What did Titanic's break up really look like? How the movies got it wrong | Oceanliner Designs

Ever since I first started learning about the  Titanic story I’ve been really interested in   knowing more about the breakup and the sinking  process it may be in part thanks to the 1997 film   as I’m sure it is the same with a  lot of you watching at home as well   but there's a question in this because watching  the 1997 film you might be mistaken for thinking   well if the breakup of Titanic was  so obvious as depicted in that movie   then why at the British rec inquiry and the  senate inquiries held after the sinking of Titanic   did they come to the conclusion that the ship  sank in one piece it seems really unusual and   for the longest time I thought that most  passengers actually didn't see it break up   at all that was only a select few but if you've  read this book here on a sea of glass there's   dozens of passengers who saw it ripping itself  apart and this is really interesting because   while a large number of passengers say they saw  the ship sink in one piece probably an equal   amount saw it actually breaking in half so what  was it about that night that caused half of the   witnesses to say it sank one way and the other  half who said it sank another well today what   we're going to do is try and animate the sinking  as it may have looked like for passengers that   night who are actually sitting in a lifeboat dead  on watching it sink to do that we first need to   rewind a little bit and get an understanding  of the way that we see Titanic sinking today   and how media has kind of you know played a little  bit of a role in in shaping the way that we see it now first let's have a look at the way that  Titanic sinking has already been depicted in media   and film because media changes the way that we see  historical events and it kind of shapes the way   that we think things might have happened so in the  context of Titanic the sinking has been portrayed   you know quite a few times there's the probably  the most famous and well-known sinking uh sequence   from the 1997 20th century fox uh James Cameron  directed film Titanic then of course a night to   remember from the 50s uh the other 1950s Titanic  film Titanic and some series as well specifically   we'll talk more about the 2012 mini series that  show Titanic sinking in various different ways   and they all look distinctly different from one  another this is a really important thing here   because you've got a historical event that  actually happened over here and then the   creative team behind this film over here doing  their best to try and bring this back to life   but they can only use their imagination so they're  going to try and bring this historic event back to   life using techniques that they think would make  it look the way they think it might have looked   now this is really important because it means  whatever the film shows is the director's idea   of what happened it doesn't mean it's necessarily  what it really looked like so we'll start with the   1997 James Cameron directed film you see Titanic  with its stern way up in the air and the lights   flicker out it's a horrifying moment and you have  to remember James Cameron is a brilliant action   director and this is what he does best and as  soon as the lights go out you'll notice it's still   pretty bright there's this uh god light that's  shining over everything and it's casting this   this blue light over everything so you can  still see what's going on and this is really   important because we know on the night  the Titanic sank it was a moonless night   there was no moon to illuminate to cause this kind  of light but it was incredibly starry it was a   brilliant clear night there was no light pollution  that you'd get standing in the middle of the city   today so you could see all the stars and it looked  absolutely spectacular but it meant that objects   at a distance had almost no light shining on  them and there are two bits of testimony that   stand out in my mind the first is James Bissett  who was an officer on board Carpathia which was   the ship that was rushing to rescue Titanic's  passengers I did a video on that I’ll put a link   in the description because it's worth watching  but the Carpathia was charging through the night   they almost smashed straight into an iceberg  like Titanic had the only way that Bisset saw   it in time is uh some stars were reflecting off  the surface uh the top of the iceberg because   there was no moon even though an iceberg is a  big white piece of ice it should be easy to see   it looked pitch black against the horizon  and they just saw some stars just reflecting   off of it and another way that we can tell that  it was extremely extremely dark and objects would   have looked nothing like they appear in the 97  film is that both Frederick fleet and reginald   lee who were the two lookouts on board Titanic  that night when she struck the iceberg it didn't   say they saw an iceberg in their testimony they  say they saw a black shape on the horizon and   this is really important because they probably  connected the dots and said oh that's an iceberg   but it appears like just a black form so when  we think about the 97 Cameron film when the   lights go out you can see all the detail you  can count the rivets down the whole of Titanic   and of course this is a Hollywood piece of media  and entertainment right so James Cameron's primary   objective is to make sure that you as the viewer  are entertained and you can see