[0:00]200 million dollars. That was the production budget of Titanic. At the time, making it the most expensive movie ever made. And this is a room in my house. I'm going to try to recreate Titanic in here. I'm not joking. For the next few days, I'll be turning my sunroom into a full-blown movie studio. As I try to recreate scenes from one of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters of all time. I'll be using household items, miniature models, and a ton of other DIY techniques to see if I can replicate a 200 million film from the comfort of my own home. Now, in order to recreate Titanic, I'm going to need a miniature ocean in here. I don't know how I'm going to pull this off, but I know a good place to start.
[0:41]Here's what I'm thinking. If I can find a big plastic tub and fill it with water, I should be able to make it look like the ocean. In the real movie, they used massive water tanks and flooded entire sets to pull off these effects. And honestly, I'm trying to do the same thing, just without the millions of dollars.
[1:01]How am I going to fill this? And that's when I remembered. My roommate's out of town, so I have free rain over the house. I can do whatever I want, and no one can stop me.
[1:44]Sorry. I'll clean it up. All right, so we have our miniature ocean, but what about the ship? After all, is it even possible to replicate the 800 foot long set they built for the movie? Well, technically yes, but I'm not doing that. You see, for the movie, they built a nearly full-scale Titanic. With cranes, hydraulics, and a crew of like a thousand people. Me, bro. I found this pre-built Titanic on Amazon. Look at this. This is insane. Oh, my gosh. The detail is insane.
[2:18]It's a full 24 inches long. I'd say it's a pretty good replica. I want to know who made this. It looks so good. I love it. Sadly, it's not going to look this good for long, because if you've seen the movie, you know what happens.
[2:37]But for now, it looks really good.
[2:54]This looks insane! There's something magical about miniature items like this. I love how they squish all these little details of a massive item into something tiny. And, since we're filming the scene where the Titanic hits the iceberg, the lights are actually going to make a huge difference. You see, in the movie, the scene has incredible looking light reflections on the water as the ship goes under. And because my little ship lights up as well, I'm hoping I'll get similar reflections, which should make the shots look really similar to the actual film. I'm feeling really confident that we can pull this off. I mean, this is going to be an insane challenge, man. What are you going to do about the scaling issues? The night sky as well. And what about the iceberg? What are you going to do about the iceberg? No. Yeah, you have a point. I'm sure we'll figure it out. All right, you might be wondering who this guy even is. This is Tom. He's a friend who's also really good at doing visual effects. And at this point, we've made a lot of videos together. But the Titanic, well, this one's a little extra challenging. Tom quickly brought my confidence back to a more realistic level. This isn't necessarily impossible, but it's also not going to be easy. After talking it through, we came up with a game plan. I'll film all the shots we need, while Tom enhances them with visual effects. Or even creating a 3D scan of the ship, so that we can pull off some crazy CGI shots that we just wouldn't be able to do practically. However, we're trying to do the bulk of the work in camera, which means it's time to make this ship seaworthy.
[4:34]Oh, the things I do for a YouTube video. I don't think a single particle of sunlight can enter this room. It's completely blocked off. Because the sun goes behind clouds and trees throughout the day, it adds a lot of variation to the shots, which is not what we want. By deleting the sun and adding my own lights, I have full control over what the shot looks like, and hopefully, the shots look really good. I am substantially confident that I there's a chance I pull it off. Just not 100% confident, but I don't know. I think I can do it. And with those inspiring words, it's finally time to start filming. Oh no, this doesn't float. Okay, it looks great on camera, but it doesn't stay up straight. This isn't a pool toy, it's literally a model made to go on a shelf, so I don't really know what to do. But then, I remembered my secret weapon. It's honestly not even a secret at this point, because I use it in almost every video. And of course, I'm talking about fishing wire. Fishing wire is basically invisible, so I can use it to stabilize the ship and position it wherever it needs to be. Problem solved. And now I can officially start filming. All right, this is shot one, take one. Here we go. It's leaning just a little bit too far left. So, I'm trying to get a counterweight on it, just to give it enough balance.
[6:05]Little, tiny adjustments throw off the entire shot. Just blowing on it there made the whole ship just swivel. So, you need to just capture the perfect moment where it's in place. And the fact that it's on water is just making it even harder. But I just kept filming take after take, because this first shot is really important. In fact, it's the exact same framing as this one from the movie. Obviously, mine doesn't look quite as polished yet, but don't worry. We'll be adding a new sky, waves, and other elements to bring it to life. And that's the plan for all these shots, because I watched through the entire movie, took screen grabs and turned them into a shot list. So that everything I make is as similar to the real thing as possible. All right, shot one down, only 23 more to go. For this next shot, we're sinking the front of the ship underwater. And what's important with this shot is I need the lights on the inside to be working. Because I already submerged the cable in water, I'm not really sure if the lights even work still, and I'm kind of scared I'm going to get electrocuted. So good news, the lights do still work. But honestly, at this point, I just feel bad for everything I'm putting this thing through. This ship was made to sit on a shelf in a beautiful house, and here I am submerging the electrical components in water and vegetable glycerin. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, there's three gallons of vegetable glycerin in this tub. It's time we have an honest talk about vegetable glycerin.
