James Cameron actually went down to the Titanic wreck himself- 12 times at an average of 16 hours each.
A camera was fashioned that could withstand the pressure and only had 12 minutes of film.
They couldn't reload the film, so the crew, did test shots with a small model of the ship in smoke to make sure of the exact movements.
Most of the shots of Titanic at sea aren't real, but the real scenes were shot in Baja, Mexico.
Many of the extras were Mexican people.
To create the effect of frost on the people they used a special powder attached with a medical adhesive that crystallizes when exposed to water.
Since the riveted hull was only completed down the starboard side of the ship, seqences of the film featuring the port side of the ship, had to be revearsed. This required that everything be doubled in reverse, from lettering on signs to wardrobe with buttons on the opposite side.
When Jack and Rose are flying on the front of the ship and they kiss, the sunset behind them is real. They had to film the scene in only a few minutes before the sun went down.
It was the cross-class love story that attracted Leonardo DiCaprio to the project.
BMK-Stoddard of England, the company that supplied carpeting for the real Titanic, re-created the weave for an eighteen-thousand-square-foot reproduction.
Although the water rising in the corridors of the was as cold as it looked, the water temperature when Rose was floating on the drift board was about 80 degrees.
Cameron drew the sketch of Rose himself-along with all of Jack's drawings.
Every women on the set wore a corset, even if they were extras that were barely able to be seen.
All the extras went through an etiquette class so they would know how people in 1912 talked, acted, and moved. The waiters learned how to serve and act.
When Jack said the line "sit over there on the bed, I mean, couch!" it wasn't in the script, Leo accidently said that. Every one loved it so much they kept it in.
The scene that Kate Winslet(Rose) spits in Cals face was thought of by the leading lady herself.
The scene in which Ruth ( Rose's mother) is tying Rose's corset was originally written the other way around. Cameron and the actors thought that it was more powerful the other way around. It is supposed to symbolize Ruth" tightening both the laces and the confines of Rose's gilded cage."
The first spitting scene took 27 takes before it was"just" right.
Kate Winslet had to lobby very hard for the part of Rose because James Cameron was originally skeptical of her playing the part. However, he saw how passionate she was about the part and gave it to her.
At the end of the movie, when Rose joins Jack in the afterlife( no one, including James Cameron, when asked, confirmed that it was her afterlife, stating that 'it'll ruin a perfect mystery ending'), the hands on the clock Jack is looking at are stopped at 2:20 a.m., a very significant time for it is the time that Titanic sank.
Kate Winslet is actually floating on a peice of drift wood at the end of the film.
James Cameron went farther into the Titanic wreck with his specially made cameras then anyone had before. Some footage that he took, had not been seen by human eyes since 1912.
James cameron vowed not to make the film "unless he could successfully dive to the wreck himself and bring back motion picture footage for the use in the film."
In the scenes where the ship was sinking, breath from the passengers had to be added by computer. This was because they had to create the feeling that it was absolutely freezing and filming had actually been done in 80 degree weather in Mexico.
The doll that Little Cora has throughout the movie is identical to the one seen at the beginning of the film in the wreckage.
Cameron found the companies that made the original life boat davits and had them recreate it for the film. The company took original blueprints of the davits and got a very close to the original recreation.
The "drawing"scene is the first scene that Kate and Leo did together.
Kate Winslet flashed Leo the first day so they could brake the ice for the nude scene.
Leo is water sensitive so he wouldn't go in the really cold water.
The replica of the Titanic was 775 ft. long and floated in a 17-million-gallon tank.
James Cameron's brother designed the camera that was actually used that went down in the dive for the movie.
The name of the character Caledon Hockley derives from to small towns (Caledon and Hockley) near Orangeville, Ontario, Canada, where Cameron's aunt and uncle live.
On the final night of shooting in Nova Scotia, one or more pranksters mixed PCP (angel dust) into the clam chowder served to the cast and crew. 80 people were taken ill, many hospitalized with hallucinations. Bill Paxton felt listless for two weeks after the incident.
The most ewpensive first-class suite on the Titanic cost $4,350, the equivalent of about $75,000 today.
Kate was doing her makeup getting ready for the nude scene, so she wasn't wearing anything and Leo walked in and said "Whoa!" and went on to say that they might as well get used to it, they were going to be there all day!
Kate said that she was a little nervous doing some underwater scenes by herself, but not to worry, she was less flustered with Leo under her stroking her legs.
Only half the ship was built on the set, the rest was computer imaging.
The people that fell into the rudders of the ship during the movie were computer-generated.
The dolphins swimming beside the ship are real.
The bill came to $8.4 million dollars for all of the beautiful costumes.
The movie cost $200 million to make. Sending people to the moon is less expensive.
The water in the tank in which the ending scenes were shot was 50 degrees at first, but then it was warmed up to 80 degrees.
Both Leo and Kate admitted to peeing in the water tank. Their reasons were: 1. To stay warm 2. Because they were too lazy to get out and use the bathrooms.
There were jacuzzis all around the set during break so the cast could get all warmed up.
Since the corsets the women were wearing were so hard to get off, they were literally hung up to dry in them when thy got wet. It took approximately six hours for them to dry completely.
The half of the ship that Winslet and DiCaprio were on during the sinking was mainly computer-generated. Part of it was made, however, and it moved. The cameramen filmed the scenes on an angle so the ship looked like it was actually vertical.
When the ship started to go down, it sent up flares. During the real disaster, there were no red emergency flares on the Titanic, so instead the celebration flares were used. A ship did happen to see the flares but thought nothing more of them than a party ship.
Most of Titanic's victims did not drown; they froze to death.
The lifeboat requirement at the time was 16 boats. Titanic had 20, which more than met the requirements, although there was room enough for only half the people on board ( the capacity was totalled at about 1,100 people, Titanic then held about 2,200, and its total capacity Titanic is capable of about 3,300)
If you had the money, you could get a private message sent across the wire through the Marconi Room. These were considered more urgent than even the iceberg warnings. The Marconi operators received many messages about icebergs that they ignored, considering the information unimportant.
The room which Cal, Rose, and Ruth occupy were actually commissioned for J.P. Morgan. This room is only one of the two "Millionaire Suites." The other was occupied by John Jacob Astor.
There was a J.Dawson on the actual Titanic. Only his first name was James.
The rule of the sea is"Women and children first!" in case of emergency, well, this was not the case onboard Titanic seeing how more 3rd class children died than first class men.
With some lifeboats unfilled, there were 473 empty places left in them. That number's more than enough to account for all the women and children lost at sea.
Of the 705 eventual survivors, only 6 were rescued out of the icy cold water of the sea.
On the real Titanic only three of the smokestacks were supposed to have smoke comming out of them.
In real life, the captain of the Titanic did go down with the ship. It was also accurate that the creator of the Titanic did get onto a lifeboat, because he was a coward, and was shunned for the rest of his life in society.
