Titanic Experience at Fox Studios -- Sydney Australia ***Spoiler***
Carol Kovacs
There is one advantage of living in the "Olympic" city of Sydney and that
is NOT the fact that the Olympics will be here later in the year.. while
the Olympics are on there will be only one good thing in Sydney and that is
the road out of it!
On the good side though - we do have Fox studios backlot with James
Cameron's Titanic Experience. Now this will pretty much be a spoiler so
scroll down if you wish to read what I experienced or continue on to the
next message, and don't say I didn't warn you!!
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keep on scrolling........
planning a trip to Sydney, or do you live in Sydney and haven't done the
Titanic experience yet and definantly plan to you may wish to stop here and
continue reading another thread.......
Okay... there are two totally different experiences. Both experiences
involve you being an 'extra' Third Class Passenger on Titanic. What is
common in both experiences is the boarding onto Titanic at Southampton -
the year is 1912 and you have been taken back in time :). So turn your
mobile phones/ pagers/ videocameras/ cameras off...
"And Action"... the curtain rises and you are standing on the wharf at
Southampton with cranes lifting crates of cargo just to your front and
there is the ship of dreams - you have worked long and hard to get yourself
to the new world and here is the finest ship in the world taking you there.
Pursers take you onboard and walk you down through the hallways to a room
where you watch Titanic leaving the wharf. (Slight error here because you
are watching through the starboard portholes - when Titanic was docked
portside (not complaining about that though.))
Music of the third class dance scene is heard and people are talking and
having a good time, clapping along... looking through the portholes one
can see the sun set and time fast forwards to the what has come to be known
as ^A Night to Remember^. You feel a strong jolt and water starts flowing
in through where the plates where split. (I definantly recommend standing
in the front for this part. I did, and I saw the whole thing, but I don't
know how much people up the back would have seen.) As you look up through
the portholes you see the iceberg slide past, water is flowing in, you look
at the people around you and no one seems to know what to do. The pursers
start ushering you out (this is where there are two different experiences
and which one you end up is predetermined by which line you stand in as you
line up before you go in. Now for nothing in this world, am I going to
tell which line goes on which experience - I'll leave that up to you to go
find out. ;)
Experience blue: you are ushered by a purser up stairs, through winding
corridors and find yourself after moving through the ship to a gate which
separates third from first class. The purser initally doesn't want third
class to go through first class space and is quickly convinced by another
crew member running up from downstairs that the place is quickly flooding
and that we have to get the women and children off in the lifeboats. Only
to find that the gates have been locked....
(Bear with me, and use your imagination here - there were around 50 people
calling for help.) "Help us please!", an officer comes to the gate (he
looked like Fifth Officer Lowe to me) looks at us third class passengers
and asks the purser if he thinks he is mad to let third class up through
first class areas, he walks off. We all stare at each other in disbelief,
and without having to be prompted we all start calling out "Come back, help
us!..." The officer comes back and it takes some convincing of the purser
to let the passengers through. The officer agrees to let the women and
children through first followed by the men as we begin filing through the
first class areas. Walking along sloping decks we walk through the
gymnasium and through to the boat deck.
Women and children are loaded into lifeboats first -- loading the lifeboats
is quite slow and cumbersome as you have to climb into the boat. (No where
as dangerous as stepping into a boat from Titanic would have been because
there would have been a bit of space between the lifeboat and the ship (and
you would have seen the long way down) as they were swung out on the davits
- this risk was eliminated here for obvious safety reasons.) Still it gave
me an appreciation of the time it took to load the boats and given the time
that they had from uncovering the boats to the sinking I feel I have a
greater appreciation of what the Officers must have gone through in order
to get the boats loaded and lowered away. The lights on the ship went out
and came back on during this procedure too, (both at Fox studios and during
the incident no doubt) so it would have further contributed to the panic
and confusion.
Men are lowered in the second lifeboat and the boats are moved away from
the ship... Titanic continues to angle down into the water and the lights
flicker and go out, an image is projected onto a screen of Titanic after
she breaks apart and falls back level into the water (taken from the movie,
the scene where you see the stern of Titanic fall back into the water with
the lifeboats rowing away.) As the ship hits the water you feel a definate
heave with the swell. (In this scene, the temperature of the set is
lowered to around 12 degrees C - which is no where near the zero degrees it
was on the night - but when you are wearing no more than a t-shirt and
jeans and have come in from a 30-odd degree C day outside, you get the idea
that it was most definantly cold that night.)
Experience orange:
Again pursers take you off from the scene of the iceberg hitting Titanic
only you are handed to a steward to help you get up to the boat deck and
into the lifeboats. After passing down hallways that twist and turn you
are stopped by a large door to the a cargo hold. After some deliberation
regarding whether the cargo hold has flooded yet or not the door is opened
and we move in. There is no obvious way out from the cargo hold.
A stoker runs in and as there is no productive guidance from the steward we
all follow the stoker into the engine rooms. (Yeah, I know - a stoker in
the engine room?? The boilers were below and you could see the salt water
rising - the odd fire flareup. The heat in the room was around 30 degrees
C.) We were herded into the engine room and and a few ladies and myself
tried to find another way out only to be shoved back to the group by the
engineer as the group was just standing in the middle of the engine room
not knowing what to do and the steward just standing behind the equipment
not quite knowing what to do himself. The engineer and the stoker are busy
trying to keep power to the ship.
At the end a screen was revealed showing the last deep ocean scene of
Titanic where after Rose dies/ is sleeping you move down to Titanic at a
rate faster than any submersible can go - (there is water sprinkling on
your head gently during this.) The screen lifts and you can just see the
grand staircase through a fog - as it clears you can see the lower decks as
they would be now (if it wasn't ripped from the ship during sinking) all
eaten at by wood boring organisms and as you climb the grand staircase it
returns to its original splendor with Honour and Glory Crowning Time at
2:20 am.