[7:31]Isaac, why do you have three gallons of this stuff? Isn't that way too much? No. It's not. It's probably not even enough. This stuff plays a vital role in the Titanic sinking. Let me explain. When trying to make a small object look large, it's important to not break the illusion. For instance, I can make this car look life size. But as soon as this leaf enters the frame, you realize it's just a toy. Same goes for the Titanic. In real life, you would never see a massive bubble like this in the ocean. And as soon as it appears, it just breaks the illusion and makes the ship look small. Now, what does this have to do with vegetable glycerin? Well, adding it to the water adds weight, and the heavier the water means less bubbles, and hopefully, it means that we can pull off a genuine looking recreation. Oh yeah! I feel the pressure. I'm on a time crunch right now, because I feel like the lights are going to stop working at any moment. And they look so good on camera, and I don't want to waste it. Oh wow, that looks so good. Holy cow. Okay, we need some I need more string.
[8:37]Where's my stuff? Oh, guys, this is so stressful. These shots are looking better than I ever imagined. The reflections look incredible. And keep in mind, this is just straight out of the camera. We still have to do visual effects. Guys, we might have a serious recreation on our hands. All right, I had to take a quick break to make an Instagram reel. I don't know, it just felt necessary at this moment. Also, if you like behind the scenes content, I always try to post on Instagram when I'm working on these videos. You can follow me on there if you want to see it. If you do, leave a comment saying Justice for Jack on this picture. Trust me, that will make sense by the end of this video. Okay, this shot has a lot going on. First, I have to lift the ship up. Second, I have to flip the switch and turn the lights off. Third, the ship cracks in half. One might say the pressure is on. I wish I had someone helping me right now. Doing this alone is incredibly hard. But, no excuses. Also, I'm incredibly sweaty because all the lights in here are generating a ton of heat, and there's no AC or air flow. Honestly, I might just jump into the bin of water. Probably won't, but I might. I don't know. I could. I'm going insane. Action. The ship going up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and boom. The lights go out. I didn't realize this in the moment, but I was filming the wrong side of the ship. The back of the ship is what actually gets suspended in the air, and I'm holding up the front. Unfortunately, I filmed a lot of takes like this, and I didn't realize until I watched the footage back on the computer.
[10:15]Okay, cool. I refilmed all the scenes that I just messed up, and honestly, I'm exhausted and dehydrated. But I am having fun, and I got a ton of shots today that I'm super excited about. I mean, look how excited I look. That's awesome. Anyway, sitting in a tarped-off room all day isn't very good for you. So I'm going to get some good rest, because tomorrow, we're going to film the sinking of the Titanic. Day three. I have my sister here now, because I really need an extra set of hands in order to film this crashing scene. Thanks for being here. This is this is huge. First step of the day is to try using an iceberg that I made. Right now, it's in the freezer. I have no idea how it will look or if I can even get it out of the bottle that I froze it in. We're going to go try that right now. I didn't think this through. I feel like we should probably do this outside.
[11:25]I think we could use this if we go really fast. This might be perfect. All right, so this homemade iceberg was fun, but I think I'll have to do this part with visual effects. So with that out of the way, it's time for the main event.
[11:42]This is going to take a while. This is going to take a good minute or two or three or maybe ten. This is actually just so sad. It was such a pretty model.
[12:02]About 10% there. And action.
[13:09]So good. You guys, this is not good. I think that shot looked insane. that looks pretty great, and honestly, I think we can sit here.
[18:28]After an hour of floating on the door, I finally had every shot I needed, or at least, I thought I did. In the movie, Rose doesn't just stay on the door, she gets rescued. She even makes it to America to start a new life. So why shouldn't Jack? He deserves that too. So I went over to my friend Jake's house, because he's the only guy I know that would have a door lying around. Because in my version, Jack survives. I have not tested this. I don't know if I can float. So here it is, the maiden voyage. I mean, it's pretty perfect.
[19:35]It's kind of perfect. I mean, this feels like the movie. Okay, let's rewind a couple hours to show how I'm actually filming this. Basically, I just took those two black tarps that I was using at my house, and put one of them in the pool and hung the other one up to help hide the background. My hope is that this will make the shot look really dark and make it feel like I'm in the middle of the ocean. I then recruited my friend Tyler to film the behind the scenes, and Jake's going to film me floating on the door. The goal here is to mimic these shots from the movie, with just one minor difference, and that's replacing Rose with Jack. What I'm hoping is that I'll be able to transition seamlessly from the miniature shots of the ship to these shots in the pool.