everything on   screen and you're enjoying what you're seeing  so they make creative decisions to this effect   now Ken Marschall is an absolute hero of mine and  brilliant maritime painter and historian served   as a technical consultant on the 97 Cameron  film and there were many times apparently when   James Cameron would come up to him  and say look I’m really sorry you've   told me exactly how many lights there are on the  exterior of the ship but I just had to put more on   so I could get more light onto my actors so we can  see more of what's going on another great example   of this down in the dining saloon Titanic's dining  saloon tables did not have lamps on them but in   that scene they do the only reason for that is so  that the actors had more light shining up at them   to illuminate their faces and make them seem more  natural so that shadows don't fall on their faces   like me right now I’ve got two lights uh shining  straight in my face at all times I still get   shadows on my face so lighting a scene is really  important another creative decision they made on   Titanic is casting this blue light over everything  they want you to know that it was a cold night and   so the way to do that is cast a cool hue of blue  across everything this is called colour grading   and directors and production teams do it all the  time to make you the viewer feel something so   for example you might have watched breaking bad  or any tv series that has a scene set in Mexico   they always apply this yellow tinge in  the colour grading to make Mexico feel   a little exotic and really warm if you've  ever been to Mexico believe it or not uh   there's not a yellow tinge on everything but they  want you to feel like you're somewhere else that   is in the united states and that it's warm it's  hot in Mexico right saving private Ryan they   wanted the film to feel gritty and realistic and  a little bit like world war ii newsreel so they   desaturated the colours way down and made it look  a little bit black and white like one of those old   newsreel films and it totally works so it creates  a mood Titanic they want you to feel cold when   you're watching this scene so everything is  blue now that is really coloured the way that   a lot of people see the sinking of Titanic  because in a lot of contemporary depictions   now you'll see everything's all blue and washed  out hell even I’ve done it you know again it's   a creative decision it probably wouldn't have  looked like that in real life so we know in the   night of the sinking it was extremely dark  and this is really important because again   um on a night to remember it looks like it was  shot during daytime and it's really bright and   clear and again if it was that clear and bright  how could anyone have ever argued if Titanic broke   in half or sank intact you watched Titanic 1997's  Titanic when it breaks in half it's so obvious   so how could people have argued against that and  say well one side's saying no it broke in half   and the other group's saying well we saw it sink  intact another thing that comes into play here   is the sheer scale of Titanic and the witness's  viewpoint of the sinking if you are sitting   side on to the sinking ship in a fair way away  you have a great vantage point to see the ship   breaking side on if you're really really up close  you're not seeing the whole ship you don't have   this omnipotent you know bird's eye view of the  sinking so you know everything that's going on   it's suddenly pitch black because the  lights have gone out and there's no moon   and if you are up close and slightly to the side  so you're looking down the length of the ship   it's not going to be very obvious at all that  the Titanic has broken in half now one of my   absolute favourite depictions of the Titanic  sinking was from the 2012 mini series because   they kind of bucked the trend a little bit had the  camera dipping in and out of the water as if you   yourself were being immersed and the breaking up  of the Titanic happens kind of in the background   and you can see it's a little more subtle it's  not this very obvious break like the 97 film   in the 97 film the Titanic stern just crashes  down with this huge wave and as a viewer you   think well everyone must have seen and felt that  but in the 2012 mini series it's a lot more subtle   and this now brings me to my final point which  is this idea of how the Titanic broke in half in   the first place you've got something the size of  multiple city blocks in length that's the height   of a 10 or 15 storey building and it's made up of  a lot of individual pieces that all begin to fail   and still has a degree of plasticity it's not  just like glass it's not going to shatter and   immediately the ship's going to have exploded  apart even in normal operation the ship would   be expected to bend and sag up to multiple  inches at a time as it crested over the top of   big waves kind of like this so you can imagine  that as Titanic's breaking apart the steel   is failing but it's doing so slowly as each  individual member gives out from the strain and   the stern begins to fall back probably gradually  into the water without any massive violence   creating this huge wave like you see in the 1997  film that would make it a lot harder to see so if   you take these multiple things into consideration  that it's pitch black there's no moon you're   probably fairly close up to the ship paying  attention not to the ship so much but to saving   yourself and to how cold the water is and third of  