FILM
It was called the Perfect Storm - a rare combination of meteorological events in October 1991 that conspired to create a raging, once-in-a-lifetime tempest in the North Atlantic. Writer Sebastian Junger brought the deadly gale to life in his bestselling 1997 book, but re-creating the maelstrom for the big-screen version (which hits theaters June 30) turned out to be a huge undertaking. The Warner Bros. film - adapted by screenwriter William D. Wittliff, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, and starring George Clooney - depicts the harrowing voyage of the fishing trawler Andrea Gail, which sailed into the teeth of the storm off Gloucester, Massachusetts.
To create The Perfect Storm, filmmakers first constructed a full-scale boat and placed it in a huge tank on Warner Bros. Stage 16. Industrial Light & Magic, meanwhile, created custom code based on the science of fluid dynamics to build the storm's 100-foot-tall walls of water, the result in real life of three colliding weather systems. But fluid dynamics took the ILM effects team only so far. After running the simulations, says ILM's Stefen Fangmeier, "we applied all sorts of tricks, including five or six different levels of particle simulations to create the white foam and a windswept look." Audiences can view ILM's handiwork for themselves, though the perfect special effect is the one viewers never notice.
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