Cameron struggled a call out to cinematographer Al Giddings: Al
Al
Im in trouble.
Unfortunately, there had been a long-running joke where all actors would block their ears while Cameron would yell orders at Al due to his previously burst ear drums. With nobody responding, Cameron motioned for the support divers to help, signalling that he was out of air. Once again, he got no response. Thirty-five feet down, Cameron realised that he had to lose the helmet or die. Unfortunately, the now heavy helmet was attached to his buoyancy vest which he had to shrug off if he was going to be able to ditch the weight and swim to the top. Successfully finding the vests release, Cameron desperately made for the surface.
A safety diver saw Cameron making for the surface and arrived just in time to make things worse. Following the protocol of safely getting swimmers to the surface, the support diver stopped Cameron fifteen feet before he reached it and shoved his back-up regulator in Camerons mouth. The idea behind this form of protocol is to stop swimmers from blowing their lungs apart from the huge amount of pressure that results from a rapid ascent. However, the divers spare regulator was broken and Cameron sucked in not one, but two mouthfuls of water before he realised what was wrong. Of course, the safety diver unaware of the danger, gripped Cameron even tighter and tried to force him to purge. It wasnt until Cameron punched the diver as hard as he could that he was able to shake free and swim to the surface.
Cameron fired both his assistant director and the safety diver immediately after.