all the ship is breaking up slowly and gradually   so what would it have looked like on the night in  reality well let's animate it and find out just a   couple months ago I animated this for the 110th  anniversary of the wreck here's the animation   now I’ve colour graded this and done the lighting  to look a little bit like the James Cameron movie   to begin with you can see it's nice  and bright and what we're going to do   is just play this animation and I’m going to  narrate a little bit of what's going on and then   what we're going to do is we're going to turn the  lights off and we're going to make the lighting   look a lot more like it might have looked like  on a moonless night on the north Atlantic ocean   and you can tell me honestly and truthfully if  you would be very confident at an inquiry in   saying that you saw Titanic break in half okay  here we go so Titanic's lights flicker out at   around about the time that her back breaks and  now the stern is falling back gradually and slowly   into the water as the funnels collapse and the  bow section you can just see there to the right   separates from the stern and drops away and as  it drops away the stern now can float on its own   as its own individual hull form but now the sheer  weight of the engines that are just sitting there   at that now torn off section pull the stern up and  back so that it begins to flood and now it's being   pulled down into the water by the weight of these  engines and it's done in an alternate reality it   is not impossible to think that the stern could  have separated entirely from the bow section say   the engines got ripped out of it and it could have  floated there but I think that the sheer weight of   these engines pulled her down and now the ship  begins on its final plunge to the sea floor   you may notice that there's a small  lamp burning on the after mast   there are some accounts of lights remaining on the  Titanic now to what degree these were whether it   was a full emergency set that was burning  until the end I don't know entirely there   were some who say they saw one light one or two  lights still flickering this could have been an   oil lamp that was rigged to the mast there just to  provide some visibility to passengers that night   that they didn't extinguish before the sinking  either way I’ve just put it there to orient   ourselves a little bit so you can see what's going  on and their Titanic is slipping below the waves   and she's done now what we're going to  do is play that exact same animation   from exactly the same viewpoint but  we're just going to tweak the lighting   to seem more natural and realistic as if it were  a moonless knight and watch the sinking again   you can see straight away how much more  disorienting and confusing this would have   been that you're not looking so much at a ship  sinking now you're looking at just a black mass   illuminated only by the stars behind it and  I think only the most astute of people would   have picked up that oh this ship has broken in  half the other thing that's going on here is   how people interpret the sound of what's going  on I don't think I’ve ever really been able to   accurately replicate this sound but it's been  described as like a constant raw like ongoing   thunder and it really reminds me of the sound of  the twin tower collapse in 2001 it just sounded   like this freight train roaring sound now on the  night of the sinking a lot of those who thought   the ship sank intact interpreted this noise  as the boilers and the engines falling through   the bulkheads of the ship as they came loose from  their seating we know that that didn't happen   because they're all still intact on the wreck the  engines included so what they were really hearing   was the ship tearing itself apart but in the pitch  black when you can't exactly see what's going on   you're sitting there interpreting this as well the  ship's sinking in one piece and everything that's   loose in the ship is now tumbling forward  and it's creating this this roaring noise   so there you have it I love the James Cameron  film I really enjoy a night to remember   but it's interesting to think that  our idea of what Titanic might have   looked like sinking has been shaped and  changed by this media over the years   and that Titanic sinking may have looked starkly  different to what we have in mind it's a pretty   scary picture to be honest with you and I don't  think I would have wanted to be there that night ladies and gentlemen it's your friend  mike brady from ocean liner designs   thank you so much for watching this video please  think about liking and subscribing to the channel   every little bit helps and I aim to make a video  like this once every week so you'd hate to miss   out or you can support my channel on Patreon  you'll find the link down in the description   until then stay safe stay happy  and i'll see you again next time

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

Views: 304,539

Keywords: great ocean liners, maritime history, ocean liners, famous oceanliners, ships documentary, history of ships, titanic, sinking, break up, white star line, rms titanic

Id: 9FLsr-t1mSY

Length: 15min 7sec (907 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 04 2022

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[u/OceanlinerDesigns]

In this video I attempt to animate Titanic's breakup as it may have looked once the lights went out - you can really see how disorienting it is, it must have been so frightening to witness in real life!