Note: I named the experiences blue and orange just in want to differentiate
between the two experiences... no such name is given to the two
experiences at Fox Studios and I didn't want to name them experience 1 and
2 or A and B b/c that might lead you to think that there is some kind of
correlating between what I have named the experience and which line takes
you to which experience.
(I didn't really notice the inaccuracies along the way as you are ushered
through with a sense of urgency it is only as I think about them after the
incident.) Each experience takes around 25 minutes...
It's getting late and I am going to write a how I felt during these two
experiences although I will not be doing that tonight as it is too late.
After this experience - I have a greater appreciation of what it must have
been like for the Officers trying to load the boats, the confusion that
definantly must have gone on below decks where I must definantly agree with
Walter Lord that Third Class were probably neglected to death and another
big issue of relying on others for your safety. I feel it is an
understatement to say that the incident would have been scarey, it would
have been a terrifying, horrendous experinece to say the least.
As a person who entered the Titanic experience with the intention of
gaining a "Titanic experience" as opposed to just being an "extra" I feel I
will be watching the movie through different eyes now...
Live well,
Carol
Antoin007
Does the Fox Studios Titanic Experience have a website?? If so does anyone know
the address?
Thanks
ANT
From Belfast Into History... The RMS Titanic !
http://www.titanicpark.com/
Ultimate Networks
http://www.ultimate-networks.com/
Carol Kovacs
At the home page click on the menu on the left hand side for the Backlot
tour.
Then on the next menu (also apprearing on the left hand side) you will see
Titanic experience.
Enjoy,
Carol
Corey Ann Doyle
the US! It was a few props, the car and a couple rooms!
Corey Ann
Chewb...@aol.com
Collide With Destiny http://www.coreyann.com/titanic
Kate http://www.coreyann.com/kate
"His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular
interest to you..."~Rose
Carol Kovacs
more Titanic to see at Fox studios backlot... There is a display of Rose
and Cal's sitting room - furniture, clock, fireplace and all.
In other areas of the Backlot you will find costumes on display like Rose's
boarding dress... (got to love that outfit.)
As you go down to the Titanic experience - before it all starts you are in
a large room that has a scale model of Titanic (have to check at what
scale,) but the model was around 7 metres long - and in enclosures all
around the room -- not forgetting the ones hanging from the ceiling were
more costumes and props - from the ironwork from the staircase to deck
chairs, the keep clear this is a triple screw vessel sign (can't remember
the exact wording) and a whole heap of others too... like the area was
packed with bits and pieces from the ship...
And when you leave the Titanic experience there is the model of the wreck
as it is today all behind a kind of sheer fabric to soften the lines and
make it look like you are looking at the vessel underwater.
Not forgetting the Titanic Kodak experience where u can get a photo of
yourself on the bow.... "I'm flying..."
In another area there were a number of the minature bits and pieces used
too...
All too much to remember all at one go... I must make arrangements to go
again sometime.. :)
Live well,
Carol
Corey Ann Doyle <chewb...@aol.com> wrote in article
<20000218174420...@ng-bg1.aol.com>...
> I WANT TO GOOOOO! They had NOTHING like this when the little thing was
touring
> the US! It was a few props, the car and a couple rooms!
you get to see the car on one of the Titanic experiences too :)
So, lots and lots of Titanic stuff to see. :)
Corey Ann Doyle
this???? I am not kidding, the one that went around the amusement parks seems
like a JOKE compared to this. I didn't go, but a friend did and he said it was
neat, but nothing as elaborate as what you guys have. No kodak moments either!
Carol Kovacs
costumes or the recreation of Rose and Cal's sitting room to be taken on
tour --
To take the Titanic experience tho... that would be almost impossible... it
would have to be built again at a new location. It is literally corridors
and rooms (from the gymnasium to the engine room) and stairs and deckspace,
lifeboats and water to float the lifeboats in... so unfortunately for ppl
on the other side of the world (I know the feeling most things usually
happen in the US and all of us here in Australia suffer this 'tyranny of
distance' where we can never go see the things we want to see because they
never come down- under.)
The Kodak moments would be easily enough recreated imo - it was just a
large model of the bow, lighting to give a nice sunset and a digital camera
set up to a colour printer (in a nutshell.) You walk away with the picture
in the time it takes to have a picture taken - they take two shots one in
like a flying scene pose and the other just standing there or whatever you
want to do (within reason, no climbing on the rails or anything like that)
and then you choose which shot you want and what size photo.
I don't know if there is an email link to Fox studios backlot on their web
page but if there is I would suggest emailing them and ask if they are
going to tour? or maybe they will have another backlot studio opening
somewhere in the world?
Carol
Corey Ann Doyle <chewb...@aol.com> wrote in article
<20000222074933...@ng-fe1.aol.com>...
Viper
props used and some of the rooms, including the dome.
im not sure of their website
~Viper
Co-Coordinator of the Virtual Titanic Project
http://virtualtitanic.8k.com
Opening Second Class for the New Millenium with a new domain!
Steven Jones
Claire Danes once mentioned in an interview that the cab drivers rob the
passengers in Mexico.
Stephanie Rendino
Steven Jones wrote:
I just got back from SoCal and Mexico. The chief of police in Tijuana was
murdered on Sunday. It was the SEVENTY-FIRST homicide THIS YEAR! Yeesh!
They've tidied up the problems with the cabs in Tijuana it seems. Probably
why they murdered the police chief.