pirates of the caribbean - Cannes International Film Festival

designer, John Myhre, who was brought in by Rob Marshall, and we’ve filmed in all new
locations ranging from Hawaii to the Caribbean to London.”
For Myhre, the task to design the fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean” epic was literally a
dream come true. “Pirates of the Caribbean is just my favorite ride at Disneyland. I think
I’ve been on the ride every year since it opened in 1967. I grew up in Seattle, but my
family came down once a year to Disneyland.”
As soon as Rob Marshall was announced as director for “On Stranger Tides,” Myhre
admits that he “literally started jumping around my living room like an eight-year-old
boy.” The reason was that he had already collaborated with Marshall on all three of the
director’s previous features, winning Oscars® for his dynamic recreation of the Jazz Age
in “Chicago” and an astounding evocation of Kyoto, almost entirely on California
locations, for “Memoirs of a Geisha.”
Before filming began, Marshall, his longtime collaborator John DeLuca and production
designer Myhre went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but this time were able to
stop and examine details as research for “On Stranger Tides.” “Rob and I are both fans
of all the previous ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies,” notes Myhre, “but it’s fun to come
in with a new creative team, because you have a chance to shake things out and bring
your own thoughts to it. We wanted to bring a certain theatricality to ‘On Stranger
Tides,’ which is very character-driven.
We’re also expanding the ‘Pirates’ world
by opening the film in London of the
mid-1700s, then moving on to the
islands, jungles and beaches of the
Caribbean.”
Explains Myhre, “The film kind of divides
into three chapters: the opening in
London, the middle section on the
‘Queen Anne’s Revenge,’ and the last
third is a trek through the jungle in search of the Fountain of Youth. Looking for those
thick, dense, gorgeous jungles brought us to Kauai and Oahu in Hawaii, then a huge set
for the mermaid sequence in Los Angeles, on to Puerto Rico for a tiny island and historic
Spanish fort, and finally to the United Kingdom for London exteriors and a large number
of sets built at Pinewood Studios.”
Joining Myhre to manifest ideas, concepts and dreams into three-dimensional reality,
were set decorator, Gordon Sim, who shared his Academy Award® for “Chicago” and
nomination for “Nine,” U.S. supervising art director Tomas Voth, U.K. supervising art
director Gary Freeman, and a huge team of designers, draftsmen and artists on both the
Pacific and Atlantic sides of the “Pirates” shoot.
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